Critical service logic: making sense of value creation and co-creation

J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2013) 41:133150 DOI 10.1007/s11747-012-0308-3

CONCEPTUAL/THEORETICAL PAPER

Critical service logic: making sense of value creation and co-creation

Christian Grnroos & Pivi Voima

Received: 29 November 2011 /Accepted: 13 June 2012 /Published online: 14 July 2012 # Academy of Marketing Science 2012

Abstract 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 firms and the customers 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-inuse emerges and how value creation can be managed; it also emphasizes the pivotal role of direct interactions for value co-creation opportunities.

Keywords Value creation . Value co-creation . Value spheres . Service logic . Service-dominant logic . Interaction . Marketing

Despite being recognized as key marketing concepts (e.g., Alderson 1957; AMA 2007; Drucker 1954; Rust and Oliver 1994; Sheth and Uslay 2007) and playing key roles in establishing the service perspective on marketing (Woodruff and Flint (2006), value creation and value co-creation have not been analyzed sufficiently rigorously. Even as the

discussion of value has evolved from a goods-grounded to a service-grounded perspective (Vargo and Lusch 2008; Vargo et al. 2008), as Ballantyne et al. (2011) observe, at this stage fuzzy definitional problems associated with many of the terms used remains (p. 203).

In particular, literature on the service-dominant logic1 highlights that service ultimately must be experienced by the customer (Vargo and Lusch 2008), yet current marketing terminology (e.g., solution, service offering, value proposition) still implies the firms dominant position for value creation (Strandvik et al. 2012). Recent service literature confirms that a consistent understanding of value and value co-creation remains missing. Furthermore, some researchers argue that it is...