Toward a Service (Eco)Systems Perspective on Value Creation

This article discusses how the core concepts of service-dominant logic—service-for-service exchange, value co-creation, value propositions, resource integration, and highly collaborative relationships—point to a generic actor conceptualization in which all actors engaged in exchange (e.g., firms, customers, etc.) are viewed as service providing, value-creating enterprises. In other words, all social and economic actors are essentially doing the same thing: creating value for themselves and others through reciprocal resource integration and service provision. The authors suggest that this generic actor-to-actor (A2A) orientation, in turn, points toward the dynamic and systemic nature of social and economic exchange. To account for the complexity, indeterminacy, and viability of these dynamic systems, they highlight the importance of general systems theory, complexity theory, and the viable systems approach and propose that cross-disciplinary scholarly efforts are necessary in order to develop models and frameworks that can simplify the complexity of social and economic exchange in meaningful ways and ultimately inform practice and public policy.