Systems of Consumer Practice as Context for Service Usage

The paper presents activities within consumer practices as context for service usage, and shows how consumers’ requirements for a service differ depending on their surrounding systems of practice. Practices are units of socially informed and meaning-laden behaviour that people carry out as a part of their daily life. Interviews with five wine consumers revealed five different contexts for the services of a wine store. Activities within the practice were divided into having cognitive, affective or informational purposes, and were arranged into an “activity tree”, where the position and function of the service could be observed

How Customers Involve Service Providers

The emancipation of customers has raised an interest into how service providers can involve customers in their processes. In contrast, we argue that the key challenge for companies will become how they can get involved in customers’ processes and that represents an unexplored area open for academic research. Our paper is conceptual with empirical illustrations and builds on a Customer Dominant business Logic approach. It presents a model of how the customer’s logic is grounded in customers’ rather stable interest structure and perception of service providers and how this forms different styles of using service and interacting with service providers

A Customer Ecosystem Perspective on Service

This paper conceptualises customer ecosystems, which are defined as systems of actors related to the customer that are relevant concerning a specific service. Moving from provider-driven dyads and service systems to customer ecosystems, the paper uncovers multiple implications for service marketers regarding the definition of the customer, configurations of value units, scope of value formation, as well as relevant actor systems. The paper extends the perspective on service and suggests implications for research and practice

"Running Is My Boyfriend": Consumers’ Relationships with Activities

Purpose – The paper introduces the idea that consumers have relationships with their own recurring activities. Instead of the usual notion of investigating the relationships between actors, or between actors and their possessions, the paper focuses on the relationship between an actor and a particular activity that the actor regularly participates in. Design – The paper is conceptual and exploratory in nature. It discusses different perspectives on consumer activity in marketing, and then introduces a relationship view on activity. The paper proceeds to outline the conceptual foundations of this view by applying relationship characteristics found in the literature. Quotes from runners’ blogs are used to illustrate the different identified relationship themes. Findings – The paper argues that consumers can be seen as having long-term relationships with their activities, and introduces the concept of the “activity-relationship”. The paper proceeds to demonstrate how this concept differs from previous conceptualization of consumer activity and relationships. Implications – The activity-relationship perspective on consumer behavior opens up new venues for marketing research. It also facilitates new types of marketing practice, wherebyPeer reviewe

Dynamic customer ecosystems : A ritual perspective

Purpose This paper studies the function of customer ecosystems in service by viewing them through the concept of rituals. Rituals are extraordinary, highly involving experiences of value creation that customer tend to be separate from ordinary life. Customers’ rituals activate a particular form of temporary (i.e. liminoid) customer ecosystems, wherein the elements involved in cocreation reach beyond the scope of the service as defined by providers. Design/Methodology/approach  We apply an ethnographic approach to study rituals within the context of wine consumption. The data was collected in Sweden and Italy by means of participatory studies of consumer’s private and public wine consumption rituals. Findings  We argue that customers drive cocreation of value within their rituals, and that rituals bring certain parts of the customer's existent ecosystem into focus, in terms of artifacts, scripts, roles and audience. Thus, parts of the customer’s ecosystem become "actualized" within the ritual. Research limitations/implications (if applicable) The paper clarifies and further develops the concept of the “customer ecosystem”, which has been characterized as customer-centered systems that involve service providers, other customers and actors, as well as various physical and virtual structures that are relevant for the customer’s use of a particular service. Practical implications (if applicable) Since rituals can entail greater customer satisfaction, the theoretical framework may be useful to managers to identify rituals and in so doing, feed the customer´s needing for rituals. Another important managerial contribution refers to the temporal dimension of rituals. We illustrate how the ritual unfolds along three stages. As such, managers should be aware that rituals are dynamic as they change value of service offerings before, during and after rituals.  Originality/value – The paper contributes to research on customer ecosystems by problematizing the current "static" view of the ecosystem. Instead of customers operating in static, pre-determined ecosystems, the paper illustrates the dynamic character of customer ecosystem and how customer ecosystems unfold along the temporal dimension of value formation (i.e. before, during and after). In addition, the paper identifies the key element constituting the customer ecosystem in a ritual event. Since rituals are claimed to be extraordinary (i.e. detached) events in customer´s life and thus linked to high levels of customer satisfaction, the paper identifies key elements of customer ecosystems at the core of customer value creation

Digital advertising as service: introducing contextually embedded selling

Purpose Previous research on advertising in digital contexts has emphasized its persuasive and information processing roles for the customer. This paper aims to problematize this point of view and argues that the converged and interactive nature of digital media makes all advertising content into potential points of engagement in a digital media journey. Design/methodology/approach The paper is conceptual in nature and applies service logic (SL) and customer engagement to reconceptualize digital advertising and selling. Findings The authors present digital advertisements and digital media content as elements that contribute to a digital media journey, which ideally leads to a purchase. Advertising content is regarded as a resource used by consumers in their underlying value-creating processes. Thus, the digital advertising process is conceptualized as a customer-driven process of engaging with digital media content, where a purchase is incorporated in (and naturally follows from) the theme of engagement. Research limitations/implications The paper introduces the concept of contextually embedded selling, which refers to a process where digital advertising content is thematically congruent with the surrounding editorial content, so that both contribute to the same consumer journey. Otherwise, consumers experience a contextual jump – a disconnect in theme, place or time during the consumer’s process of engagement with the digital content. Originality/value The paper contributes to advertising theory on advertising, engagement and the emerging research on consumer journey design by presenting an approach based on SL, namely, contextually embedded digital selling.peerReviewe

User-defined ecosystems in health and social care

Purpose – People with complex health conditions must often navigate landscapes of uncoordinated public, private and voluntary health-care providers to obtain the care they need. Complex health conditions frequently transcend the scope of typical health-care service systems. The purpose of this paper is to explore and characterize such unique assemblages of actors and services as “user-defined ecosystems”. Design/methodology/approach – Building on literature on customer ecosystems, this paper introduces the concept of the user-defined ecosystem (UDE). Using an abductive approach, the authors apply the concept in an interpretive, qualitative study of ten families with special needs children. Findings – This study uncovers complex UDEs, where families actively combine a broad range of services. These ecosystems are unique for each family and extend beyond the scope of designed service ecosystems. Thus, the families are forced to assume an active, coordinating role. Research limitations/implications – This paper shows how to identify ecosystems from the user’s point of view, based on the selected user unit (such as a family) and the focal value-creating function of the ecosystem for the user. Social implications – This paper highlights how service providers can support and adapt to UDEs and, thus, contribute to user value and wellbeing. This can be used to understand users’ perspectives on service and systems in health and social care. Originality/value – This study develops the concept of the UDE, which represents a customer-focused perspective on actor ecosystems and contrasts it with a provider-focused and a distributed perspective on ecosystems. This study demonstrates the practical usefulness of the conceptualization and provides a foundation for further research on the user’s perspective on ecosystems.peerReviewe