10、Critical service logic：making sense of value creation and co-creation.pdf

CONCEPTUAL/THEORETICAL PAPERCritical service logic:making sense of valuecreation and co-creationChristian Grnroos&Pivi VoimaReceived:29 November 2011/Accepted:13 June 2012/Published online:14 July 2012#Academy of Marketing Science 2012Abstract Because extant literature on the service logic ofmarketing is dominated by a metaphorical view of value co-creation,the roles of both service providers and customersremain analytically unspecified,without a theoreticallysound foundation for value creation or co-creation.Thisarticle analyzes value creation and co-creation in serviceby analytically defining the roles of the customer and thefirm,as well as the scope,locus,and nature of value andvalue creation.Value creation refers to customers creationof value-in-use;co-creation is a function of interaction.Boththe firms and the customers actions can be categorized byspheres(provider,joint,customer),and their interactions areeither direct or indirect,leading to different forms of valuecreation and co-creation.This conceptualization of valuecreation spheres extends knowledge about how value-in-use emerges and how value creation can be managed;it alsoemphasizes the pivotal role of direct interactions for valueco-creation opportunities.Keywords Valuecreation.Valueco-creation.Valuespheres.Servicelogic.Service-dominantlogic.Interaction.MarketingDespite being recognized as key marketing concepts(e.g.,Alderson 1957;AMA 2007;Drucker 1954;Rust and Oliver1994;Sheth and Uslay 2007)and playing key roles inestablishing the service perspective on marketing(Woodruffand Flint(2006),value creation and value co-creation havenot been analyzed sufficiently rigorously.Even as thediscussion of value has evolved from a goods-grounded toa service-grounded perspective(Vargo and Lusch 2008;Vargo et al.2008),as Ballantyne et al.(2011)observe,“atthis stage fuzzy definitional problems associated withmany of the terms used remains”(p.203).In particular,literature on the service-dominant logic1highlights that service ultimately must be experienced bythe customer(Vargo and Lusch 2008),yet current marketingterminology(e.g.,solution,service offering,value proposi-tion)still implies the firms dominant position for valuecreation(Strandvik et al.2012).Recent service literatureconfirms that a consistent understanding of value and valueco-creation remains missing.Furthermore,some researchersargue that it is not only the determination of value butalso value creation that gets controlled by the customer(Grnroos 2011;Grnroos and Ravald 2011;Heinonenet al.2010;Helkkula et al.2012;Voima et al.2010,2011a).In this customer-grounded view,the value-in-usethat emerges for the customer appears as a function ofthe customers experiences and logic(Grnroos 2008;Grnroos and Ravald 2011;Heinonen et al.2010;Helkkula etal.2012;Strandviketal.2012;Voimaetal.2011a).Analyzingvalue creation and co-creation from the customer perspectivethus might support a systematic,analytical definition of thescope,locus,and nature of value and its creation and co-creation.Moreover,as Heinonen et al.(2010)point out,areverse perspective on co-creation may be required:Instead1Because it is a perspective on business and marketing that is not onlydominated by service but also based on service,we prefer the termservice logic(see Grnroos 2011).Service is the mental model ordominant logic(Prahalad and Bettis 1986)that guides the use of thisperspective.The expression“service-dominant logic”confuses serviceas a perspective and the dominant logic concept.However,whenreferring to conventional literature on service logic,we use“service-dominant logic”or SDL.C.Grnroos(*):P.VoimaCERS Centre for Relationship Marketing and ServiceManagement,Hanken School of Economics Finland,P.O.Box 479,00101 Helsinki,Finlande-mail:christian.gronrooshanken.fiJ.of the Acad.Mark.Sci.(2013)41:133150DOI 10.1007/s11747-012-0308-3of focusing on how customers can be engaged in co-creatingwiththe firm,service providersshouldratherfocus onbecom-ing involved in the customers lives.Prior service marketing literature attributes the serviceproviders ability to influence customer value creation toco-creativeinteractions(EcheverriandSklen2011;Grnroos2008;Prahalad and Ramaswamy 2004;Ramrez 1999).Prahalad and Ramaswamy(2004,p.5)even claim that“the use of interaction as a basis for co-creation is at thecrux of our emerging reality.”In this view,co-creationfunctions by activating operant resources(Vargo andLusch 2006),thoughnostudieshaveclearlydefinedthe rolesof the service provider and the customer or the nature,scope,and locus of this value co-creation process.2To do so,it isnecessary to consider the meaning of interaction and its sep-arate roles when it is direct versus indirect.Therefore,this article analyzes value creation in serviceby analytically defining value co-creation and value creationwith a focus on the roles of the customer and the firm,thenanalyzing co-creation as a function of their interaction.Withthis approach,we can identify the