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The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of the ontological and semantic foundations of consumer-dominant value creation to clarify the extent to which the call for a distinct consumer-dominant logic (CDL) is justified. This paper discusses consumer-driven value creation (value-in-use) across three different marketing logics: product-dominant logic (PDL), service-dominant logic (SDL) and CDL. PDL conceptualises value as created by firms and delivered to consumers through products. SDL frames consumer value as a function of direct provider-consumer interaction, or consumer-driven chains of action indirectly facilitated by the provider. Recently, the research focus has been turning to consumer-dominant value creation. While there is agreement on the significance of this phenomenon, there is disagreement over whether consumer-dominant value creation is an extension of SDL or calls for a distinct CDL.

This is a conceptual paper, which is informed by five cases of consumer dominance. The cases are used to clarify rather than verify the analysis of the ontological and semantic underpinnings of consumer-dominant value creation.

The ontological and semantic analysis demonstrates that PDL and SDL have insufficient explanatory power to accommodate substantial aspects of consumer-dominant value creation. By implication, this supports the call for a distinct CDL.

This paper contributes to the ongoing theoretical debate over the explanatory power of SDL by demonstrating that SDL is unable to accommodate important ontological and semantic aspects of consumer-driven value creation.

This paper aims to explore the role of marketing as a route to sustainability for social enterprises providing public services. It examines the tensions between the economic and social objectives, both of social enterprises and of marketing. It concludes by offering a new model of the role of marketing for sustainable social enterprises.

This paper used the case study approach which included four cases. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the chief executives of each social enterprise. The cases were classified by age.

The paper demonstrates that while marketing potentially has much to offer in terms of organisational resilience for social enterprises, its application is currently undermined by its misunderstanding in practise within a “product-dominant” business logic. Despite this, the study finds a strong element of the unconscious application of marketing by social enterprises.

The implications of this are discussed in the context of the “public service-dominant” business logic that is currently emerging in public management, and recommendations are made for policy and practice as to how to enhance the contribution of marketing, both to sustainable social enterprises and to public services delivery.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the servitization process of typical manufacturing companies that already provide after-sales services, by identifying the phases and organizational elements that enable the delivery of more services.

A servitization maturity model for consumer durables companies is proposed. Servitization is an evolutionary process based on customer profiling, company profiling, the nature of the service, maturity of the process and process characteristics. The capacity of maintaining organizational relationships among players in the value chain describes the organizational maturity needed to advance towards the next phase. The research has been conducted as an exploratory study, in which four different case studies of consumer durables companies were performed to validate the proposed maturity model and detail each phase and the critical resources needed to become servitized.

Four category levels of organizational relationships were identified: first, company and customers; second, company and production network; third, company and market, in addition to; fourth, the internal relations of the company.

The means to evaluate companies that undergo servitization are also presented to provide a better understanding of their placement in the process and guide managers through the next necessary steps of action.

The development and application of this model allowed exploring the levels of servitization as an evolutionary process based on the relationships among players in the value chain by gathering, structuring, organizing several critical requirements and highlighting important attributes that must be examined by companies during the servitization process.

With the rapid development of information technologies and the internet, firms have increasingly focussed on customer interactions to realise value co-creation. Previous studies have empirically examined interaction orientation, but their measurements have been derived from goods-dominant logic and have not explained the mechanism of value co-creation. The purpose of this paper is to propose an operational definition and define the dimensions of interaction orientation based on value co-creation theory (IOVCC), and then develop a scale for it.

In this study, data were collected from employees via three questionnaire surveys, and then analysed using exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis.

The findings are as follows: IOVCC represents a firm’s implementation of a set of marketing actions aimed at inserting the firm into its customers’ daily life practices and co-creating value with the customers. The construct of IOVCC consists of five behavioural dimensions: “building communication channels”, “involving customers in co-production”, “improving service capabilities”, “improving interaction quality” and “integrating interaction resources”. The measurement scale for IOVCC has acceptable levels of reliability, content validity, convergent validity, discriminant validity and nomological validity.

This study enriches the literature on value co-creation theory by revealing the process and actions of co-creating value. It also contributes to the understanding of service touchpoints by highlighting the interaction quality of touchpoints. In addition, the authors have developed a reliable and valid scale for IOVCC, thereby facilitating the measurement of a firm’s implementation of the “value co-creation” business philosophy.

Value as a research topic within marketing is not new. The purpose of this research note is to examine how value fits within marketing in the twenty‐first century. Specifically, the emergence of service‐dominant logic has brought the concept of co‐creation of value to the forefront. This paper comments on previous definitions of research and offers insight to stimulate future theoretical developments and serve as an aid in future research.

The paper represents a conceptual overview of previous research and offers some logical derivatives of value from the previous work and from the emergence of a service‐dominant logic in marketing.

Since the paradigm shift toward service‐dominant logic, few researchers have examined value as it specifically relates to marketing theory and practice. Value as a key outcome variable is typically overshadowed by other constructs such as satisfaction, word‐of‐mouth, and loyalty.

Key value axioms are derived from both theory and past research as a guide for future research. These value axioms predict how consumers' derive value, how society and value are intertwined, and how previously studied aspects of value, such as utilitarian and hedonic value, fit into the value equation. Further, a framework for the future study of value is presented which encompasses the key “get” components as well as the key “give” components. The material hopefully clarifies some aspects about value and directs future research.

The purpose of this paper is to explain why product-centric manufacturers utilize advanced services not as vehicles of transformation, but of reinforcement, to strengthen their established business model logic based on selling products and basic product-related services.

The empirical basis of this study relies on an in-depth case study of a globally operating manufacturer of industrial pumps and related services. The data includes 31 interviews conducted over several years of in-depth collaboration with the studied firm.

Product-centric manufacturers utilize advanced services as engagement platforms to facilitate the external and internal engagement of the actors and the resources controlled by them. Externally, advanced services facilitate access to customer decision makers and insights into their latent needs. Internally, advanced services help the manufacturer to more effectively leverage resources that reside within its different organizational units. Ultimately, in leveraging advanced services as engagement platforms, the manufacturer seeks to boost activities with the greatest immediate impact on its market performance: the sale of products and basic product-related services.

The study explains why managers should invest into development of advanced services even if such services contribute only marginally to the manufacturer’s direct revenues and profits.

This study contributes to development of an alternative explanation of servitization that departs from the current paradigmatic assumptions in the field.

Worldwide, healthcare systems struggle to sustain the delivery of services at a time of increasing demand, limited resources and growing expectations from users, coupled with dealing with the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic and the threat of other outbreaks. There has never been a more important time to sustain innovation and improvements. Using an illustrative case, the authors assess the application of two existing frameworks to identify the key propositions and dimensions required to deliver sustainable services.

This illustrative case study focuses on a service provided by a chronic disease, multidisciplinary community healthcare team in the UK. Experienced-based interviews were conducted with health professionals, patients and relatives to provide a rich account of a care pathway design. A high-level process map is used to visualise the key touch points.

The authors identify all seven propositions of the SERVICE framework being present along with additional dimensions relating to sustaining innovation and improvement.

This research is limited to a chronic disease care pathway. However, the authors believe the results could be applicable to other medical conditions, which are supported by a similar multi-disciplinary service delivery model.

The authors provide a sustainable public service operations SERVICES framework for health professionals and managers to consider when (re)designing care pathways.

This research contributes to the emerging discipline of public service operations research by empirically testing for the first time the SERVICE framework within healthcare. The authors have included additional factors associated with innovation and improvement and recommended further development of the framework to include factors, such as economic sustainability, highly relevant to the context of universal healthcare systems.

Based on the concept of “intelligent public organisation” as a new theoretical trajectory for New Public Management (NPM) theory, this paper brings together the recent critical discussion on NPM as it relates to public services and service science while specifically pinpointing the nature of public sector intelligence, evaluation, as well as management and leadership of public services. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The paper highlights the ongoing discussion on service-dominant logic and reflects the major innovations in service research, innovation studies, organisational learning, development methods, and evaluation from the public services’ perspective.

It is argued that contemporary public management theories and practices – and theories reflecting the role of public services – should make more use of that body of literature focusing on substantive service-dominant theories found in marketing and business studies. The paper concludes that the academic discourse on NPM and New Public Governance (NPG) has been rich in content, but to date rather biased from a public services perspective.

It is argued that public services are arenas for interaction, co-operation, and co-creation, orchestrated by the networks of organisations providing these services. The essence of “service user” has also changed in recent decades. This development has practical implications for developing leadership practices in public services.

Doctrines of NPM and NPG have been missing an appreciation of the comprehensive role played by public services and the role of evaluation of public services has also been largely ignored. In this light and in regards to public services in particular, the new wave of public policy evaluation paradigms could usefully be integrated with NPG.

The purpose of this paper is to promote the use of pragmatism within industrial marketing and purchasing (IMP), business-to-business (B2B)/network research with its enhanced emphasis on developing adaptable, workable solutions to practical problems. The usability of findings and the study produced means that implications and impact become a natural part of the research process rather than an afterthought concluding a research project. Although the reader might feel that the approach oscillates between viewing pragmatism in its everyday sense (through the use of terminology such as “a pragmatic approach […].,” the intent is to elevate the discussion to one where pragmatism is viewed as a guiding philosophy.

It blends literature review and conceptual contemplation and challenges convention by “reading against the grain” (Brown and Wijland, 2018).

The authors do this to challenge convention and advocate for pluralism and diversity, theoretical evolution based on empirical evidence and increased sensitivity to the critical role of discourse, semiotics and abduction as a catalyst between theory, method and empirical activities. This conceptual blending portrays “activities” and beliefs as mutually constituted through the symbolic mediation of rhetoric and discourse.

Existing elements of American pragmatism and discourse are identified as already a tacit constituent of the IMP oeuvre. Combining these approaches more explicitly is advocated as a suitable basis for a potential future “IMP 3” research agenda with significant potentials afforded to IMP and B2B marketing research.

This paper contributes to the development and dissemination of alternative and critical perspectives in marketing theory. The implication is that activities must usually be justified by actors within communication as believable and this process always involves mixtures of rational and non-rational appeals. Existing elements of American pragmatism and discourse are identified as already a tacit constituent of the IMP oeuvre. Combining these approaches more explicitly is advocated as a suitable basis for a potential future “IMP 3” research agenda with significant potentials afforded to IMP and B2B marketing research.