Marketing, Value Creation and Values Dynamics: Gazing Out to Asia and Europe from Kitakyushu

Abstract

If businesses were distinct from society and the planet, primarily serving the shareholder by maximizing profits, the focus of value creation would remain on prices and profitability. Yet, a review of research experiences with Asia, Europe and Kitakyushu in conjunction with the definition of marketing (one that is inclusive of customers, partners and broader society) develops perspectives on how values underly value creation. Such perspectives indicate that there are service models that extend beyond the profit motive, highlighting what I refer to as the dynamics of values on value creation. More precisely, much value creation literature has advanced understanding of the perception of the service receiver, while overlooking values of the service provider. The opinion on values dynamics developed in this article offers a novel conceptualization framework of the interplay of values on marketing’s targets (i.e., customers, partners and broader society). It also calls attention to the critical role of location specificity (in this case, Kitakyushu) for subjective sense-making of value creation actions as opposed to currently mainstream Western realist worldviews. Finally, this article highlights a role for de-emphasizing price and profit-centred thinking and embracing a broader humanist worldview in developing the scholarly sub-field of value creation in marketing.