Sustainable value creation in event ecosystems – a business models perspective

Abstract

This conceptual paper aims at characterising event sustainability from a long-term multi-stakeholder perspective, moving beyond the concept of Triple Bottom Line and event greening. Starting from the premise that sustainability should be understood critically in the wider context of society rather than from a conventional event management lens, the paper focuses on how stakeholders create sustainable value for themselves and for society beyond a specific event. Events should be considered as platforms for value creating systems and, as such, they are enabling actors (individuals and organisations) to share and integrate resources in their own social systems. The adoption of a systemic perspective grounded in Service Dominant Logic allows the authors to conceptualise sustainability as Sustainable Value Creation. Constructs derived from Business Models literature are utilised to analyse the key components of Sustainable Value Creation because they offer insights on the complex process of the creation and sharing of sustainable value focusing specifically on the stakeholders’ activities, relationships and resource exchanges.