Abstract
Introduction
Following the very successful forums on Markets and Marketing (FMM) held at the University of New South Wales in 2008 and at the University of Cambridge in 2010, the third forum was held at the University of Auckland Business School in February 2012. The purpose of the forums is to advance the development of service-dominant (S-D) logic by focusing on foundational issues related to markets and marketing and exploring the cross-disciplinary foundations of the S-D logic.
Informed by S-D logic’s foundational thinking about co-creation and building on the highly interactive logics of the first forums, this forum was developed into an experiment in collaboration with academics, using a structured work process based on the experience from facilitation of groups of managers. The idea was to explore whether it is possible to encourage and accelerate co-creation of new contributions by a facilitated process that would take advantage of a broader group of scholars with a more diverse range of perspectives than would occur when writing papers. An underlying issue is whether academic work is designable and academics are manageable?
The open-minded participants agreed to partake in the experiment, which has now resulted in the five articles in this special issue that provide a substantial advance in theory about S-D logic. In this editorial, we will first describe the collaborative process used before, during and after the forum and then introduce the five articles.
A collaborative work process
Participation in the forum is by invitation only and many of the participants in the 2012 FMM had also participated in the previous forums. Hence, they had a reasonable understanding of the contribution of the other participants. Based on this, the co-chairs of the forum agreed to ‘step up’ the level of collaboration already visible in the previous forums. Next we will describe this collaboration by dividing the process into four steps: pre-forum preparations, forum work process, post-forum collaboration practices and reflections about the process and outcomes.
Pre-forum preparations
FMM12 focussed on the following four themes: institutional logics, market plasticity, values and symbols, and theorizing about markets and marketing. In the call for proposals, the participants were asked to submit a 500-word abstract outlining the research that they would like to discuss, addressing one of the four themes. The proposals could address theoretical and/or empirical issues.
The accepted proposals were grouped into five presentation sessions: theorizing about markets and marketing, market plasticity, values and symbols, institutional logic, and marketing practices. For each session, a moderator who had read all the papers facilitated comments and suggestions. There was also a team leader for each group who was responsible for managing the collaborative process within the group at the forum and after the forum. Some of the doctoral students acted as scribes and supported the team leaders and were responsible for making notes and filling out the templates used during the forum.
Forum work process
The forum was a 2.5-day highly interactive event, preceded with a doctoral colloquium. There were no parallel tracks, that is, everyone was continuously present around the ‘round’ table, creating ample opportunities for debate and dialogue as well as for co-creative activities throughout the forum. The doctoral students participated as observers during the course of the forum.
In the course of the first 1.5 days, we had five paper presentation sessions for the introduction and cross-fertilisation of various aspects related to the S-D logic – each led by a dedicated moderator. After these sessions, the rest of the forum was spent on collaboration, during which the 34 participants were divided into 5 groups – led by the team leaders and supported by the scribes – each group collaborating to produce a paper in a facilitated process.
The facilitation was similar to the ones used for developing strategic intent in organisations. This work was done in the team-based learning facility of the business school. The facility is furnished with separate large screens making team work and cross-fertilisation between teams possible simultaneously and allowing everyone to participate in everything going on in the room. The facilitated process was led by one of the forum chairs who has long-time experience from facilitating large groups of executives and from using the existing technology platform in the team-based learning facility.
The work process, depicted in Figure 1, was designed in great detail in advance and was based on three foundations: (1) a structured template for scoping an academic paper based on the work of Brown (1994); (2) very tight timing, that is, during the facilitation time pressure was used to force teams to arrive at conclusions; and (3) various techniques geared towards improving collaboration and supporting both divergent and convergent thinking.
Facilitated work process.
A template was used to create a structure for the groups to proceed in a systematic, albeit, iterative fashion and to enable inputs from other teams in the room, as everybody was using the same process and were progressing in parallel. The guiding principle was to apply the templates quite rigorously in the beginning (steps 1–3) and then let teams work without restrictions towards the end of the process.
The first four steps were completed in approximately 5 hours, starting after lunch. The teams also had dinner together and some of them continued their dialogue during the dinner. The final step took approximately 3 hours and ended in a joint lunch. The steps of the facilitated process were:
Select paper theme. During this step, the team organised itself and each team member presented ideas for potential papers. Based on dialogue about the quality of various ideas, the team then made an initial selection for the development of a draft paper.
Develop draft structure and outline. Using the templates, the group developed a rough draft of a paper. The template had 12 elements that aimed at scoping the paper: (1) working title, (2) author roles and collaboration models, (3) intended readers, (4) why is the paper important (outline the research gap, approximately 70 words), (5) the central question the paper will pose (approximately 30 words), (6) the answer the paper will provide (approximately 30 words), (7) one sentence to summarise the paper (approximately 25 words), (8) method (outline the methods used, approximately 70 words), (9) outcome (outline the key results, approximately 100 words), (10) contribution (how the results will change how people see the world, approximately 70 words), (11) managerial implications (how the results might change what people do, approximately 70 words) and (12) what remains unsolved.
Debate and dialogue. Building on the Learning Café format the team leader and scribe stayed in the team’s table, whereas all other rotated to other tables – 15 min per table and a total of five rounds. During these 15 min sessions, the team leaders presented the initial draft and the scribes collected feedback from the other participants.
Refine draft and prepare presentation. Based on the feedback, the team reconvened to further develop the draft, either based on the template structure or using their own structure. Finally, the teams created plans for how to work after the forum and assigned responsibilities for such work. Many teams continued to discuss the paper ideas during the dinner and also to make plans for how to present the paper draft the next morning.
Present paper idea. During the final step of the facilitated process, the teams presented their final paper idea and engaged in a dialogue with the other teams in support for the further refinement of paper. We encouraged the teams to make interesting presentations using two incentive mechanisms: (1) another team was asked to engage in a role play and act as ‘reviewers’, in order to pinpoint obvious weaknesses of the proposed paper and (2) based on the suggestions the participants voted for the papers with best contribution potentials and the most exciting presentation.
Post-forum collaboration practices and reflections
We anticipated that the teams would have different ways of working after the forum. As the groups were quite large (five to eight persons) and their experience as academics varied from doctoral student to very experienced contributors, we also expected that the contributions would vary amongst team members with some members of the larger teams making smaller contributions. Finally, knowing the tensions related to lead authoring, we also were interested to understand how the teams dealt with agreeing on the order of the authors in the final paper.
All the lead authors have been asked to comment on the process, either by themselves or by involving their co-authors. We provide a short summary of the key findings from analysing the feedback:
Collaborative methods. We did not give guidance for how the teams should work after the forum and not surprisingly all of them have worked in different ways. Some groups organised several conference calls to discuss the paper and its development, whereas others only communicated over email. Some groups divided the paper into separate parts, which were allocated to the team members. Some teams rotated the paper, with all members adding to the paper individually. In all cases, the lead author has, finally, worked to integrate and finalise the paper. None of the teams – as far as we know – used any collaborative software platforms, although one team suggested this as a possible development initiative. All teams discussed the need for more opportunities to meet physically or using conference calling in order to have the opportunity to create a better dialogue.
Working in teams. Some of the teams were quite big (seven to eight people), and these teams have struggled to find ways to involve all members in a productive way. It is interesting to note that most teams chose or ended up working with a core group of three individuals with the other members making lesser contributions. This is reflected in the order of the authors in the final papers.
Lead authors. We then encouraged each team to resolve this at the start of the process. Three of the teams ended up using their team leader as the lead author, one team chose the lead author at the end of the forum and in one team the lead author was decided upon at the end of the process, based on this individual’s contribution to the paper. As noted above, most lead authors were supported by two team members who made major contributions.
Views on process and facilitation. The facilitated process was appreciated as being both a challenging and a productive way of laying the foundation for the work. The template also helped the teams to focus in and find the core of the papers, although some participants found it restrictive. The template was used as a support for idea generation rather than for structuring the paper. It is interesting that some participants found the 5-h process as long and intensive, whereas others found that it was too short and too focused on completing the assigned task at the expense of engaging in robust academic debate and developing proposed ideas fully.
Suggested changes. Based on the feedback, we identified four possible ways to improve the process: (1) smaller teams: it seems that a maximum of five individuals would be appropriate; (2) improved team composition: all members have not felt comfortable that they can adequately contribute, which sparks the idea that participants should be pre-screened before entering such collaborative forums, focusing on their willingness, working style and personal interest in order to secure better intra-team fit; (3) better longitudinal planning: the need for more frequent meetings amongst team members suggests that this kind of collaboration should be planned to involve participation in two consecutive forums, seminars or conference approximately 6 months apart – requiring novel coordination efforts amongst the organisers of such events; (4) use of collaboration software: as it seems that the asynchronous communication between the team members slows down the process, the use of groupware or collaboration software could be used to enhance the group effort.
As editors of this special issue and managers of the collaborative process, we are very pleased with the outcome that is reflected in the quality of the articles in this special issue. Our experiment provides evidence that academic work is designable. Another benefit is the ongoing collaborations between the members of the groups. Whilst some members of the larger groups may not have contributed a lot to the papers, their participation has facilitated learning and new opportunities. We encourage further exploration of this rewarding collaborative process that takes advantage of broader group of scholars with a more diverse range of perspectives than would occur when writing papers. The process epitomizes the notions of co-creation of value and resource integration that are fundamental to the S-D logic. With the pervasiveness of the Internet and group share software, there are many different ways that this process could evolve.
Articles in this special issue
The special issue consists of an invited commentary by Steve Vargo and Bob Lusch about the current state of development of S-D logic and five articles that were produced using the collaborative process.
The commentary ‘Inversions of ’ by Steve Vargo and Bob Lusch explores how value creation, both its nature and scope, can be better and more accurately understood by inverting five characteristics of goods-dominant logic, or what is also known as ‘old enterprise logic’ or ‘neoclassical economics’, into an S-D-informed perspective. This led the authors to examine six inversions: (1) entrepreneurship and the view that value creation is an unfolding, emergent process seen as superordinate to management, (2) effectual processes understood as primary in relation to predictive processes, and better for informing actors about the interactive, resource-integrating, collaborate nature of value creation, (3) marketing being fundamental to value creation and taking primacy over manufacturing, (4) innovation as more fundamental to and descriptive of value creation than invention, (5) a focus on effectiveness as captured by value-in-use and value-in-context for beneficial actors taking precedence over efficiency and finally (6) the reliance of human actors heuristics rather than rational, calculative decision-making.
The first article ‘Theorizing about resource integration through S-D Logic’ is by Linda Peters, Helge Löbler, Rod Brodie, Christoph Breidbach, Linda D Hollebeek, Sandra Smith, David Sörhammar and Richard Varey. The article responds to the need for more explicit attention to be given to the process of theorising and in particular the epistomological and ontological assumptions upon which the theorizing process is based. The article examines the processes that relate to theorising and developing strong theory. In particular how to conceptualise ‘resources’ and ‘resource integration’ following differing ontological and epistemological assumptions are explored. This leads to research recommendations to help navigate through the finer details underlying the theorising process and to advance a general theory of resource integration.
The second article ‘A new perspective on market dynamics: Market plasticity and the stability-fluidity dialectics’ is by Suvi Nenonen, Hans Kjellberg, Jaqueline Pels, Lilliemay Cheung, Sara Lindeman, Cristina Mele, Laszlo Sajtos and Kaj Storbacka. The article challenges the neoclassical view of markets and explores an alternative theory of markets. It views markets as dynamic, subjective and subject to multiple change efforts. In order to better understand these market dynamics, both academics and practitioners need new concepts and constructs that go beyond the existing linear process and development stage models. Borrowing a term used by Alderson, it is proposed that markets are characterised by plasticity, that is, a ‘potentiality for being remoulded and responding in a different way thereafter’. The article investigates the meaning and manifestations of market plasticity, drawing analogies from the physical, natural and social sciences. This leads to defining market plasticity as the market’s capacity to take and retain form and to proposing that the dialectic between market stability and market fluidity lies at the heart of market change.
The third article ‘Institutional logics matter when coordinating resource integration’ is by Bo Edvardsson, Michael Kleinaltenkamp, Bård Tronvoll, Patricia McHugh and Charlotta Windahl. Whilst resource integration has become an important concept in marketing literature, little is known about the systemic nature of resource integration and the ways the activities of resource integrators are coordinated and adjusted to each other. The article explores the claim that institutions are the coordinating link that have impact on value co-creation efforts and are the reference base for customers’ value assessment. A framework and a structure for identifying and analysing the influence of institutional logics on resource integration in service systems is developed. The framework recognises that conceptualizing the systemic nature of resource integration requires paying attention to the regulative, normative and cognitive institutions and institutional logics.
The fourth article ‘The role of symbols in value cocreation’ is by Melissa Archpru Akaka, Daniela Corsaro, Carol Kelleher, Paul Maglio, Yuri Seo, Bob Lusch and Steve Vargo. The article explores the role of symbols in value co-creation in order to develop a deeper understanding of how actors communicate, interact and reconcile perspectives as they integrate and exchange resources to create value for themselves and for others. A service ecosystems approach to value co-creation and proposes a conceptual framework that highlights varying views of value and articulates the way in which value co-creation results from the integration of resources and interactions amongst multiple actors. It is argued that symbols guide actors in enacting particular practices that enable the co-creation of shared meanings, which help actors determine the value of current and future interactions. In this way, symbols support the coordination of interaction, the communication of information, the integration of resources and the evaluation of value, amongst actors. The article concludes by illustrating the conceptual framework with an empirical example.
The final article ‘Value propositions: A service ecosystems perspective’ is by Pennie Frow, Janet McColl-Kennedy, Toni Hilton, Anthony Davidson, Adrian Payne and Danilo Brozovic. Despite significant interest in value propositions, there is limited agreement about their nature and role. There is also little understanding of their application to today’s increasingly interconnected and networked world. The article explores these issues by taking a service ecosystem perspective. A new conceptualisation is developed drawing on a critical review of the extant literature in service science on value propositions, value co-creation, S-D logic and networks and from six metaphors that provide insights into the nature of value propositions. The role of value propositions in terms of resource offerings between actors within micro-, meso-, and macro-levels of service ecosystems is explored. Finally, the analysis is illustrated with two real-world exemplars demonstrating the role of value propositions in an ecosystem as a shaper of resource offerings.
Reviewers
Finally, we would like to acknowledge the insightful and constructive suggestions and comments from our distinguished group of reviewers: Steve Baron, University of Liverpool, UK Luis Araujo, Lancaster University, UK Susi Geiger, University College Dublin Thorsten Gruber, Loughborough University Tim Hughes, University of Westminster, UK Kris Moller, Aalto University, Finland Mike Saren, University of Leicester, UK Hope Schau, University of Arizona, USA Albrecht Söllner, European University Viadrina, Frankfurt, Germany Alladi Venkatesh, University of California, Irving, USA