Service-dominant logic and resource theory

Abstract

Taking inspiration from the importance accorded resources in the emergent-service dominant logic marketing researchers might develop a more robust marketing ecology based on existing resource theories. Researchers may begin to think of firms and their customers as deploying operant and operand resources both to co-create discursively legitimated market spaces and provide inputs for value definition and delivery within them (Vargo and Lusch 2004). Spaces ranging from the Web, to industry clusters, to trade shows, and experiential retail exemplify the former (Leigh et al. 2006; Penaloza 2000; Spohrer et al. 2007). Service is the master category that defines that later, of which examples are legion (Arnould et al. 2006). Several literatures present themselves for developing resource centered ecological theory. I will highlight a few specific points of interest related to the resource based theory of the firm; organizational ecology; cluster theoretic models; social capital theory; and Foa’s interpersonal resource model. Each provides some distinctive contributions; each has limitations that would invite further theoretical development and empirical research. One source is the resource based theory of the firm that shares with the S-D perspective an interest in the strategic value of firms’ skills, knowledge and cultural competencies (Day and Wensley 1988; Wernerfelt 1995). This literature argues that such resources are heterogeneously distributed across firms, and that these distributions are relatively stable over time, thereby conveying a superior ability to capture resources (primarily economic) from customers. Aspects of operant resources that may generate sustained competitive advantage – value, rareness, imitateability, and substitutability – have been identified, but empirically-grounded dimensions could be better developed. Day (1994) and Hunt and Morgan (1995) famously suggest market orientation is such an advantage, or in Day’s terms, market sensing and customer linking capabilities. A paradox worth further exploration is Barney’s (1991) contention that if a firm’s advantageous resources were clearly defined, they would become replicable by competitors and their advantage lost versus Hunt and Morgan’s contention that causal ambiguity about operant resources represents a firm vulnerability. More generally in a fully networked economy, the idea of information asymmetry is problematized. Opportunities exist to specify the precise nature of firm sensing and customer linking capabilities, comparative typologies thereof, and the nature of their links to firm value propositions. Research that focuses on how organizational schema for market sensing and intervention are learned and deployed holds promise for helping us understand how firms co-construct marketspaces and populate them with value propositions (Gebhardt et al. 2006). In addition, this literature would benefit from a customer centric model of firm resources to know with what kinds of firm resources customers wish to engage on a transaction specific or relational level. Finally is a customercentric model of firm lifetime value imaginable? A second source of insight is organization ecology. This literature is concerned with deterministic models of the growth, development, and death of firms within a competitive resource space. Thus the unit of analysis is not the firm, but firms within a resource space (Haveman 1995; Ruef 1997; Van Witteloostuijn and Boone 2006). One J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2008) 36:21–24 DOI 10.1007/s11747-007-0072-y