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The entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) literature is dominated by conceptual studies with insufficient theoretical foundations and empirical evidence on the micro-level. This study aims to explore the largely overlooked question of what the drivers that motivate small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to participate in an ecosystem are.

The study adopts a qualitative exploratory approach. The empirical data consists of 19 semi-structured interviews with top management of SMEs in the health tech ecosystem in Finland. The data were analyzed using a thematic content analysis.

This study reveals a typology of drivers that motivate SMEs to participate in an ecosystem. These include social drivers (networking and cooperation and communication and knowledge sharing), resource drivers (access to resources, formal and informal support and market access) and cognitive drivers (shared goals and common values).

The study contributes to the EE research by highlighting the drivers that motivate health tech SMEs to become members of the local ecosystem. It suggests that managers and entrepreneurs need to be aware of the factors related to social, resource and cognitive drivers to ensure the future success of their business.

The study draws evidence from a micro-level perspective which enriches the understanding of the EE phenomenon. It also explores an increasingly relevant but under-researched field, the health tech ecosystem.

Recent literature within public service logic has called for more explicit conceptualisation of customer value in public services. This study aims to fill this gap by examining how the customer value approach can be applied in the management of public health care services.

This study is a qualitative case study of management of public health care services in Finland. The authors interviewed 17 regional health care service developers and analyzed the interview data using thematic analysis.

The study suggests five propositions for applying customer value approach from the marketing literature in public health care service management. The study enables a deeper understanding of customer value creation in this context and improvement of public health care services.

This study contributes to the public management research in general and public service logic research in particular by suggesting what constitutes customer value in public health care services.

This study provides us with new knowledge in the form of conceptual framework of the contextual layers of service experience within professional business services. This study aims to answer the following questions: What kinds of contextual layers can be identified influencing service experience? How specific characteristics of professional service context may influence customer experience at these different layers?

The framework is based on extensive literature review considering research in the fields of service and relationship perspectives, likewise professional services.

The framework is based on extensive literature review in the fields of service and relationship perspectives, likewise professional services.

Only a limited number of studies seem to address the highly topical context of professional/knowledge-intensive business services and relationships. The authors tie the discussion concerning different contextual layers of service experience to this specific operating context with the aim of identifying their importance and influence in service experience. Related to this context, this study highlights the importance of understanding role of individuals in service experience, rarely emphasized in B2B dyadic setting. The framework also contributes to current discussion regarding service experience and “zooms in” to the context and its detailed levels.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the customer value experience conveys the restructuring of the service network in the banking industry. The banking sector has often been one of the early adopters of IT in terms of connecting their services and customers. While developing digital services, however, banks are also concerned that they are losing contact with their customers. At the same time, fast developing technologies enable new companies to enter the industry to offer their services. As a result, the service supply chains in the banking industry appear to be restructured.

The empirical data were collected by using a qualitative method of focus groups and interviews with end-users of banking services.

According to findings, customers value a holistic approach to the services, and such a holistic value cannot necessarily be provided by a single banking service provider because the ecosystem around such services is becoming more complex.

Service supply chains need to be restructured based on the end-customer value experience.

This study contributes to value research and especially to the discussion in service experiences by addressing some of the disruptions happening at the industry level. The paper shows that the focus should be on customer value because banks should understand that their services are not enough for the customers—they are only seen as banks, not as providers of the holistic value that is required from the customer’s point of view.

This study aims to define orchestrator roles and related orchestration capabilities in the entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) to understand how companies (especially small and medium-sized enterprises and startups) could benefit from the surrounding ecosystem to develop their business.

A qualitative case study of the regional ecosystem built around health technology is researched to get an in-depth understanding of the orchestration roles taken by actors in the ecosystem and, likewise, related bundles of orchestrator role-specific capabilities.

Altogether, eight roles and related orchestration capabilities are defined. First, “opinion leaders,” “business facilitators” and “regulation informants” provide resources for participants. Second, “relationship promoters,” “coordinators” and “commanders” create prerequisites for collaboration. Finally, “integrators” and “complementors” help to create concrete offerings. The roles taken can be simultaneous, and they are in constant change as positions and resources of actors change.

Theoretically, this study contributes to the existing EE and orchestration capability research by studying orchestrator roles and related capabilities in the context of an entrepreneurial health tech ecosystem, a phenomenon that has not received sufficient research attention yet.

Managers will be able to use the lessons learned from this study in understanding, using and developing their capabilities, positions and activities in the network. For policymakers, understanding EE reality and dynamics is useful when developing policies for regional growth, likewise in constructing and developing industrial ecosystems to support entrepreneurship in the region.

The study provides novel in-depth knowledge of orchestration in regional, EEs. It complements the currently dominating conceptual research and brings a micro-level perspective that has mostly been lacking in EE studies.

This paper aims to explore the dynamics of value co-creation in the context of health care logistics by focusing on the change in the value creation spheres of a logistics service provider and its customer organization.

The development of value co-creation between the two organizations was researched through a qualitative case study that focuses on a situation wherein the hospital’s central warehouse was moved to a more distant location. Data consist of the interviews and focus group discussions of both nursing staff and logistics managers before and after the change. The empirical results are reflected to service and value co-creation literature as well as to existing knowledge about health care logistics.

The new situation compelled the counterparts to plan more structured logistics service procedures, as there was no longer any possibility for nursing staff to pick up urgently needed items from the central warehouse. This strengthened the role of the joint value creation sphere and made it more visible during the change.

The study contributes to the evolving research on health care logistics and connects it to timely service value discussion. This paper proposes that as the physical distance of service facilities increases, the joint co-creation sphere, interestingly, gets widened during the change.

Managerially, the study provides implications for how to develop health-care material logistics to provide more value for both the logistics service providers and their customers.

Understanding value co-creation in health care logistics services supports care organizations in developing their processes toward better care for the patients. Thus, health care logistics research facilitates societies and health-care systems to reach their goals in terms of better service and lower costs.

This study presents an up-to-date example of value co-creation in the scarcely researched context of health care logistics.

The purpose of this paper is to increase understanding about how to improve customer value and to make mobile banking services a profitable business for banks and other financial actors. The study explores the user experiences and related value of a new mobile banking service.

The study is implemented as a case study that is phenomenological in nature and linked to an interpretive consumer study. Empirical data were collected through 14 semi-structured theme interviews and a diary method. The data were analysed by using a content analysis method.

The findings illustrate the importance of customer centricity in the mobile banking context by identifying customer experience and related value in a new mobile banking service. The study extends current understanding of customer experience as a complex and multifaceted phenomenon by including value related to process, the use situation and the outcome, and it identifies temporality as influencing and connecting all these aspects. The study identifies several aspects that help us to understand what creates value for the customer while using mobile banking services.

As one limitation, this study was conducted in a developed country and the findings could be different in an emerging market context. Another limitation relates to the data, as the interviewees’ age range is quite limited, ranging between 20 and 40 years. However, they represent the consumers who normally use mobile services well and thus provide reliable data about their use experiences.

As the banking industry is currently experiencing rapid and widespread changes and customers become more demanding, it is crucial for banks and other mobile service providers to understand the everyday lives of their customers and to integrate their future services into the customers’ value creation processes as smoothly and inseparably as possible. The findings of this study will help banks and other financial institutions to develop their strategies and operations in regard to customer-oriented thinking, which will further help them to create long-term, profitable customer relationships and improve future viability.

The study contributes to bank marketing research and extends previous research on customer-centred service marketing by providing a framework that identifies the value related to customer experience in a new mobile banking service. It explores the experiences of actual mobile banking service customers’ and the related value, and thus provides original implications for both theory and practice.

The purpose of this study is to explore the customer shopping experience in the innovative technology setting. Specifically, the purpose is to understand how do innovative technologies influence the customer shopping experience?

This qualitative, explorative study has characteristics of a phenomenological research strategy. The data were collected from four focus groups and ten in-depth interviews with consumers. Abductive approach with an implementation of content analysis was used as a method of analysis.

The results show that there are three critical factors in customer's shopping experience in the context of innovative technologies; (1) channel choice, (2) value dimensions related to convenience and enjoyment, and (3) social interaction. All factors are highly intertwined and influence each other.

This study contributes to customer experience literature by offering a framework for understanding customer shopping experiences in the innovative technology setting. These findings have important implications for retail managers seeking to enhance customer experience and achieve a competitive advantage by utilizing innovative technology.

The purpose of this paper is to describe persuasive speech and discourses in multi-professional organizational change facilitation meetings at a hospital through rhetorical discourse analysis. Previous research has often considered organizational change to be a managerial issue, with other employees given the rather passive role of implementators. This study takes an alternative approach in assuming that organizational change could benefit by involving those who are most familiar with the tasks to be changed.

The study employed a qualitative, case study approach and focused on the construction of a hospitalist model within multi-professional change facilitation meetings. Eight videos of these multi-professional change facilitation meetings – which occurred between January and September 2017 – were observed and the material was analyzed by rhetorical discourse analysis. An average of 10–20 actors from different professional groups participated in the meetings. The change actors comprised physicians, nursing staff and nursing managers, along with a secretary and hospitalist. The meetings were conducted by a change facilitator.

The persuasive speech in the analyzed organizational change meetings occurred within five distinct discourses: constructing the change together, positive feedback, strategic change in speech, patient perspective and driving change. The content of these discourses revealed topics that are relevant to persuading members of healthcare organizations to adopt a planned change.

The presented research provides new knowledge about how persuasive speech is used in organizational change and describes the discourses in which persuasive speech is used in a healthcare context.

This study aims to explore the role of learning in value co-creation in the context of new technological B2B services. The research objective is approached from the customers' viewpoint, in terms of their motivation to make sacrifices in learning and to embark on value co-creation with a service provider.

This study is based on a qualitative case study. The main source of data is 17 interviews with retailers who tested a new m-advertising service.

The findings show that the customer's motives to make sacrifices, their absorptive capacity and exploitative/explorative learning orientation are important in explaining the role of learning in value co-creation, because perceived value can vary significantly depending on the level of the absorptive capacity of the firm, the orientation towards learning, and the customer's sacrifices in learning.

The study can be of use to providers of new technological business services in showing how to persuade customers to learn to use the service and engage in value co-creation. This is important since the active participation of both actors is required to co-produce the technological B2B service.

The study contributes to the existing value theory by offering new critical insights into the essential role of customer learning in value co-creation. Closely related to this, the study explores customer motivation to make sacrifices in learning and to get involved in value co-creation with service provider, specifically in the context of new technological B2B services. In so doing, this study offers empirically-based insights into value co-creation and thus advances the current understanding of value phenomena.