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This paper aims to explore how the service‐dominant (S‐D) logic of marketing proposed by Vargo and Lusch impacts on business‐to‐business branding concepts and practice.

Vargo and Lusch argue that service interaction comes from goods‐in‐use as well as from interactions between a buyer and a supplier. Their key concepts are examined and the branding literature critically compared.

Goods become service appliances. Buyer judgments about the value‐in‐use of goods extends the time‐logic of marketing. The exchange concept is no longer transaction bound. Service‐ability (the capability to serve) becomes the essence of a firm's value propositions. Service experience becomes paramount in developing and sustaining the life of a brand.

S‐D logic highlights the need for rigour and clarity in the use of the term “brand”. It also opens up for consideration a variety of previously unexplored contact points in the customer service cycle, expanded to include customer assessments of value‐in‐use.

S‐D logic encourages extending brand strategies into a wider variety of communicative interaction modes.

Some of the issues raised are not new but currently compete for attention in the shadow of media‐dominant approaches to branding.

The emergence of new social media is shifting the market place for business towards virtual market space. In the light of the emerging digital space for new forms of marketing, the traditional servicescape concept is critically examined. This paper aims to show why servicescape concepts and attitudes need to be adapted for digital media.

First, the authors explain how the traditional servicescape concept adds meaning to a service provider’s value-proposition by modifying customer expectations and customer experience. Second, recognising that the environment for service is no longer bound to a physical place, the authors discuss the implications of the epistemic shift involved.

The authors’ examination shows that digital service space challenges traditional concepts about what constitutes a customer experience and derived value. The authors conceptually “zoom out” into a virtual service eco-system and show with exemplar examples why the servicescape in digital space is more socially embedded and necessarily more fluid in its time-space design. In the more advanced sites, interactions between various artificial bodies (avatars) are co-created by controlling off-line participant-actors; yet, these participant-actors remain strangers to each other at an off-line level. This is entirely a new and radical development of old times.

The research findings are based on scholarly research of the relevant literature, from practitioner reports, and evidence emerging from the examination of many digital web-sites. It has not been the authors’ intention to objectively represent current servicescape functionalities but more to indicate the major directions of change with exemplar examples. The future cannot be predicted, but their interpretive conclusions suggest major challenges in service marketing and management logic ahead. New forms of digital servicescape are still being created as technology and service imagination enables, so further research interest in virtual atmospherics can be expected.

Social media platforms are enabling organisations to learn more about their customers and also to engage them more. In these changing times, bricks and mortar stores would be well advised to review their servicescape presence to allow and encourage engagement with the more involved consumers. And, by integrating their digital space into their physical place, bricks and mortar stores might take on more relationship oriented process-like characteristics, both in the digital space and in their physical places, with developments on one platform leading to possible service innovations on the other.

The digital era is changing consumer behaviour. Service managers need to take into account that many customers are already equally as engaged with digital-space social networks as they once were with bricks and mortar stores. The more time consumers as participant-actors spend in social networks, the decision on what and where to buy is decided by interactions with friends and other influencers.

New forms of digital servicescape are being created as technology and service imagination enables. Further scholarly research interest in virtual atmospherics can be expected, impacting on the authors’ sense of place, and self-identity.

This paper aims to examine the notion of value propositions (promises of reciprocal value between service providers and their customers), value‐in‐exchange and value‐in‐use, all within the conceptual context of service‐dominant (S‐D) logic.

Responding to calls in the recent literature for an academic critique of S‐D logic, its key constructs, and its application in marketing situations of varying complexity, the paper presents a conceptual analysis of the determinants of value emphasis in value propositions from the S‐D perspective.

Four guiding principles are derived from a rigorous analysis of the relevant literatures. Ways are discussed in which firms might achieve greater flexibility in designing their market offerings, and thus manage different customer segments using different value propositions. The general conclusion is that the ability to communicate a firm's value propositions strategically and effectively is a new area for the development of competence at the core of competitive advantage.

The findings pave the way for empirical research into the dynamics of value propositions. Since the main focus of the conceptual framework is on the customer‐provider dyad, future studies should broaden coverage to multilateral settings and networked environments.

Factors that determine the relative emphasis in value propositions between value‐in‐exchange and value‐in‐use are discussed, and the management implications derived from each of the four principles identified.

The paper elaborates the application of S‐D logic in marketing by investigating the determinants of relative emphasis of value propositions.

The purpose of this paper was to extend understanding of the sense of place captured by the servicescape concept, as a means by which customers clarify their service expectations and their satisfaction with service experiences.

The design is conceptual. This article critically examines and extends the servicescape concept in the light of insights from the service-dominant (S-D) logic.

First, we explain how servicescape adds meaning to a service provider’s value proposition, part of a pattern of customer expectations which are later confirmed or disconfirmed as value-in-use. Second, the servicescape is a more socially imbued context than has previously been recognized, because the service experience is co-created by customer and service provider. Third, the context for service is not restricted to the traditional physical servicescape, as other more fluid and web-based settings are now common.

Extending the understanding of place as a context for value determination in new ways.

The literature on servicescape is extensive, but it is anchored to the physicality of the service environment. Given the rise of the Internet and, more recently, digital social media as a virtual “place” of business, the relevance of servicescape is due for critical review. Our critical examination adds to the experience value of service and also extends the S-D logic understanding of value-in-use.

The purpose of this paper is to explore innovations in customer experience at the intersection of the digital, physical and social realms. It explicitly considers experiences involving new technology-enabled services, such as digital twins and automated social presence (i.e. virtual assistants and service robots).

Future customer experiences are conceptualized within a three-dimensional space – low to high digital density, low to high physical complexity and low to high social presence – yielding eight octants.

The conceptual framework identifies eight “dualities,” or specific challenges connected with integrating digital, physical and social realms that challenge organizations to create superior customer experiences in both business-to-business and business-to-consumer markets. The eight dualities are opposing strategic options that organizations must reconcile when co-creating customer experiences under different conditions.

A review of theory demonstrates that little research has been conducted at the intersection of the digital, physical and social realms. Most studies focus on one realm, with occasional reference to another. This paper suggests an agenda for future research and gives examples of fruitful ways to study connections among the three realms rather than in a single realm.

This paper provides guidance for managers in designing and managing customer experiences that the authors believe will need to be addressed by the year 2050.

This paper discusses important societal issues, such as individual and societal needs for privacy, security and transparency. It sets out potential avenues for service innovation in these areas.

The conceptual framework integrates knowledge about customer experiences in digital, physical and social realms in a new way, with insights for future service research, managers and public policy makers.

Increasing emphasis is being placed on integrated thinking in business decision making. Part of that emphasis requires a better understanding of the basic concepts that are used to add value to products and services that are consumed in the channel system. Presents a conceptualization which can be used to integrate concepts from production/operations management and logistics management for the purpose of understanding the linkages that exist between these two applied disciplines. The conceptual structure is based on an understanding of the management of capacity and movement at both the firm and channel levels which can help the academic and practitioner view the commonalities between their responsibilities and those of other channel members.

This study aims to contribute to the scholarly fields of supply chain management (SCM) and service-dominant logic (SDL) by conducting a systematic literature review on business-to-business (B2B) marketing and SCM studies.

After the collection and refinement of 127 articles on SDL and SCM interface, descriptive and thematic analyses were applied to discover the current situation and the existing research streams in the literature.

The SDL-SCM literature focuses on five main research streams which are value co-creation and value-in-use, integration and relationship management, resource sharing, servitization and service supply chains. Each of them are explored in depth, and future research opportunities are proposed.

The research is limited with the selected articles. Future scholarly attention to the intersection between SDL and SCM will enhance the knowledge on these fields.

The study contributes to both of these fields by summarizing the existing scholarly research and proposing research opportunities for scholars. It is one of the first efforts to systematically review the interface between SCM and SDL.

This paper aims to answer the following question: How can a discursive approach to how music fans construct loyalty in a digital context contribute to a theoretical understanding of brand loyalty?

Drawing on insights from theories of brand loyalty and fandom, this interpretive inquiry makes use of data from an online forum dedicated to the rock music band, U2, and interviews with forum members. A combination of online ethnography and discourse analysis are used.

The analysis shows that music fans mobilise particular discursive resources in constructing loyalty in the digital context, specifically length of time spent as a fan, obsession and the opposition of obligation and choice. These discursive resources reflect a grounded account of an experientially rooted brand loyalty that extends beyond attitudinal and behavioural loyalty and which is particularly salient in music consumption.

This is a single case study, but as a rich and vibrant online community, it provides fruitful insights into the discursive construction of loyalty. The processes of negotiation, accommodation and conflict, engaged in through online discourse, are important in laying bare the preferences, value systems and meanings that frame the experiences of loyal consumers.

This socially constructed view of loyalty facilitates a more sensitive and nuanced application of brand loyalty, with implications for segmentation and targeting activities. It provides a possible basis through which precise insights can be gained into the meanings and practices of loyal fans and consumers.

Examining loyalty through the lens of online music fandom enables a discursive understanding of consumers’ experience of brand loyalty. It shows how online engagement with other consumers of a brand facilitates a deep engagement with the notion of loyalty.

We present major aspects of two change‐oriented paradigms — formal logic and the logic of contradiction. For the Western manager, we assert that knowledge of the latter will facilitate strategic innovation in the West, similar to the trend in the Orient. Further, we identify ways in which formal logic and the logic of contradiction differ when applied to strategic innovation. Finally, we argue that the formal logic framework could inhibit competitiveness in the global business arena, whereas approaches derived from the logic of contradiction may enhance competitiveness through their influence on strategic innovation. Ultimately, the management of strategic innovation from this alternate perspective involves not only managing contradiction, but recognizing its potential positive contribution to the innovation process as well.