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The 2009 Naples Forum on Service - service-dominant logic, service science and network theory: integrating three perspectives for a new service agenda
Edited by E. Gummesson, C. Mele and F. Polese
Introduction
The transition from a goods-dominated, "inside-out," value chain paradigm towards a knowledge-intensive, collaborative, resource integrating, value network paradigm has led to a situation where firm boundaries, as well as industry and country boundaries, are becoming increasingly permeable, fuzzy, and fleeting ([19] Day, 1994; [23] Dyer and Singh, 1998).
This transition has evoked a keen interest in value creation. For example, the service-dominant (S-D) logic proposes that service is the fundamental basis of exchange and all social and economic actors are resource integrators that interact through mutual service provision to co-create value ([65] Vargo and Lusch, 2004). In a similar vein, the viable system approach (VSA) suggests that every business is a system, immerged in a relational context looking for viable competitive profiles viability through interaction with other actors ([27] Golinelli et al. , 2002). Similar systemic view has also been discussed in the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing Group (IMP Group), resulting into frameworks such as the actors-resources-activities model ([32] Håkansson and Johanson, 1992). Lately, S-D logic has suggested that markets are spaces where firms deploy and integrate operant and operand resources to co-create value - instead of being places where demand and supply meet and reach equilibrium as neo-classical economics suggests ([7] Arnould, 2008; [39] Lusch and Vargo, 2006; [62] Storbacka et al. , 2008; [66] Vargo, 2007; [68] Vargo and Lusch, 2008b).
A common thread in these research schools is the notion of value co-creation: the locus of value creation is no longer perceived to reside within firm boundaries but value is considered to be co-created among various actors within the networked market. This development poses major managerial challenges: how can the focal firm manage networked value co-creation? The evolution of value creation, from value creation by the manufacturing firm to value co-creation in a network, necessitates a corresponding change in the concepts used to depict and manage value creation. [74] Zott and Amit (2008) suggest that business models represent a broader conceptualization of value co-creation that captures this change. Business models are externally oriented and address questions like: how to...