Transformative service research and service dominant logic: Quo Vaditis?☆
Introduction
Transformative service research (TSR) has been labeled a “new area” in both consumer and service research (Rosenbaum et al., 2011, p. 5). It is defined as “the integration of consumer and service research that centers on creating uplifting changes and improvements in the well-being of consumer entities: individuals (consumers and employees), communities and the ecosystem” (Anderson et al., 2011, p. 3). This encompassing definition opens the field for a broad range of potential research topics and applications related to improving the welfare of individuals and groups embedded in social systems and ecosystems. However, TSR is in its infancy and only a few researchers have to date tried to explain, develop, and apply TSR in their research (e.g., Anderson et al., 2013; Rosenbaum et al., 2011).
Fisk et al. (1993) classify this early and first evolutionary stage as a discovery and risk taking phase in marketing research. In line with this early stage, the latest calls are for TSR research to provide “a conceptual framework that can serve as a catalyst for future research” (Anderson et al., 2013, p. 1209) in order to inform and motivate service researchers to engage in this area. This is in line with Ostrom et al.’s (2010, p. 5) earlier call to focus one of service science research’s future priorities on “improving well-being through transformative service” and “through cocreation of value”.
Whilst most other research fields, such as social marketing, transformational consumer research (TCR), and service-dominant logic (S-D Logic or SDL), have moved beyond their embryonic beginnings and started on their next evolutionary step (Fisk et al., 1993), TSR adapts or includes research insights from related areas and other relevant disciplines. For example, social marketing’s scope, goal, and use of the marketing mix seem very similar to TSR’s approach toward resolving similar societal well-being issues. Additionally, the broadening of the service concept through the inclusion of the service sustainability notion (Edvardsson and Enquist, 2008, Grove et al., 1996, Shirahada and Fisk, 2011) has had an impact on the formulation of the TSR concept. Further, TSR has been conceptualized at the intersection of transformative consumer research and service research (Anderson et al., 2013). On the other hand, SDL offers a value concept (e.g., Vargo and Lusch, 2004), which seems similar to the creating of “uplifting changes and improvements” (Anderson et al., 2011, p. 3) found in TSR literature, thus masking the value of TSR’s contribution. For example, when Ostrom et al. (2010) discuss improving well-being through transformative service research, they also mention the co-creation of value to achieve this. This potential intertwining of the concepts is further fueled with statements, such as:
“Service consumption influences customer well-being, including life satisfaction, perceived quality of life, and overall happiness. Research that assists decision makers in understanding the value of these measures (…) is critical. (…) [I]t is also critical to design, improve, and scale service systems in a way that simultaneously enhances cocreation, lifetime value, and well-being” (Dagger cited in Ostrom et al., 2010, p. 10, italics added).
The emergence of TSR and its potential interweaving with other theoretical approaches might confuse researchers and hinder service science’s development as a discipline resolving “real problems” (Mick, 2006, p. 1). While scholarly inquiries into the role of services and service outcomes are gaining momentum (e.g., Echeverri and Skålén, 2011; Grönroos and Voima, 2013), current research still varies on how TSR should be considered in current thinking and in research models. This paper thus sets out to initiate a discussion on the theoretical TSR framework and its relationships to SDL. It aims at disentangling their interweavements and focuses on spinning the theoretical concepts’ loose ends into a single strand.
This paper not only provides an overview of SDL as the most commonly used and highly cited concept in marketing over the last years (Thompson Reuters, 2014), but also compares TSR with SDL to deepen scholars’ understanding of these approaches’ potential relatedness, their research aims, and intended outcomes. In addition, it scrutinizes the connection between these concepts by subsequently conducting TSR-related research. As such, the paper offers guidance on how to interpret TSR in the light of SDL.
This paper thus not only aims to highlight TSR and SDL’s potentially diverging relations, but also contributes to the foundation of a general theoretical TSR framework. By reviewing the current literature on SDL and TSR, the paper presents future research avenues for both approaches and provides a new perspective on the most recent perception of TSR.
Section snippets
The emergence of TSR
Since the early beginnings of mankind, humans have striven to improve their well-being and, hence, the quality of their lives. Well-being is not possible without service consumption (Ostrom et al., 2010). This may have taken the form of a caveman being tended to by a fellow clan member after being hurt during a mammoth hunt, or a patient currently undergoing radiotherapy treatment for cancer. (Re)Establishing well-being can either relate to the satisfaction of lower-level, basic needs through
TSR and SDL
In the TSR research strand, services and service are a means of improving individual well-being (e.g., of the consumer), as well as collective welfare (e.g., of society). TSR applies marketing tools and aims to “solve real problems” to improve the lives of these parties (Mick, 2006, p. 1). Anderson et al. (2013) propose a framework of four different dimensions to conceptualize research into well-being: service entities, consumer entities, the macroenvironment, and well-being outcomes. We next
Summarizing the two perspectives according to the four dimensions
TSR and SDL both relate to service entities or actors on the “provider side,” which facilitate co-creation for other entities, such as consumer entities or other actors. These entities or actors can interact with one another on different system levels. Equally, TSR and SDL refer to actors as “receivers” of service provision, whether they are called “consumer entities” (TSR) or “beneficiaries” (SDL). SDL disregards such distinction labeling all the entities involved as actors who integrate their
Where to now?
Undoubtedly, there is still much to discover in TSR and SDL and related research. SDL researches can look back on more than a decade of scholarly activity with the field remaining very active. Compared to this, TSR is in its very early stages. The first conceptual papers have been published (e.g., Anderson et al., 2013; Rosenbaum et al., 2011), most of which are of an exploratory, discovering, and risk taking nature (Fisk et al., 1993), and empirical work has started to appear (e.g., Mende and
Conclusion
While scholarly inquiries into the role of services and service outcomes are gaining momentum, current research is undecided regarding how to consider TSR in current thinking and existing research models. This paper connects TSR with SDL for a better understanding of their research aims and outcomes. In addition, this paper scrutinizes the connection between these concepts when TSR-related research is subsequently conducted.
Some limitations have to be kept in mind. The scope of this paper was
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the participants of the ICCMI 2015 conference at Kingston University (London, UK) for their helpful discussion and comments.
References (63)
- et al.
Transformative service research: an agenda for the future
J. Bus. Res.
(2013) - et al.
Tracking the evolution of the services marketing lLiterature
J. Retail.
(1993) - et al.
It’s all B2b…and beyond: toward a systems perspective of the market
Ind. Mark. Manag.
(2011) - et al.
On value and value co-creation: a service systems and service logic perspective
Eur. Manag. J.
(2008) - et al.
The complexity of context: a service ecosystems approach for international marketing
J. Int. Mark.
(2013) - et al.
Surrounded by Services: A New Lens for Examining the Influence of Services as Social Structures on Well-Being. Working paper
(2011) - et al.
Contextualization and value-in-context: how context frames exchange
Mark. Theory
(2011) - Davison, I., 2014. Election 2014: Second Leaders’ Debate....
- et al.
Co-creation and co-destruction: a practice-theory based study of interactive value formation
Mark. Theory
(2011) - et al.
Value-Based Service for Sustainable Business: Lessons from Ikea
(2008)
Expanding understanding of service exchange and value co-creation: a social construction approach
Acad. Mark. Sci. J.
Designing solutions around customer network identity goals. [Article]
J. Mark.
Co-creation by engaging beyond oneself: the influence of task contribution on perceived customer-to-customer social interaction during a group service encounter
J. Strateg. Mark.
Customers behaving badly: a state of the art review, research agenda and implications for practitioners
J. Serv. Mark.
Value propositions: a service ecosystems perspective
Mark. Theory
An agenda for service research at the base of the pyramid
J. Serv. Manag.
Adopting a service logic for marketing
Mark. Theory
Critical service logic: making sense of value creation and co-creation
J. Acad. Mark. Sci.
Going green in the service sector: social responsibility issues, implications and implementation
Eur. J. Mark.
Happiness, the self and human flourishing
Utilitas
A customer-dominant logic of service
J. Serv. Manag.
Customer dominant value formation in service
Eur. Bus. Rev.
Invited commentaries on the service-dominant logic by participants in the Otago Forum
Mark. Theory
1 + 1 Does not always equal value creation: the case of Youtube
Mark. Lett.
Transformative social marketing: co-creating the social marketing discipline and brand
J. Soc. Mark.
Value creation and value capture: a multilevel perspective. [Article]
Acad. Manag. Rev.
A theory of human motivation
Psychol. Rev.
Motivation and Personality
Health care customer value cocreation practice styles
J. Serv. Res.
Cited by (99)
Transformative places and the citizenship experience: A dynamic perspective of disasters, transitional servicescapes, and place attachment
2024, Journal of Retailing and Consumer ServicesEnhancing users' well-being in virtual medical tourism communities: A configurational analysis of users’ interaction characteristics and social support
2022, Technology in SocietyCitation Excerpt :The findings deepen understanding of value co-creation theory and how V-MTC users can engage more effectively to improve their well-being. Third, this study responds to the call from TSR scholars to improve well-being through service system interactions [33]. Previous studies have discussed how to improve well-being in offline service networks (e.g. Refs. [5, 10, 31]), but not yet fully explored the transformative power of online service networks.
Dynamics of individual actors’ self, social, and task pre-dispositions in multi-actor service ecosystems
2022, Journal of Business ResearchValue Co-Destruction: A Conceptual Review and Future Research Agenda
2024, Journal of Service ResearchStigma in payday borrowing: a service ecosystems approach
2023, European Journal of Marketing
- ☆
A prior version of this paper was presented at the ICCMI 2015 Conference.