Service-Oriented Entrepreneurship: Service-Dominant Logic in Green Design and Healthcare

Abstract

The shift in many industrial economies from manufacturing to service may have implications for the extant understanding of value creation. Service-dominant logic (SDL) poses a new paradigm for understanding the basis of economic exchange and argues that service is a true basis for understanding value creation. This service-centered perspective, as opposed to a goods-centered perspective, argues that market exchange actually is the process of parties using their specialized operant knowledge for mutual benefit, and focuses on how providers and customers interact, in order to co-create value. Using the SDL paradigm, this paper examines service-oriented entrepreneurship, where new business opportunities can be identified from the value co-creation perspective that may have been otherwise unnoticed by the goods-centered view. Propositions are developed using literature on SDL and entrepreneurship. Next, secondary cases from four companies are offered which support linkages between SDL and: (1) the identification of entrepreneurial opportunities, (2) a lifetime view of products/services, (3) redefining the role of the customer, (4) the alignment of information and goals between firms and their customers, and (5) the dynamic recombination of actors in the value creation system. Finally, the paper includes discussion and conclusion sections. [Service Science, ISSN 2164-3962 (print), ISSN 2164-3970 (online), was published by Services Science Global (SSG) from 2009 to 2011 as issues under ISBN 978-1-4276-2090-3.]