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The paper aims to track the development of service dominant logic (SDL) applied to brand management and highlights its essential elements. The paper attempts to extend the application of SDL to a form that makes the consumer part of the development process, a solution dominant approach.

The paper reviews the literature and suggests how brand managers can use service concepts, based on service‐dominance logic, to develop their new and differentiated products. The key is the relationship that customers develop with products, not the providers of those products, and how technology contributes to these linkages. This view, termed solution dominant, extends service dominant thinking. The paper also elaborates on the events and developments that have moved product development more firmly in the direction of relationships. Finally, it re‐examines some of the techniques that product developers use from a relationship perspective.

The relationship is the most important element in brand management. Relationships can take many forms based on the partners. While brand managers have traditionally focused on the relationship of the consumer with the brand, other relationships exist and are important. The internet has made it possible for consumer‐to‐consumer relationships to flourish. That presents both a challenge and opportunity for brand managers. Finally, an impending technological change reveals the potential importance of another relationship, consumer to thing (like a software application) which can build a bond, a relationship, between the consumer and a brand. The last logical possibility, thing‐to‐thing relationships already exist and their importance to brand managers is covered.

Service dominant logic and a focus on relationships has already been applied to brand management with success. It helps to refine the practice of branding. Consideration of a solution dominant logic, may help refine the practice further.

While service dominant logic has been applied to brand management, solution dominant logic, in which the consumer is part of the product/service design process has not been.

This paper aims to analyze the present status of customer support services (CSS) and advocate the re-positioning of support services from an administrative cost center to a strategic profit center. Authors demonstrate how customer support or after sales services can be a source of competitive advantage and revenue generation for firms.

The study adopts a conceptual approach grounded in theoretical foundations of service dominant logic, customer loyalty and customer centricity along with practical illustrations from the industry.

Following the tenets of theory, review of existing research and analysis of the industry practices, the authors propose a new framework to enable the repositioning of customer service function. The key propositions include establishing customer support as separate business unit and insights center, introducing a new role of a C-level chief customer support officer to lead the customer support unit, adopting a customer-centric culture and process, enabling frontline IT support and investing in frontline employee skills development.

Academics should examine the potential of customer support, where the strategic importance is low at present, leading to customer dissatisfaction. The new approach and positioning of customer support calls for a new direction for research in this area focusing on enablers, challenges and further implications. To succeed in this competitive era, firms should be conscious of the value of customer service and undertake concrete actions to generate value for all stakeholders.

Industry can use the new framework and re-position CSS of the organizations. The CSS unit can be different from other business units in the organizations. The CSS would evolve and emerge from the live customer insights. CSS unit can be managed by the C level chief CSS officer. Customer-centric culture would be developed and front line processes can be made customer-oriented by the officer. Thus, this paper and framework would provide new customer-centric directions to the organizations for effective functioning.

This is the original piece that has emerged from the experience and expertise of the authors.

The service‐dominant logic (SDL) concept is reshaping the view of business‐to‐business research and practice. Thus, understanding the role of knowledge‐based operant resources, a key component of the SDL paradigm, in the ability of supply chains to shape competitive advantage and performance outcomes is vital. Further, operant resources have a hierarchical structure, with differing effects in building value for a supply chain. This research seeks to explore the effects of different levels of hierarchical operant resources in a retail supply chain setting.

A survey was collected from 300 retailing informants who deal with both key suppliers and customers. The data were examined using hierarchical regression to explore the influence of internal and external operant resources on market performance, subject to the moderating effects of top management support and relationship quality.

There is a positive relationship between internal and external operant resources with market performance outcomes, but those relationships are subject to support from top management toward retailing supply chain relational initiatives. Thus, intangible, dynamic, customer‐oriented resources play an important role in developing retail supply chains’ ability to achieve a market advantage.

This research addresses a need to explore the implications of SDL in a supply chain context by examining the implications of influences of retailer operant resources on the supplier. Further, this research explores the question of operant resources by analysing those resources at various levels within supply chain relationships.

This study aims to identify evolution and advancement in the field of business-to-business (B2B) loyalty knowledge area by analyzing its intellectual structure.

The authors use bibliometric analysis for quantitative evaluation of scholarly studies published on B2B loyalty area over a period of 27 years (1993–2020). The authors analyze intellectual knowledge base of B2B loyalty area by looking into 263 studies with 14,028 references authored by 693 researchers.

The results provide a comprehensive review of B2B loyalty area by identifying its foundations, influential works and intellectual communication linkage between these works. Notably, the analysis reveals most cited studies, key authors, important keywords, intellectual turning points and emerging trends of research in the discipline.

This study creates a baseline for presenting precise and comprehensive insights into research themes in B2B loyalty area, and identifies progressive trends over a period. This study is also helpful for researchers in identifying future directions of research in the discipline.

This study reveals the intellectual structure of B2B loyalty area.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and empirically test a process model (comprising of seven dimensions), for identifying online customer engagement patterns leading to recommendation. These seven dimensions are communication, interaction, experience, satisfaction, continued involvement, bonding, and recommendation.

The authors used a non-participant form of netnography for analyzing 849 comments from Australian banks Facebook pages. High levels of inter-coder reliability strengthen the study’s empirical validity and ensure minimum researcher bias and maximum reliability and replicability.

The authors identified 22 unique pattern of customer engagement, out of which nine patterns resulted in recommendation/advocacy. Engagement pattern communication-interaction-recommendation was the fastest route to recommendation, observed in nine instances (or 2 percent). In comparison, C-I-E-S-CI-B-R was the longest route to recommendation observed in ninety-six instances (or 18 percent). Of the eight patterns that resulted in recommendation, five patterns (or 62.5 percent) showed bonding happening before recommendation.

The authors limited the data collection to Facebook pages of major banks in Australia. The authors did not assess customer demography and did not share the findings with the banks.

The findings will guide e-marketers on how to best engage with customers to enhance brand loyalty and continuously be in touch with their clients.

Most models are conceptual and assume that customers typically journey through all the stages in the model. The work is interesting because the empirical study found that customers travel in multiple different ways through this process. It is significant because it changes the way the authors understand patterns of online customer engagement.

Researchers, with the widespread acceptance of Web-based technologies by companies, have recently discovered a new type of social capital through these mass communication tools, but there is still limited knowledge about its formation. Therefore, this study specifically aims to conceptualize and validate brand social capital (BSC) by analyzing the role of the online brand community’s social media capital (OBCSC).

Research data was collected using a questionnaire with 39 closed-ended questions. Participants, among the 220 questionnaires distributed, only returned 140 acceptable questionnaires, indicating a response rate of 64%. The statistical population of the study included managers and employees of e-commerce companies active in social media in the field of B2C who introduce and sell their products and services on various types of social networking websites. This study performed data analysis using structural equation modeling with partial least squares.

The results showed that OBCSC has a positive and significant effect on the integration of brand knowledge, branding co-creation and sense of belonging to the brand community, and in addition, using the mediating role of these three variables, it also has a positive effect on BSC. This study rejects only hypothesis 8 among all the hypotheses formulated, which shows that the sense of belonging to the brand community has no significant effect on branding co-creation.

By conceptualizing a new phenomenon called BSC and how its conversion mechanism is, this research defines a specific and formulated path to better identify the results of the organizational use of social media. In addition, it significantly contributes to increasing managers’ understanding of the importance of online brand community activities in internalizing customer brand knowledge within the company and turning it into wealth.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of the literature and develop a model of the determinants, indicators and effects of destination competitiveness (DC), as well as several propositions.

This study thoroughly reviewed extant literature to develop a conceptual model and propositions.

Two key findings are listed below. First, 12 different environmental factors are identified and 12 propositions are developed linking these environmental factors to DC. Second, a new indicator of DC is developed, namely, Tourism Attractions-Basics-Context (TABC) model. The TABC model is simple and directly taps into the benefits tourists seek in a destination.

Directions for future research are discussed in detail in the paper.

Managerial implications are discussed in detail in the paper.

The extant research on the topic of DC has been rather fragmented and incomplete in scope. The research presented in this paper addresses these limitations.

Collaborative consumption (CC), a unique business model, provides several monetary and non-monetary benefits to customers. Several adapted theory of planned behaviour (TPB)-based models were developed and tested to understand this consumption behaviour with the findings inconsistent and fragmented. Thus, this study aims to develop a general and consistent TPB model using a meta-analytic path analysis to better understand customers’ CC adoption behaviour.

Using 37 studies, a meta-analysis was performed adopting several analytical methods; bivariate analysis, moderation analysis and path analysis.

The universal TPB model shows that factors, that is, trust, attitude, perceived environmental responsibility and communication facilities, drive both perceived usefulness and CC. However, subjective norms, such as perceived behavioural control and emotional value, drive only perceived usefulness. Moderation analysis shows that the relationships between variables used in the proposed TPB model tends to vary depending on five moderators, that is, countries’ economic development level, type of CC, sample size, sample type and survey administration method.

The consideration of only quantitative papers and papers written in English language in this meta-analysis may bias the study’s findings.

Based on the findings regarding important factors that consumers consider when adopting CC, this study provides insightful recommendations to companies facilitating CC.

By developing the universal TPB model, this study theoretically contributes to the TPB model, and by conducting the moderation test, the study contextually contributes to the TPB literature in the CC context.

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.

Fierce competition drives software vendors to rely on Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) strategies and to continuously match new releases with customers’ needs and competitors’ moves. Such recurrent release practices pose specific challenges for software vendors which shape how they service customers. To address these challenges, this paper aims to apply service science to innovate strategies for SaaS release management.

Based on action research methodology, the authors collaborated closely with Software Inc., an alias for a large multinational software provider, to apply service-dominant logic systematically, to analyze and improve its SaaS release management process and to support ongoing value co-creation with its customers.

The authors provide a detailed account of how Software Inc. improved its SaaS release management practices; they extend current understanding of service innovation dynamics in SaaS environments and offer a model of value co-creation in SaaS release management grounded in the findings from Software Inc.

The research draws on a single case study with particular characteristics. Still, it allows for analytical generalizations with both theoretical and practical implications for how SaaS managers can improve recurrent release practices based on foundational service-dominant logic principles.

The authors suggest that SaaS managers concentrate on knowledge-sharing with customers, ensure continuous communication among teams supporting the service, re-organize release management to enhance the value co-creation process, use technology to improve customer service experiences and use service mapping to improve release management and service quality.

The authors bridge service-dominant logic principles and SaaS knowledge by demonstrating how service-dominant logic can be used to improve SaaS release practices and by offering conceptual and practical knowledge about value co-creation between customers and suppliers in SaaS contexts.