The three perspectives (S-D logic, service logic, and Service Science) addressed in this chapter form a major part of the current academic discussion within service research. The discussion around them has been extensive and to some degree exhaustive. The aim is not to offer an all-around review of their theoretical and conceptual developments, but to underline the central aspects and characteristics that are relevant to this research and to the building of the service perspective to the research phenomenon. Exploring these perspectives gives guidance to the research process and to understanding the research phenomenon.
To a large extent, these perspectives are closely linked together. Differences are minor and often semantic in nature, and for the most part result from different ways of approaching some central issues within service. For developing service theory further, it is more beneficial to view the different perspectives as complementary rather than contradictory. Toward that end, within the scope of this research, the service-related perspectives are referred to as the service perspective. Hence, referring to the service perspective does not focus on demonstrating the differences between the perspectives, but is more interested in the collective effort to underline
the importance of the new role of service within marketing. The aim is not to empirically ‘verify’ the superiority of one perspective against another. On the contrary, given the nature of the research as theory-developing, the role of theory is to give guidance, not to act as a normative straitjacket (Gummesson, 2002). Empirical data, then, creates a strong impetus for rethinking conventional wisdom and challenging existing frameworks.
Table 8 synthesizes the above discussion to clarify and highlight the aspects of the service-related literature streams that are of special importance in constructing the service perspective in the context of this research.
Table 8. Summarizing the service perspective
Description The subjective nature of customer value
Value is not something that goods are embedded with during the manufacturing process and then transferred to customers through exchange. Quite the contrary, value is always defined by the customer and it can be regarded as an interactive relativistic preference experience (Holbrook, 1999, 5); value for the customer means that the customer feels better off than before (Grönroos, 2008a) and it is “uniquely and phenomenologically determined by the beneficiary” (Vargo & Lusch, 2008a, 9). In this research, defining the value concept explicitly is not that important; the interest lies in how it is created and how the creation process can be supported. This is in line with Grönroos and Helle (2010, 566) who argue that when shifting the focus toward service as a perspective or logic the interest of the research and practitioner alike is shifted “from value as an outome in the direction of value as value creation”.
Value emerges in the customer’s value creation process
Since value is always defined by the beneficiary, the focus of value creation moves toward the customer’s processes, resources and practices which are used in their own value creation (Payne, Storbacka, & Frow, 2008). Value emerges in customers’ own value-creating processes18 that take place during customers’ consumption or usage of goods or services. These value-creating processes can be defined as series of activities that are performed by the customer in order to achieve a particular goal and that are “dynamic, interactive, non-linear, and often unconscious” (ibid, 85–86); value is thus created as a result of combining resources provided by the firm with other additional resources (Grönroos, 2008a).
The nature of value co- creation
Value co-creation is a multifaceted concept that is often approached with differing emphasis. To clarify the general complexity around the concept, focus is here on dismantling value co-creation into its constituent parts and as a result presenting three central issues that determine the nature of value co-creation in the context of this research: What kind of value for whom (‘value’), by what kind of resources (‘co’), and through what kind of a mechanism (‘creation’) does value co-creation eventually take place. Importantly, value co-creation is not considered as something that always takes place. On the contrary, it is approached as means to better understand a contemporary marketing phenomenon.
18 In addition to the customer’s value-creating processes, the act of the customer doing something
that actualizes the value potential of the resources has also been referred to as value-creating activities and value-creating practices (e.g. Korkman, 2006, 47–54). In this research, no difference between these concepts is made.
From selling to supporting customer’s value creation
The fact that value is created in the customers’ sphere and in the customers’ own value-creating processes provides implications for firms as well. In a normative sense, instead of concentrating merely on the exchange, firms should view customer-firm relationships as possibilities to learn to support customers’ value- creating processes. Consequently, this is more or less a strategic question where firms should make a decision whether to offer customers value-supporting resources (goods logic), or to apply ‘provider service logic’ (e.g. Grönroos, 2008a), and focus on supporting customers’ value creation by, for example, providing them with additional resources, such as information, to their value-creating processes. Therefore, firms should not be distracted by the distinction between goods and services, but focus on achieving a thorough understanding of the customers’ everyday practices and value-creating processes (Grönroos, 2008a).
The role of interaction
The concept of interaction – activities that occur between the firm and its customer during the customers’ consumption process – is critically important in the research context. Interaction is understood as “a mutual or reciprocal action where two or more parties have an effect upon one another” (Grönroos & Ravald, 2011, 11). Interaction is the key with which firms can influence the value actualization process; during that process both the firm and the customer are active participants; they act as dual subjects (ibid). Thus, normatively, firms need to find new and innovative ways to enter the consumption process and create interactions with the customers. Altogether, firms should strive to add more resources to the goods themselves to support and facilitate their use. Alternatively, they could provide customers with a variety of different resources – goods, information, other service activities and access to advice – in the value-supporting process (Grönroos, 2007b, 198).