Carol Kelleher

Characterizing Value as an Experience: Implications for Service Researchers and Managers

Within contemporary discourse around service-dominant logic, phenomenologically (experientially) determined value has been placed at the center of value discussion. However, a systematic characterization of value in the experience has not been presented to date. In this article, the authors outline four theoretical propositions that describe what value in the experience is, which are then illustrated using a narrative data set. The propositions consider both lived and imaginary value experiences and posit that current service experiences are influenced by previous and anticipated service experiences. The article contributes to the service literature by characterizing value in the experience as an ongoing, iterative circular process of individual, and collective customer sense making, as opposed to a linear, cognitive process restricted to isolated service encounters. The authors recommend that service researchers should consider the use of interpretive methodologies based on the four theoretical propositions outlined in order to better understand the many ways that service customers experience value in their lifeworld contexts, which extend well beyond the service organization’s zone of influence. Service managers should also consider how a richer understanding of past, current, and imaginary value in the context in service customers’ individual lifeworld contexts might generate novel insights for service innovations.

The role of symbols in value cocreation

This article explores the role of symbols in value cocreation 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. We draw on a service ecosystems approach to value cocreation and propose a conceptual framework that highlights varying views of value and articulates the way in which value cocreation results from the integration of resources and interactions among multiple actors. We argue that symbols guide actors in enacting particular practices that enable the cocreation 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, among actors. We provide an empirical example of our conceptual framework as supporting evidence for the role of symbols in value cocreation and point toward directions for future research.

Value, values, symbols and outcomes

This essay provides an overview of the contemporary academic discourse and challenges regarding the role of values and valuations in service. Situating service within the larger socio-economic networks brings to the fore the plurality of values and the recognition that value creation is (both) a social and market activity. This raises important questions regarding the role of symbols, the nature of outcomes and the processes of valuing as they come together in markets, in organizations and in other social domains. The essay then prioritizes a number of interdisciplinary research opportunities that relate market exchange to social exchange, emphasize the collaborative nature of value creation among particular agents, and examine the impacts of such value co-creation across specific market, social and environmental domains.

Broadening brand engagement within the service-centric perspective: An intersubjective hermeneutic framework

Purpose While extant service-centric research has largely focussed on managerial advantages, few studies have addressed how brand engagement emerges in the broader context of consumer lives. The purpose of this paper is to develop a novel intersubjective hermeneutic framework that bridges the socially constructed as well as the individualised meanings of brand engagement in the context of service research. Design/methodology/approach This conceptual paper adopts a theory-building approach based on recent developments in the service-centric marketing literature. Findings The authors offer a novel theoretical perspective that recognises the intersubjective and phenomenological nature of individual and collective consumer brand experiences, and show how such experiences emerge from socially constructed brand engagement practices using the co-constituting lens of value-in-use. Research limitations/implications The proposed conceptual framework invites further empirical and contextual investigations of intersubjective brand engagement in both online and offline contexts. Originality/value The contribution of this framework is twofold. First, the authors draw on the intersubjective orientation and hermeneutic framework to provide conceptual clarity in relation to the nature of brand engagement practices, brand experiences, and value-in-use, and discuss their interrelationships. Second, the authors address the nature of meaning ascribed to engagement beyond customer-firm-brand relationships, and discuss why any given consumer’s experience of brand engagement reflects a complex dialectic between socially constructed and individualised brand meanings. In doing so, the integrative framework recognises the interplay between the intersubjective and phenomenological natures of consumer brand experiences, and offers insights as to how these experiences are framed by broader socially constructed engagement practices.

Business Process Change in E-Government Projects: The Case of the Irish Land Registry

This research investigates one of the first e-Government services launched as part of Irelands Information Society program, the Irish Land Registrys implementation of their award winning Electronic Access EAS project. In-depth enquiries into how public sector organizations manage IT-enabled transformations have remained relatively limited and this case contributes to this emerging body of literature. The analysis highlights that the implementation of e-Government initiatives beyond basic service levels necessitates business process change in order to reap rewards. This study fulfils an identified need for research in Business Process Change BPC in the implementation of e-government initiatives. In this way the research attempts to add to, and complement, the existing pool of studies exploring e-Government induced change. The conclusions from the research stress the importance of planning for process change and the support of top management in the achievement of the efficiency gains and improved customer experience that are outcomes of e-Government.

Value Proposal Co-Creation in Online Community-Based Idea Contests

The purpose of this chapter is to examine why and how participants co-create value proposals in online community-based idea contests (OCBICs), following an open call by service organisations for participation. More specifically, we explore participant motivations, roles, and behaviours as they co-create service ideas that emerge as value proposals. We present a multiple case study of three OCBICs in the global automotive sector. All three OCBICs studied were developed by the same platform host but were otherwise distinct in design and implementation. The findings reveal three propositions in relation to value proposal co-creation in OCBICs: (1) participants are intrinsically and extrinsically motivated to compete and collaborate to co-create value proposals in OCBICs, (2) participants iteratively adopt a number of diverse and overlapping roles when co-creating value proposals in OCBICs, and (3) participant behaviour in OCBICs involves complex negotiations of the contest rules enforced by the host organisation and the norms and values of the community. In order to optimise open service innovation, we conclude that service organisations need to provide participants in OCBICs with an appropriate combination of monetary and nonmonetary incentives and rewards, based on their motivation and expertise. This is one of the few studies to examine the co-creation of value proposals in the context of OCBICs in the global automotive sector.

The Score is not the Music: Practices and Value in Collaborative Consumption Contexts

Traditionally, marketing scholars and organisations have tacitly conceptualised value co-creation as a set of processes or activities where participants know how to act, or ‘know the score’ – however, this is not always the case. In this paper, we argue for a deeper appreciation of the symbiotic relationship between value experiences and value co-creation practices, particularly in collaborative consumption contexts in which meanings may be shared as much as behaviours. Practices, comprising shared understandings of what to do and say, procedures and engagements in situated contexts, embed individuals in the social world, tie us to each other, and, as a result, frame individuals’ lived, embodied experiences of value. While practices are not possessions or characteristics of individuals, individuals are carriers of various value co-creation practices, which need not be coordinated with each other. As a result, individuals represent unique embodiments of diverse levels of participation in multiple practices within a cultural or social group. We also suggest that individual sensemaking of the value experiences which emerge from value co-creation practices, while socially constructed, is intersubjectively and phenomenologically determined. Therefore, rather than solely adopting either a phenomenological or a practice based perspective to explore the contours of value co-creation, we seek to entwine them, by examining individual value experiences which emerge from individuals’ concurrent participation in multiple value co-creation practices in collaborative consumption contexts.