Social representations of value : an empirical investigation

The importance of value and value creation for the success of business activity has been increasingly recognised theoretically and practically. The concept of value has been defined on the basis of various foundations and from different perspectives. Despite the extant conceptualisations of value in business literature, social representations of value (i.e. common sense knowledge about value) are yet to be fully understood. Thus, this paper investigated these social representations as well as the relationship between extant representations of value by employing the structural social representation theory and its related methodology strategy as proposed by Doise et al (1993), as well as the ontology engineering method (Ma, et al, 2014). The analysis revealed that economy-based concepts constitute the core elements of value representation in the overall value network, while exchange- and experience- based concepts form the sub-networks (clusters) for value. Exchange-centricity, with economy-based concepts as its foundation, is the dominant representation of value, while experience-centred concepts constitute the peripheral elements in the overall network of value. Despite the different positions of these sub-networks (clusters) of value in the value network, they share common core elements, i.e. economy-related concepts. It can be suggested that creating worth for firms is still the dominant representation of value that is shared in the public sphere and well-documented in business literature. In terms of the extant representations of value in business literature, the exchange-based notion of value (Goods-Dominant Logic) is more representative than the experienced-based notion of value (Service-Dominant Logic) for its common understanding in the public sphere. Service-Dominant Logic as proposed in the business community is an accepted concept, although still from a peripheral position. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed

The digital person - the state of the art and science : a white paper from the 2nd Wolfson - HAT international symposium on the digital person

This paper reports the discussion of the 2nd Wolfson/HAT International Symposium on the Digital Person 31 May 2018. The symposium was chaired by Professor Irene Ng, representing the social sciences, Professor Jon Crowcroft, representing the sciences and Professor John Naughton, representing the humanities

The Internet-of-Things : review and research directions

This paper presents a review of the Internet-of-Things (IoT) through four conceptualizations: IoT as liquification and density of information of resources; IoT as digital materiality; IoT as assemblage or service system; and IoT as modules, transactions, and service. From the conceptualizations, we provide a definition of IoT and present its implications and impact on future research in Marketing that interfaces with information systems, design and innovation, data science and cybersecurity, as well as organizational studies and economics. By integrating the implications of IoT with extant literature, we then propose a set of priorities for future research in this area. Highlights ● Consumer experiences with physical products will be highly visible in an era of IoT. ● Physical products are evolving into connected and dynamically reconfigurable service platforms that are socio-cyber-physical. ● Information is leaking out and liquifying everywhere and data is ubiquitous. ● Consumers personal data allow for personalization of the offering but could result in consumer vulnerabilities. ● Shifting boundaries due to information flows in an era of IoT will transform markets and exchanges

Sense-making of consumer wellbeing in information technology-enabled services from a relational ontology position

Information technology (IT) built into products and services have become the key drivers for service innovation. How information technology-enabled services (ITESs) affect consumer wellbeing has increasingly become a concern to service scholars. In response to this, transformative service research (TSR) has emerged as a new stream in service research. This paper investigates consumer wellbeing derived from the consumption of ITESs in consumers’ daily lives. A mixed-method approach was employed in our study, including self-reflective reports, in-depth interviews and visual artistic methods. We demonstrated that a relational ontology, drawing on the ‘focal things’ concept (Borgmann, 1984) and sociomateriality (Orlikowski, 2009), could be used as a lens for us to understand consumer wellbeing in ITESs. We used four vignettes to demonstrate how relational ontology can enhance our understanding of consumer wellbeing in ITESs. Theoretically, this paper contributes to TSR by proposing and demonstrating the need to shift or at least extend the extant predominant technology ontology in marketing literature to make sense of consumer experiences and wellbeing in ITESs. In practice, this research encourages ITESs designers to emphasise the relational entanglement of technology with consumer routine practices in their service innovations for the purposes of consumer wellbeing

Co-creation in service assemblages for service innovation : an empirical investigation

Co-creation could enhance service innovation (Perks, Gruber, and Edvardsson, 2012). Despite the research conducted on co-creation, the issue concerning how actors could form service system with high density still needs to be addressed (Michel, Vargo and Lusch, 2008). We conceptualized service system as an assemblage and investigated emergence and dynamic process of assemble and dissemble of service assemblages by drawing on theories of co-creation, affordance, task network and modularity and the notion of assemblage (Delanda, 2006). We developed a framework and empirically examined how to map the competences required for actors in a task network and how capacities could be optimally (re)configured as assemblages (clusters) for value co-creation. We demonstrated that the framework developed could be applied to formation, reformation of service assemblages for design of service offerings enabling optimal value co-creation

Response to centre for data ethics and innovation consultation

In this response, we addressed the 8 questions for consultation. We first express our opinion in terms of the solutions the Centre provides to address these issues. We also identify the potential issues that may be encountered in addressing these questions. We then propose the potential approaches to addressing these challenges

The role of marketing in the design and innovation of future products in the connected digital economy

Technological advances could potentially enable the firm to serve contexts, i.e., achieving value-in-use with customers in their consumption contexts through the provision of offerings. Serving contexts must necessarily shift the role of marketing to the design aspects of products to meet customer needs and also to the production aspects of transactions and transaction boundaries to meet company needs for profitability. This paper proposes a research agenda for the role of marketing in product design and innovation for future products to tackle the constant tension between these two aspects. We propose that the role of marketing would lie in (1) gaining insights into contexts, (2) understanding products as affordance and potential for the dynamic re-configurability, (3) the design of transactions and transaction boundaries, and (4) distributing competencies. The significance of studying the role of marketing in product design and innovation attributes to its potential contribution to develop new business models, and generate opportunities for new offerings and new markets, be they tangible goods or services

Value definitions and consumer consciousness

This paper contributes to the understanding of value within the service science and management literature, a literature that currently defines and measures value in various ways, making assumptions about how value is created and judged. We present this paper in two parts: in the first, we reprise six core themes of value understanding in the management literature, highlighting their implicit philosophical, chronological and consciousness assumptions; in the second, we elaborate on consciousness and discuss the implications of a consciousness assumption on the understanding of value in Service Science and management literature in general. By applying theories on information processing, we reinterpret two types of value consciousness: a phenomenal and an access consciousness. We propose that different information processing systems are in operation in a phenomenal consciousness of value (active in the raw experience) than in an access consciousness of value (active pre- or post-experience). In so doing, suggesting consumer consciousness of value is different at consumption than at choice, and challenging the consciousness assumption implicit in the extant value literature