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PurposeIn servitization research, there has been a call to move further toward the development of business models based on a service approach. This article aims to answer this call by adopting service logic (SL) and developing strategies and organizational resources and processes to create a service-centric business model called servification, defined as the process of identifying and developing strategies and organizational resources and processes to create a business model based on SL.Design/methodology/approachThis article is conceptual and extends servitization in the direction of service-centric business model innovation by drawing on and extending SL.FindingsThe article defines service as a higher-order concept according to SL and develops the concept of a helping strategy as the foundation for a service-based business model. Further, it develops a typology of organizational resources and processes that must be developed for the emergence of such a business model.Research limitations/implicationsSince this article is the first to conceptually develop servification, more both theoretical and empirical research is naturally required. The development of servification takes servitization in the direction of service-based business model innovation and also contributes to the research on SL.Practical implicationsServification enables the development of service-centric strategies and organizational resources and processes and service-based business models.Originality/valueThis article is the first to adopt SL in studies of business model innovation.

Purpose - In the discussion on service-dominant logic and its consequences for value creation and marketing the inner meaning of the value-in-use notion and the nature of service marketing have not been considered thoroughly. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the meaning of a service logic as a logic for consumption and provision, respectively, and explore the consequences for value creation and marketing.Design methodology approach - Being a research-based paper, the topic is approached by theoretical analysis and conceptual development.Findings - Discussing the differences between value-in-exchange and value-in-use, the paper concludes that value-in-exchange in essence concerns resources used as a value foundation which are aimed at facilitating customers' fulfilment of value-in-use. When accepting value-in-use as a foundational value creation concept customers are the value creators. Adopting a service logic makes it possible for firms to get involved with their customers' value-generating processes, and the market offering is expanded to including firm-customer interactions. In this way, the supplier can become a co-creator of value with its customers. Drawing on the analysis, ten concluding service logic propositions are put forward.Research limitations implications - The analysis provides a foundation for further development of a service logic for customers and suppliers, respectively, (\"service logic\" is preferred over the normally used \"service-dominant logic\") as well for further analysis of the marketing consequences of adopting such a business and marketing logic.Practical implications - Marketing practitioners will find new ways of understanding customers' value creation and of developing marketing strategies with an aim to engage suppliers with their customers' consumption processes in order to enhance customer satisfaction.Originality value - For a scholarly audience, the paper provides a more truly service-centric understanding of value creation and of its marketing consequences. For a practitioner audience, it offers service-based means of further developing marketing practices.

Purpose This paper aims to develop an alternative perspective on marketing informed by service scholarship to resolve marketing’s challenges as a discipline and practice. Design/methodology/approach This paper is conceptual and builds on the ongoing debate regarding marketing’s challenges and on service research to develop a new alternative marketing perspective and model, which could contribute to reforming marketing. Findings An analysis of the current understanding of marketing showed that the discipline’s myopic focus on activities, which disregards what marketing is as a phenomenon, is the primary reason for the prevailing problems and failure to reform marketing. Based on research into service logic (SL), the paper demonstrates that a higher level view of service can be characterized as the provision of help to the users of goods and services to ensure that these goods and services deliver meaningful assistance in their lives and work. This suggests that the ultimate objective for marketing is to make firms meaningful to the users of their goods and services. Research limitations/implications To the best of the author’s knowledge, since this paper is the first to conceptually develop a perspective on marketing and a corresponding model informed by service scholarship, more conceptual and empirical research is necessary. Developing the new meaningfulness-based perspective and model for marketing brings a new approach to the process of resolving marketing’s current troubled situation. Practical implications The meaningfulness approach to marketing enables customer-centered marketing strategies to be implemented. Such strategies include both demand-stimulating and demand-satisfying programs. Originality/value To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the first to examine marketing’s troubled situation from a service research and SL perspective.

Because extant literature on the service logic of marketing is dominated by a metaphorical view of value co-creation, the roles of both service providers and customers remain analytically unspecified, without a theoretically sound foundation for value creation or co-creation. This article analyzes value creation and co-creation in service by analytically defining the roles of the customer and the firm, as well as the scope, locus, and nature of value and value creation . Value creation refers to customers’ creation of value-in-use; co-creation is a function of interaction. Both the firm’s and the customer’s actions can be categorized by spheres (provider, joint, customer), and their interactions are either direct or indirect, leading to different forms of value creation and co-creation. This conceptualization of value creation spheres extends knowledge about how value-in-use emerges and how value creation can be managed; it also emphasizes the pivotal role of direct interactions for value co-creation opportunities.

Purpose - The purpose of this article is to analyze the scope, content and nature of value co-creation in a service logic-based view of value creation, addressing the customer's perspective in a supplier-customer relationship. The nature of the activities and the roles of the supplier and the customer in value creation and co-creation are analyzed. Furthermore, the purpose is to discuss what implications for marketing can be derived from this analysis.Design methodology approach - The article analyzes the marketing implications that follow from the pivotal role of interactions in service provision. The article, thus, builds on a long history in service marketing research pointing at the impact on the content and scope of marketing of customer-supplier interactions.Findings - In this article, it is concluded that creating customer value is a multilaned process consisting of two conceptually distinct subprocesses. These are the supplier's process of providing resources for customer's use and the customer's process of turning service into value. The article results in five service logic theses which provide an understanding of the process of value creation and its implications for marketing. The theses offer a terminology that helps researchers and practitioners to understand the various roles of suppliers and customers in value creation and to analyze opportunities for co-creation of value.Originality value - The findings of this article challenge some of the salient propositions of the emerging service-dominant logic, i.e. customers as co-creators of value, and firms can only make value propositions. The role of marketing is reframed beyond its conventional borders.

PurposeThe definition of value adopted by the current service perspective on marketing theory is value as value-in-use. Surprisingly, however, little attention has been given to the question of what constitutes value-in-use for customers in service contexts? Therefore, the aim of this study is to provide an empirical account of value-in-use from service customers' point of view.Design/methodology/approachTo capture and analyze customers' experiences of value-in-use in the typical service context of retail banking, this study employed a narrative-based critical incident technique (CIT) and a graphical tool called the value chart.FindingsThe study identified seven empirical dimensions of positive and negative value-in-use: solution, attitude, convenience, expertise, speed of service, flexibility and monetary costs. Interestingly, these value-in-use dimensions overlap considerably with previously identified dimensions of service quality.Research limitations/implicationsThe concepts of service quality and value-in-use in service contexts seem to represent the same empirical phenomenon despite their different theoretical traditions. Measuring customer-perceived service quality might therefore be a good proxy for assessing value-in-use in service contexts.Practical implicationsAs the findings indicate that service quality is the way in which service customers experience value-in-use, service managers are recommended to focus on continuous quality management to facilitate the creation of value-in-use.Originality/valueThis study is the first to explicitly raise the notion that in the minds of service customers, value defined as value-in-use and service quality may represent the same empirical phenomenon.

Purpose Although health-care features prominently in transformative service research, there is little to guide service providers on how to improve well-being and social change transformations. This paper aims to explore actor-level interactions in transformative services, proposing that actors’ complementary health service literacy roles are fundamental to resource integration and joint value creation. Design/methodology/approach In-depth interviews with 46 primary health-care patients and 11 health-care service providers (HSPs) were conducted focusing on their subjective experiences of health literacy. An iterative hermeneutic approach was used to analyse the textual data linking it with existing theory. Findings Data analysis identified patients’ and HSPs’ health service literacy roles and corresponding role readiness dimensions. Four propositions are developed describing how these roles influence resource integration processes. Complementary service literacy roles enhance resource integration with outcomes of respect, trust, empowerment and loyalty. Competing service literacy roles lead to outcomes of discredit, frustration, resistance and exit through unsuccessful resource integration. Originality/value Health service literacy roles – linked to actor agency, institutional norms and service processes – provide a nuanced approach to understanding the tensions between patient empowerment trends and service professionals’ desire for recognition of their expertise over patient care. Specifically, the authors extend Frow et al.’s (2016) list of co-creation practices with practices that complement actors’ service literacy and role readiness. Based on a service perspective, the authors encourage transformative service researchers, service professionals and health service system designers, to recognize complementary health service literacy roles as an opportunity to support patients’ resources and facilitate value co-creation.

Purpose This paper aims to develop the foundation of a model for assessing relationship marketing readiness (RMR) and provide directions for such an assessment. Design/methodology/approach Based on the promise theory and service logic, the importance of the customer–firm touchpoints and interactions to relationship marketing as an equivalent to the product variable in a conventional marketing approach is discussed. Then, a relationship marketing model and an RMR assessment model are developed. Findings The paper suggests an RMR assessment model based on two variables, namely, whether management’s focus is on the customers’ or the firm’s resources and processes and whether it is on the customers’ or the firm’s definition of quality. An indicative list of measurement factors is proposed. Originality/value The paper emphasizes the need to broaden the scope of marketing and offers a novel measurement approach, which both in theory and practice helps the development of relationship marketing understanding.

PurposePrevious research reports mixed results regarding the performance impact of servitization in manufacturing firms. To resolve this, the purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptually consistent and comprehensive measurement framework for both dimensions, servitization and its performance effect, and apply in a configurational analysis to reexamine previous evidence, arriving at a configurational theory of the relationship between servitization and firm performance.Design/methodology/approachCombining systematic literature review (SLR) and inductive reasoning, the existing indicators for servitization and performance are identified and clustered into groups that adequately represent both dimensions. The dataset is reanalyzed against the resulting framework to identify the configurational patterns and to formulate the theoretical propositions.FindingsFinancial and nonfinancial indicators of servitization and its performance impact are organized into a comprehensive measurement framework grounded on existing research. The subsequent meta-analysis shows that the positive or negative impacts of servitization on performance depend on how firms implement servitization strategies and which performance aspects are examined.Research limitations/implicationsThe results explain when servitization can be successful and confirm the existence of the so-called servitization paradox. The meta-analysis identified patterns that explain the previous mixed results, shaping a configurational theory of servitization. Thus, the measurement framework is conceptually robust and has sufficient detail to capture servitization and its performance outcome as it feasibly distinguished between different organizational configurations.Originality/valueThe framework provides a comprehensive portfolio of indicators for both managers and scholars to measure servitization intensity and performance. This supports managers of servitizing firms in leading this organizational transformation while avoiding its organizational and financial paradoxes.

The objective of the article is to discuss a framework of central processes in relationship marketing. The framework includes an interaction process as the core, a planned communication process as the marketing communications support through distinct communications media, and a customer value process as the outcome of relationship marketing. If the interaction and planned communication processes are successfully integrated and geared towards customers' value processes, a relationship dialogue may merge.