Innovative Service Business Models and International Market Resistance: Insights from Service-Dominant Logic

Abstract

This paper analyzes the reasons that the adoption of innovative business models in business-to-business (B-to-B) settings is low and differs from country to country. The analysis is made against the background of a particular and more recent type of innovative service business model; namely, total cost of ownership (TCO) concepts in B-to-B settings. The concept of the service-dominant logic (SDL) of Vargo and Lusch [2004] is used to explain this phenomenon. The paper presents the new reasoning that the diffusion of innovative service business models like TCO depends on the stage of the transition process from a goodsdominant to a service-dominant logic in business and society. This process runs rather differently depending on countries. Thus, the research question of the paper is twofold: Does the transition process from the goods-dominant to the servicedominant logic explain the sluggish adoption of TCO business models? If so, are there differences among different countries? Because of the newness and complexity of the research topic, the authors use qualitative research and conduct case studies to better understand the reasons that slow TCO adoption differs from country to country.