Kaisa Koskela-Huotari

Extending actor participation in value creation: an institutional view

This article explores how seemingly distinct actors contribute to value creation and evaluation in a fundamentally similar way. It shows that the division of actors into dichotomies such as ‘producers’ and ‘consumers,’ ‘paying’ and ‘non-paying’ customers, and ‘adopters’ and ‘non-adopters,’ is based on narrow, unidirectional, transactional, and dyadic views on value creation and delivery. The article highlights the limitations of these views and draws on a service ecosystems perspective and its broader notion of co-created and contextual value to overcome these limitations. More specifically, the article, by connecting two frameworks (markets-as-practice and institutional work), extends a generic actor-to-actor conceptualization of value creation, in showing that all economic and social actors participate in value creation in a fundamentally similar way. That is, they enact value co-creation practices and simultaneously shape these practices by creating, maintaining and disrupting the institutions that guide their (re)enactment. Thus, the article proposes a unified view on actors’ participation in value creation that not only points to the involvement of broader actor categories in value creation and market formation processes, but also provides important strategic implications in the form of a research agenda.

Institutions as resource context

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of institutions and institutional complexity in the process through which resources-in-context get their “resourceness.”Design/methodology ...

Designing Institutional Complexity to Enable Innovation in Service Ecosystems

In this paper we build on a view of change and innovation stemming from institutional complexity in service ecosystems, that is, institutionally enabled and constrained systems of service systems, and give suggestions on how such conditions can be designed to facilitate innovation. W e conceptualize service ecosystems as near-decomposable complex systems in which change is enabled through the co-existence of alternative, overlapping and conflicting institutionalized views on problems and solutions, and draw from social network theory to understand how such institutional complexity emerges both between and within actors in service systems. We then connect these theoretical insights with practice and give guidance on how institutional complexity can be created and how opportunities for interaction and collaboration between diverse and conflicting views on problems and solutions can be fostered.

Further Advancing Service Science with Service-Dominant Logic: Service Ecosystems, Institutions, and Their Implications for Innovation

Service-dominant (S-D) logic has been recognized as a theoretical foundation for developing a science of service. As the field of service science advances the understanding of value cocreation in service systems, S-D logic continues to evolve as well. Recent updates and consolidation of the foundational premises establish five core axioms of S-D logic and outline a pathway for understanding the role of institutions in value cocreation in general, and innovation in particular. This chapter overviews the evolution of S-D logic and its service ecosystems view, which can contribute to the furthering the development of service science and advancing the study of innovation in service systems. Future research directions are proposed.

Examining how context change foster service innovation

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of context in service innovation by developing a conceptual framework that illuminates the key elements and trends in context change.,The paper adopts a service ecosystem lens for understanding how elements and trends in context foster service innovation. A conceptual framework identifying the role of context change in fostering service innovation is developed and justified through illustrations across industry settings of health, retailing, banking and education.,Context change is conceptualized by three trends – speed, granularity and liquification – that provide an analytical foundation for understanding how changes in the elements of context – space, resources and institutional arrangements – can foster service innovation. The analysis indicates emerging patterns across industries that allow exploring scenarios, grounded in emerging trends and developments in service innovation toward 2050.,Managers are offered a framework to guide service innovation and help them prepare for the future. The paper also suggests areas for further research.,The paper contributes with a new conceptualization of context change to identify and explain service innovation opportunities. Managers are offered a framework to guide service innovation and help them prepare for 2050. The paper also suggests areas for further service innovation research, zooming in on contextual changes to prepare for 2050.