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The contribution of the present thesis is describing and explaining how value is co-created by addressing customer-employee role constellations during service encounters. There is a specific focus on customers’ and employees’ resource integration when co-creating value. The thesis consists of five separate papers, one of which is a literature review and four are empirical papers. The empirical papers are based on data from the public employment service and the customs service inSweden. The thesis offers two main contributions; the first of which is to service research by expanding knowledge of resource integration and value co-creation using e-government as the empirical context for outlining customers’ and employees’ value co-creation. The second contribution concerns which roles customers and employees enact during resource integration when value is being co-created. It was found that the roles of the employees were; interactor; customer oriented party, co-creator, and empowered party, while a customer can have the role of information integrator, accessibility needer, dialogue keeper, and/or knowledge transferee. Based on these two contributions, the thesis outlines understandings regarding role constellations in value co-creation. The role constellations suggest that customers and employees enact roles that impact how their resources are integrated.  Finally, the thesis contributes towards building a theory of value co-creation by proposing that the ten foundational premises of S-D logic, together with the four theoretical propositions and the role constellations presented in this thesis, should be seen as an approach to building a theory of value co-creation. Together, these three building blocks offer the following explanation as to what occurs when a customer and an employee co-create value: (1) The ten foundational premises focus on resource integration and value co-creation. (2) The four theoretical propositions offer the explanation that resource integration occurs in the context of roles since a role decides how to use the knowledge and skills. (3) The role constellations give concrete examples of how customers and employees integrate their resources to co-create value.

abstract: The marketing and development of solutions has become an increasingly important concept in both marketing practice and theory. Recent conceptual work has defined solutions as sets of products and services that allow customers to achieve customized outcomes. Although the definition of a solution is becoming clearer, the process through which solution value is generated is still opaque. The purpose of this study was to add clarity to both marketing theory and practice by examining the solution value co-creation process in depth. Service-dominant logic, the relational view, service value co-creation, and theories of organizational learning and knowledge were the basis for this examination. Social capital was also examined to determine how these important relational concepts are involved in solution development. The study was conducted in four separate phases using a multi-method approach of quantitative surveys, qualitative surveys, and depth interviews. A large, multinational educational firm provided the context for the study which included access to their solution sales force and customer base. Quantitative data was collected from 97 key informants across 182 different customer opportunities for both new and existing solution engagements. Qualitative data was also collected from 71 respondents to provide a mixed-method triangulation of how solution value is created. Overall, the study provided strong support to the idea that knowledge sharing between solution providers and their customers plays a pivotal role in the co-creation of solution value. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Business Administration 2011

This thesis aims to examine if and how Value Co-Creation works online, and what interactions the customers believe to be of importance to continue a relationship with a company. The problem of the thesis is how to create value in order to establish long-term relationships with customers in an online environment where the element of face to face interactions is absent, and switching costs facing the customers are non-existent. There is little research made about Value Co-Creation in an online setting, further how Co-Creation of Value affects the ability to establish and maintain Customer Relationships. This paper utilized a qualitative research approach and was executed through a case study built up by a thorough analysis of a marketing plan and the value creating activities of Company X, and semi-structured interviews with twelve customers of Company X to investigate how these activities are perceived. The conclusion of the research in this paper is that Company X performs activities that allows Co-Creation of Value. Further, it was concluded that the services provided by Company X contributes with important factors when trying to establish and maintain relationships with their customers.

The age of traditional marketing is beginning to end and the digital revolution will continueits journey. Today, most companies meet their business customers for the first time in a digitalenvironment and decision-makers stay longer more frequently in the digital world beforeinitiating contact with a company. Many argue that companies need to connect, collaborateand co-create with others to be able to succeed. Content marketing and value co-creation arejust some of the methodologies companies could adopt in order to succeed. Previous researchhas investigated value co-creation and partly content marketing, but these combined areashave not been previously researched together. Especially not from a business to businessperspective which this thesis has conducted. This study was initiated based on previousresearch, where a gap was found regarding these subjects. Therefore, the aim of this researchwas to study how value co-creation can be achieved through content marketing, from anenterprise perspective.This research was constructed by performing a multiple-case study on two Swedishcompanies, with two employees on each company. The data collection resulted in valuableinsights regarding the process of value co-creation and content marketing. The theoretical andempirical findings include similar views of the research areas, which are further presented inthe discussion chapter where the DARTT model has been used as a tool. Additionally, thisstudy proves it is possible to co-create value with a business's customers through contentmarketing and it also presents a general suggestion of how it can be achieved. Lastly, we hopeour thesis has the potential of acting as a base for further research, such as exploring the mosteffective digital platforms within content marketing from a business to business perspective,since it was not the purpose of this study to present that kind of insight. / Den digitala revolutionen kommer att fortsätta påverka dagens marknadsföring och dentraditionell marknadsföringen börjar att hamna i skymundan för de nya trenderna. Mångaföretag möter idag sina företagskunder för första gången i en digital miljö och flerbeslutsfattare än någonsin stannar kvar i den digitala världen innan de initierar kontakt medett företag. Många argumenterar även för att företag ska sammarbeta och samskapa med andraparter för att kunna nå framgång. Innehållsmarknadsföring och samskapande av värde ärnågra metodiker som företag kan anta för att kunna lyckas fortsätta attrahera kunder i endigital miljö. Tidigare forskning har undersökt samskapande av värde och även till viss delinnehållsmarknadsföring, men dessa områden har inte tidigare blivit undersökta tillsammans.Speciellt inte från ett business to business perspektiv som denna uppsats innehar. Dennastudie initierades på grund av tidigare forskningen, där ett gap hittades mellan dessa områden.Syftet med denna forskning är att studera hur samskapande av värde tillsammans med kundenkan bli utfört genom innehållsmarknadsföring, från ett företagsperspektiv.Denna studien är utförd med hjälp av en multipel fallstudie på två svenska företag, där tvåanställda har intervjuats på varje företag. Datainsamlingen resulterade i relevant insikt inomföretagens processer angående samskapande av värde och framtida kampanjer inominnehållsmarknadsföring. Både tidigare forskning och empirin inkluderar liknande perspektivinom forskningsområdena, vilket är presenterat i diskussionskapitlet där DARTT modellenhar används som ett verktyg. Denna studien bevisar att det är möjligt för ett företag attsamskapa värde med kunder genom innehållsmarknadsföring och den presenterar även ettgenerellt förslag på hur detta kan bli utfört. Slutligen hoppas vi att vår avhandling harmöjlighet att stå till grund för vidare forskning, exempelvis gällande vilka digitala plattformarsom är de mest effektiva i innehållsmarknadsföring från ett business to business perspektiv,eftersom detta inte var syftet med vår studie.

A definition of value, a higher order construct, how it is created and its constituents remains elusive. This research aims to explain value co-creation and its key enablers in the management consulting industry. Service Dominant Logic (S-DL) first published by Vargo & Lusch (2004) has fostered extensive debate ever since, and with the Service Logic theory of the so-called Nordic School of Marketing (Grönroos, 2011b) they have encouraged research on subjects under the optic of value co-creation (S-DL), value facilitation (SL) and exchange of service, arguing that value is only phenomenologically assessed by the customer (S-DL) and that the only real value is customer’s value-in-use (SL). The understanding of how value is co-created has been scarcely researched empirically as, for instance, Aarikka-Stenroos & Jaakkola (2012) have. Capabilities management has been related to a firm’s resources and the Resource-Based View (RBV); however, empirical research relating capabilities to the process of value co-creation in b2b context has also been discussed as sparse (Lindgreen, Hingley, Grant and Morgan, 2012).This research explores interconnectedness of value, relationship-interaction and dynamic capabilities in management consultancy, and responds to the following research question: What arrays of capabilities and interaction are required for management consulting sustained value-facilitation? The subjects of relationship and interaction are discussed as core to value co-creation while investigating the intervening role of dynamic capabilities. A qualitative abductive methodology is applied, founded on a critical realist philosophical argumentation. The iterative deductive-inductive methods involved in the abductive process ideally approach the open ended questions that emerge researching social phenomena. The data is obtained by elite interviews with executive consultants and CXO level customers, who have had profound experience of consulting assisted co-creation initiatives. Four abductive iterations of data collection and analysis are applied, departing from a theoretical framework that emerges from the review of extant literature and that is informed by the research question. The salient constructs from contextually complex discussions are analysed and lastly synthesized in an overarching model. This research contributes mainly in two areas: (1) The identification of relationship/interaction in consulting at the core of value co-creation, and its key characteristics as a dynamic context. Co-creation is proposed as an evolving-adaptive process dependent on relationship through interaction.(2) The identification of capabilities that allow relationship and co-creation and higher order capabilities that develop capabilities, which emerge from deliberate reflection of the consultant’s strategy. Such dynamic capabilities develop and orchestrate capabilities for value facilitation and customer value creation.

Abstract available through the North American Society for Sport Management Conference (NASSM 2018).

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Yes / With the arrival of the service economy, businesses across different sectors have to rely increasingly on service design, with its focus on the viewpoints of customers and their experiences. Existing frameworks for evaluating customer experience tend to neglect the connection between customer experience and value co-creation, which is critical for enhancing the performance of service design. The aim of this conceptual paper is, therefore, to develop a customer experience evaluation framework that is coherently integrated with the value co-creation construct. It is achieved by intersecting the most relevant insights from prior approaches to evaluating customer experiences with a theoretical interpretation of service value as value in the experience that is always co-created and uniquely determined by the customer's personal lived and imagined experiences. The proposed framework is original in its theorizing of the evaluation process as a transformation from a customer experience evaluation to a synchronized evaluation of value in the experience and value co-creation throughout and beyond the service process. The framework proposes to utilize it in both major service redesign and on-the-spot service improvements, which are extremely relevant to businesses operating in highly competitive environments. The proposed framework is designed to guide future empirical evaluations, accommodate new theoretical extensions, and inform practical applications to design service offerings as unique and preferred experiences for customers.