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Because of the increasing importance of access over ownership, the purpose of this paper is to propose a service ecosystem perspective to help managers navigate hypercompetition. With the rise of cloud-based services and the ongoing recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, the global economy has shifted toward hypercompetition, a state characterized by organizational advantages that are rapidly created and then destroyed by intense competitive moves. Because advantages are quickly eroded, organizations must be aggressive in the number of actions they take and the speed with which they execute these actions. The service ecosystem perspective focuses on relationships that allow organizations to jointly adjust to one another and to their environment.

This paper first reviews traditional strategies for navigating hypercompetition. Then, it presents an explanation of the service ecosystem perspective. Finally, the three north stars and media examples are provided.

The service ecosystem perspective asserts “north stars” that can guide managerial decision-making in hypercompetitive environments. These north stars are: cultivate system norms, facilitate feedback loops and embrace servitization.

In today’s world, organizations are increasingly seeking access to resources instead of ownership of them. The proposed approach suggests that, rather than an organization owning the resources it needs to achieve advantages, organizations are increasingly relying on accessing resources by coordinating with other organizations to draw upon the resource(s) as needed, without incurring the additional burdens of ownership. Examples from the media industry are used to illustrate the three north stars of the service ecosystems perspective.

This study aims to examine the co-creation of customer experiences at different levels in service ecosystems, analyzing the case of a tourist destination.

A questionnaire was designed based on previously validated scales. The questionnaire was distributed through the social media platforms Facebook and Instagram. The survey yielded 1,476 valid responses for three types of destinations. Structural equation modeling and multigroup analysis were performed to test the hypotheses.

Aggregate service experience and memorable customer experience (MCE) in service ecosystems are determined by customer experiences at a dyadic level. Service experience at the ecosystem level is formed from ordinary experiences at the actor level, while MCE is formed from extraordinary experiences at the dyadic level. The type of ecosystem moderates the relationships between the variables but does not alter the importance of each of them.

The relationship between the co-creation of customer experiences at different levels of service ecosystems (dyadic vs aggregate) is addressed. A relationship is established between the ordinary and extraordinary character of experiences and their memorability at the ecosystem level.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how and why some service ecosystems are more resilient and, consequently, more sustainable than others during turbulent times, and how resilience can be cultivated to enable pathways to service ecosystem sustainability.

This work integrates disparate literature from multiple service and sustainability literature streams, iterating through constant comparison with findings from 44 semistructured interviews conducted in the context of primary health care clinic service ecosystems.

The authors offer a novel conceptual framework comprising pillars (shared worldview, individual actor well-being and multiactor interactions), changing practices to cultivate resilience through resilience levers (orchestrators, individual actor effort, actor inclusivity and digitaltech–humanness approach), and pathways to service ecosystem sustainability (volume vs value, volume to value, volume and value). The authors demonstrate that service ecosystems need to change practices, integrating resources differently in response to the turbulent environment, emphasizing the importance of a shared worldview across the ecosystem and assessing different pathways to sustainability.

This paper offers new insights into the important intersection of service marketing, sustainability and health care. The authors provide guidance to practitioners aiming to cultivate resilience in service ecosystems to achieve pathways to sustainability in primary health care clinics. Finally, implications for theory are discussed, and directions to guide future service research offered.

The socioeconomically deprived segment called bottom of pyramid lives in extreme resource-constrained environments and is being excluded from having access to many services. This study aims to investigate the role played by virtual engagement platforms in bringing well-being to base of the pyramid (BoP) customers. This study also uses transformative service research and service ecosystem-based approach.

The study uses qualitative approach. Data was collected and analyzed through 16 in-depth interviews with BoP service actors.

Present study explains the role played by virtual engagement platforms as an intermediator between farmers and the service entity. Herein, it may be noted that the role of virtual platforms contributes to the well-being of the BoP community.

The authors’ research work broadens service organizations’ reach by better serving people in the BoP, which ultimately helps in removing unfairness and establishes service inclusion.

Emerging transformative service research (TSR) studies adopt a service system lens to conceptualise well-being across the micro, meso and macro levels of aggregation, typically within an organisation. No TSR has yet examined well-being across multiple interconnected organisations at the highest level of aggregation, the meta or service ecosystem level. This study aims to explore how value co-creation and, critically, co-destruction among different actors across interacting organisations enhances or destroys multiple levels of well-being.

This study uses semi-structured, in-depth interviews to collect data from five types of key actors (n = 35): players, team owners, tournament operations managers, casters and viewers, across 29 interconnected organisations in the oceanic esports industry. The interviews were coded using NVivo 12 and thematically analysed.

Resource integration on each level of aggregation within a service ecosystem (micro, meso, macro and meta) can co-create and co-destroy value, which leads to the enhancement and destruction of multiple levels of well-being (individual, collective, service system and service ecosystem). Value co-creation and co-destruction, as well as the resultant well-being outcomes, were interconnected across the different levels within the service ecosystem.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to incorporate a multi-actor perspective on the well-being consequences of value co-creation and value co-destruction within a service ecosystem as opposed to service system. Thus, this research also contributes to the minimal research which examines the outcomes of value co-destruction, rather than value co-creation, at multiple levels of aggregation.

Extant family business research focuses on the understanding of value creation through the binary interactions between the family and its business (the family – business nexus). This article addresses this issue by expanding the understanding of value creation beyond the family-business nexus to that of value creation among a wider set of stakeholders (the family business service ecosystem). It recognizes the multi-faceted nature of family businesses and conceptualizes a value creation process through a broader scope of internal and external stakeholders.

This research theoretically connects Business Model Innovation (BMI) and Service dominant logic (SDL) as foundations of an ecosystem approach of value creation established through collaboration, coproduction and co-creation based on Value in Use (ViU). The authors then present the FB Service Ecosystem BM.

This research generates an overarching model of value creation and integration that reflects and enacts the purpose of the family firm’s project through interactions with ad hoc internal and external actors as possible Third Avenue of value creation, transcending the family versus business paradox. Termed FB Service Ecosystem, this overarching model can be at the forefront of economic, ecological and societal transition, by tacitly transmitting such BMs through their networks of stakeholders. The FB Service Ecosystem is important because it can support the transition of economies and societies based on service, collaboration and meeting multiple stakeholder needs.

This research addresses the dichotomy between financial and non-financial outcomes and between agency and stewardship. It transcends this paradox to offer an inclusive value creation perspective considering a wider set of internal and external stakeholders based on reciprocal service provision and co-creation of mutual value, foundations of service dominant logic, among actors of a service ecosystem federated by and around the family business, termed Family Business Service Ecosystem.

Given the growing attention on service ecosystem and the role played by technology and institutions in shaping of actors’ relations and interactions, the purpose of this paper is to examine a tourism environment with the lens of service ecosystem in order to derive a deeper understanding on the underlying mechanisms.

A mixed methodology was used. First, literature review based on service ecosystems framework was conducted to critically analyze the roles of technology and institutions to shape a tourism service ecosystem. Then a case study was conducted.

Two main findings are described: the role and the characteristics of physical and virtual engagement touchpoints in the emergence of a tourism service ecosystems; and the relationship between technology and institutions in the resource integration. In particular, the authors conclude that institutions can shape the usage of technology which, in turn, can enable and imply the emergence of new institutions, continually adjusting the system of the tourism service ecosystem.

The analysis contributes to deepening the knowledge about value co-creation processes and engagement expedients in tourism destination, explaining the role of institutions and technology in helping actors to integrate resources and exchange services. The study can also be useful for practitioners in search for powerful tool to increase the competitiveness of a tourism destination.

The study is one of the first attempts to conceptualize and operationalize a tourism destination in a service ecosystem framework. In this way it contribute to enhance scientific knowledge in a tourism management literature.

This study aims to examine the development of service ecosystems literature and its four premises as follows: the characterization of service ecosystems as loosely coupled systems, the existence of shared institutional arrangements among actors, the occurrence of resource-integrating interactions among actors and value co-creation as the stated purpose of service ecosystems.

With a systematic literature review, the paper identifies and analyzes 98 articles on service ecosystems. An examination and a cross-check of the central elements of the articles reveal gaps and limitations in the analysis of service ecosystems. These results lead to the formulation of four propositions and suggestions for further research.

The four premises of service ecosystems are constrained by overly optimistic perceptions that prevent theoretical advancements. These premises overlook possible tight coupling; power asymmetries; divergent interpretations of institutions and institutional arrangements; divergent interpretations of actors’ resource-integrating actions, intentions and abilities; and the co-destruction of value. Four propositions are formulated to address these challenges.

The shortcomings reflect the systematic literature review, which only covers a specific area of the extant knowledge base, namely, English-language articles published in peer-reviewed international journals.

This study extensively and critically investigates the premises of service ecosystems for the first time, proposing a more holistic, dynamic and realistic understanding of them. In so doing, it paves the way for renewed conceptualizations of service ecosystems.

This paper aims to develop impact value (IV), both theoretically and practically, to better account for the processes of value creation within complex service ecosystems.

This conceptual paper connects the complex systems nature of service ecosystems and the complexity of issues of sustainability and well-being to the need for a conceptual and analytical extension of value within service ecosystems.

This paper defines IV as enhancement or diminishment of the potential of stakeholders (beyond the service beneficiary), to transfer or transform resources in the future, based on direct and indirect involvement in the processes of value-in-exchange and value-in-use creation.

This paper provides an initial exploration of the theoretical and practical extension of value through the IV concept.

Sustainable service ecosystems require actors to understand their role in the service process and account for the impact pathways of their value creation activities. This paper proposes a framework for developing sustainable strategies to account for IV.

This research expands service research’s core concept of value by integrating the complex systems nature of service ecosystems, sustainability and well-being. IV provides a means to address the systemic impact pathways of service and value creation processes and bridge idiosyncratic value-in-use and broader system viability concepts.

Entrepreneurial ecosystems – the inter-related forces that promote and sustain regional entrepreneurship – are receiving intense academic, policymaker and practitioner attention. Prior research primarily focuses on mature entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) in large, urban areas. Scholars are slow to examine the functioning of EEs in small towns, which face unique challenges in spurring entrepreneurial activity. Most notably, small town EEs are dependent on a key stakeholder group – local customers – which receives almost no attention in prior research on ecosystems. The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical framework for understanding the role of customers in EEs.

This paper integrates work on the service-dominant logic and service ecosystems with entrepreneurship research to theorize about the influence of customers in small town EEs.

The proposed theory draws attention to the role of customers in evaluating the services provided by entrepreneurs and co-creating value in small town EEs. Theory is developed about the influence of three sets of customer characteristics on entrepreneurial activities: the local market potential (based on the number of local and transient customers), customers’ abilities to access the ecosystem (based on income levels) and customers’ preferences for services provided by the ecosystem’s entrepreneurs (based on preferences for innovativeness, local versus global brands and in- versus out-shopping).

Entrepreneurial ecosystems research has implicitly adopted a producer-dominant logic focusing on entrepreneurs and their ventures as the primary creators of value. The proposed theoretical framework applies the service-dominant logic to EEs and conceptualizes EEs as a unique type of service ecosystem. The theorizing generates implications for scholars and practitioners and suggests that more work is needed at the interface of entrepreneurship, marketing and regional economic development.