According to service-dominant logic (S-D logic), all providers are service providers, and service is the fundamental basis of exchange. Value is co-created with customers and assessed on the basis of value-in-context. However, the extensive literature on S-D logic could benefit from paying explicit attention to the fact that both service exchange and value co-creation are influenced by social forces. The aim of this study is to expand understanding of service exchange and value co-creation by complementing these central aspects of S-D logic with key concepts from social construction theories (social structures, social systems, roles, positions, interactions, and reproduction of social structures). The study develops and describes a new framework for understanding how the concepts of service exchange and value co-creation are affected by recognizing that they are embedded in social systems. The study contends that value should be understood as value-in-social-context and that value is a social construction. Value co-creation is shaped by social forces, is reproduced in social structures, and can be asymmetric for the actors involved. Service exchanges are dynamic, and actors learn and change their roles within dynamic service systems.

Purpose -The paper seeks to introduce to a new perspective on the roles of customers and companies in creating value by outlining a customer-based approach to service. The customer's logic is examined in-depth as being the foundation of a customer-dominant (CD) marketing and business logic. Design/methodology/approach -The authors argue that both the goods-and service-dominant logic are provider-dominant. Contrasting the provider-dominant logic with CD logic, the paper examines the creation of service value from the perspectives of value-in-use, the customer's own context, and the customer's experience of service. Findings -Moving from a provider-dominant logic to a CD logic uncovered five major challenges to service marketers: company involvement, company control in co-creation, visibility of value creation, scope of customer experience, and character of customer experience.Research limitations/implications -The paper is exploratory. It presents and discusses a new perspective and suggests implications for research and practice. Practical implications -Awareness of the mechanisms of customer logic will provide businesses with new perspectives on the role of the company in their customers' lives. It is proposed that understanding the customer's logic should represent the starting-point for the company's marketing and business logic. Originality/value -The paper increases the understanding of how the customer's logic underpins the CD business logic. By exploring consequences of applying a CD logic, further directions for theoretical and empirical research are suggested.

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Purpose -Focusing on one main research question: how is the phenomenon "service" portrayed within service research?, the aim is to describe and analyze how the concept of service is defined, how service characteristics express the concept, the relevance of the existing "service portraits", and to suggest a new way of portraying service. Design/methodology/approach -A literature search was carried out in order to find definitions of the service concept and expressions about the service characteristics. Databases were searched and 34 articles were used for further analysis. The same procedure was carried out for service characteristics. The articles that were chosen by the databases were reviewed thoroughly and those most relevant to the search topic were chosen. Sixteen leading scholars who had been shaping the service research field were also asked two basic questions. Findings -The analysis of the concept of service and service characteristics shows that the definitions are too narrow and the characteristics are outdated as generic service characteristics. It is suggested that service is used as a perspective. When service is portrayed as a perspective, the approach is clear: it depends on who is portraying the service and on the purpose. If service characteristics are outdated, when will they stop being used in teaching? It is no longer necessary to defend services as being different from goods. Service is a research area in its own right. Research limitations/implications -The number of articles and books used in the analysis can be criticized for not including enough relevant literature. The keywords used when searching in databases should also have included other words to capture the concept of service and service characteristics. Practical implications -The practical implications are not so clear since this article is a contribution to the ongoing discussion about future directions of service research. However, it is suggested that service is a perspective on value creation and that value creation is best understood from the lens of the customer based on value in use. Originality/value -This paper contributes with a literature review, a discussion on what service portraits are, and describes service as a perspective on value creation through the lens of the customer.

Resource integration has become an important concept in marketing literature. However, 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. Therefore, we claim that institutions are the coordinating link that have impact on value cocreation efforts and are the reference base for customers' value assessment. When conceptualizing the systemic nature of resource integration, we include the regulative, normative, and cognitive institutions and institutional logics. This article provides a framework and a structure for identifying and analyzing the influence of institutional logics on resource integration in service systems.

New service development relies on the complex task of understanding and anticipating latent customer needs. To facilitate proactive learning about the customer, recent findings stress customer involvement in the development process and observations of customers in real action. This paper draws on theory from market and learning orientation in conjunction with a service‐centered model, and reviews the literature on customer involvement in innovation. A field experiment was conducted in Sweden with end‐user mobile phone services. The design departures from the nature of service that precepts value‐in‐use and by borrowing from relevant techniques within product innovation that supports learning in customer co‐creation. The experiment reveals that the consumers' service ideas are found to be more innovative, in terms of originality and user value, than those of professional service developers.

Purpose -The aim of this article is to propose a framework for a new perspective on the total service experience, which dimensions influence it, and how a service experience is linked to value in use. Design/methodology/approach -The article is conceptual and suggests a new theoretical frame of reference describing value in use through service experience in technology-based services. Findings -According to this article, a service experience is the total functional and emotional value of a consumed service. The service experience is unique to every individual customer and the service consumption situation. Value in use is the cognitive evaluation of the service experience.Research limitations/implications -The framework is discussed in the context of technology-based services and will provide a basis for future research. Empirical studies are called for concerning service experiences in different kinds of service contexts. Originality/value -This article contributes a new framework, illustrating the service experience, which dimensions influence the service experience, and how it is linked to value. The framework is placed in a context of technology-based services. Unique to these kinds of services is a lack of personal interaction between the service producer and the customer.

A new trend seems to be emerging for multinational manufacturing companies to make a strategic reorientation into becoming service providers. For some companies, such as Kone and IBM, the revenues from services are 50% or more of their total sales. Despite the increasing interest in exploring various aspects of the service part of the business in manufacturing companies, existing research has not focused on the interdependencies between different service strategies and organizational designs. This article studies different service strategies in manufacturing companies and highlights the organizational design necessary for implementing each service strategy. The service strategies explored are aftersales service providers, customer support service providers, outsourcing partners, and development partners. Each service strategy is supported by organizational design factors related to the service orientation of corporate culture, the service orientation of human resource management, and the service orientation of organizational structures. This research concludes that a specific strategy-structure configuration is needed in order to succeed with a chosen service strategy.