Customer-dominant Logic Research Articles

How can we improve buyer experiences for the operations of e-grocery platforms? Towards a unified framework for digital service operations

Electronic grocery (e-grocery) retailing has increasingly gained prominence all over the world, with India being no exception. However, the Indian e-grocery industry still has room to grow. Existing studies have not attempted to focus holistically on factors related to service operations, such as customer service and digital platforms. We undertake two case studies, each having an exploratory and a confirmatory study, on India's two popular e-grocery apps. We mine 273,000 and 254,000 buyer reviews to identify factors affecting their experiences in the exploratory studies. We model these factors through the lens of customer-dominant logic (CDL), service-dominant logic (SDL), and signaling theory. We develop an overarching framework by mapping these factors to theoretical lexicons for the confirmatory studies. Multiple econometric analysis helps us to confirm that trust in the vendor, consumer learning, retailer visibility, pricing, diagnosticity of product description, third-party product assurances, navigability, website informativeness, and perceived information protection influence the buyer experience of both e-grocery platforms significantly. These insights can help managers take appropriate decisions to improve buyer experience and thus expand their customer base.

An Extensive Framework of Customer-to-Customer Value Co-creation Practices: A Study in a Running Event Context

This study investigates customer-to-customer value co-creation practices by adopting a customer-dominant logic. Data were gathered through observations of 5 running events in Vietnam, interviews with 17 runners, and netnography. Fifty-four micro-practices at the individual-, group-, and community-level were identified, and an extensive framework differentiating four distinct practice-based circles (blurred, self-organizing, open, and integrated areas) was formed to delineate the entire phenomenon. By enriching the understanding of customer-to-customer value co-creation within the broader context of customers’ lifeworld, the study lays foundations to advance this stream of research and offers insights for providers to step into and support customer-to-customer value co-creation processes.

Enhancing customer value co-creation and stickiness in social commerce: integrating PLS-SEM and NCA for deeper insights into customer-to-customer dynamics

Social commerce(s-commerce), which emphasizes the predominance of customers, has become an important tool of company social marketing and provides new challenges to businesses in attracting customers. Based on customer-dominant logic theory, this study presents a model of the impact of electronic customer-to-customer interaction(eCCI) on customer stickiness with the mediation effect of customer value co-creation dimensions, specifically functional value and hedonic value in the s-commerce context and self-efficacy as a moderator in light of customer-dominant logic. This study adopted a survey method and obtained data from users in two s-commerce sites in China. The statistical technique of partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and the analytical process of necessary condition analysis (NCA) were employed to analyze the data. The PLS-SEM results indicate that eCCI influences customer value co-creation, which in turn affects the consumer stickiness of s-commerce sites.The moderated mediation results showed that self-efficacy moderated the relationship between eCCI and customer stickiness.The NCA results identified the eCCI is meaningful and significant necessary conditions for fostering customer value co-creation and customer stickiness. The combined findings demonstrated to researchers and practitioners how to identify the critical factor that influence customer value co-creation and customer stickiness. The study provides novel insights into the mechanism underlying why consumers “stick” to s-commerce websites. Furthermore, the moderated mediation model extended customer-dominant logic and demonstrated the moderating influence of self-efficacy. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Achieving Senior Tourists’ Active Aging Through Value Co–creation: A Customer-Dominant Logic Perspective

Senior tourists have their own travel behaviors and preferences and require specific resources from the tourism industry and the broader society. This study adopts customer-dominant logic to understand how participating in tourism activities can support seniors in co-creating values toward active aging. Interviews were conducted with 31 senior tourists and 16 tourism and hospitality service providers. Six value themes were identified from the interviews, namely, enjoyment, connectedness, mental vitality, independence, sense of belonging, and self-esteem. The six values were categorized into functional, social, and spiritual dimensions. A value co-creation nexus was developed with continuum- and development-oriented active aging as the two extremes. This nexus highlighted the differentiated efforts exerted by co-creators to create value and identified the value co-creation routines of stakeholders, their corresponding values, and their facilitators. Value co-creation activities were introduced into active aging with tourism as the context. The findings of this study can support the management of tourism services, promote inclusiveness in society, and aid in government policy making.

Influence of Customer Knowledge Management on Mobile Fitness Application Customer Value Cocreation Through Flow Experience and Customer Involvement

In order to promote the innovative development of mobile fitness APP, based on value cocreation theory of customer-dominant logic, this paper discusses how the customer knowledge management, flow experience and customer involvement affect customer value cocreation in mobile fitness APPs. This study used convenience sampling and structural equation modeling to test the relationship between variables from questionnaire. Results revealed that customer knowledge management significantly and positively affected customer flow experience and customer flow experience significantly and positively affected customer value cocreation. Customer flow experience played a partial mediating role in the relationship through which customer knowledge management affected customer value cocreation, and customer involvement played a moderating role in the relationship through which customer flow experience affected customer value cocreation. Moreover, the results indicated that customer involvement significantly and positively regulated the effect of customer flow experience attention focus on customer value cocreation. Customer involvement not moderates the effect of perceived enjoyment in customer flow experience on customer value cocreation. Therefore, mobile fitness app enterprises or service organizations must strengthen knowledge management in industrial chain innovation development for strengthening the relationship with customers. Moreover, they should ensure flow experience to strengthen the psychological connection with customers and promote value cocreation to strengthen the behavioral connection with customers. These enterprises should improve the level of involvement to strengthen the emotional connection with customers.

Co-creating family-inclusive leisure experiences: A study of Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu opera house

Art and culture have demonstrated benefits for children with disabilities, yet not everyone in this population has equal access to them. Families of children with disabilities (FwD) are as eager to take part in leisure activities as other families, but they are more likely to run into constraints that make it too difficult for them to follow through. To gain more insight into this, we examine a socially dense leisure experience using customer-dominant logic, focusing on 12 FwD’s attendance at a classical music performance. We explore the social practices involved in customer-to-customer (C2C) value co-creation and the resulting value outcomes, all of which are beyond the leisure provider’s control. Adopting a multi-method qualitative research approach in collaboration with Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu opera house, we identified three emergent invisible value factors beyond the leisure provider’s control and three hidden value outcomes.

Characterizing Ex situ Value: A Customer-Dominant Perspective on Value

Customer value, an important requirement for the success of tourism, is commonly seen as a phenomenon co-created between the tourist and the tourism provider. Positioned in the customer-dominant logic, this paper focuses on the tourist’s perspective and introduces the notion of ex situ value formed outside of the tourist-provider’s interaction and the on-site experiences. The forthcoming qualitative study, which is conducted in the context of an online travel community, explores customers’ travel-related experiences within their own lifeworld. The main contribution is the notion of ex situ value, which involves individual and collective experiences and develops a nuanced view of value emerging in customers’ experiential lifeworld. Thus, the article invites researchers to expand the boundaries of value into the customer lifeworld domain and encourages tourism providers to consider the tourists’ contexts outside the standard measurements of value (tourist and provider interactions as well as on-site experiences) as sources of customer value.

Co-creating emotional value in a guided tour experience: the interplay among guide’s emotional labour and tourists’ emotional intelligence and participation

ABSTRACT The aim of this research is to delineate the co-creation of emotional value in a guided tour experience from a customer-dominant logic perspective by exploring the interactions among tour guides’ emotional labour, tourists’ emotional intelligence and emotional participation. Two theoretically plausible roles of tourists’ emotional intelligence are examined: (1) antecedent of emotional participation and (2) moderator of the relationship between guide’s emotional labour and tourists’ emotional participation. The structural models were tested on a sample of 270 tourists participating in a guided tour in Valencia, a city on the eastern Mediterranean coast of Spain. The results confirmed the expected emotional contagion effect between tour guide’s emotional labour and tour members’ emotional participation. The research also provided empirical evidence of the direct impact of tourists’ emotional intelligence on emotional participation, thus supporting the antecedent role of the construct and not its theorized moderating effect. The findings emphasize the dyadic nature of the emotional value creation in a guided tour experience and challenge the traditional view that its success is only dependent on the service provider’s (i.e. tour guide) emotional skills.

Exploring Adoption and Satisfaction with Self-Service Health Technology in Older Age: Perspectives of Healthcare Professionals and Older People

(1) Background. A range of self-service technologies (SST) have been adapted to support the health of older people. Factors involved in older people’s and health professionals’ perceptions of SST in older age were investigated. (2) Methods. Customer Dominant Logic guided this prospective mixed-methods study, including surveys with people 70 years and over and health professionals and individual semi-structured interviews in a sample of survey respondents. Survey data were descriptively analysed, while interview themes were derived inductively. (3) Results. Surveyed (n = 12) people 70 years and over placed higher value, expressed more positive user experience, were more satisfied and had greater recognition of the benefits of SST, compared with (n = 10) health professionals (p = 0.001), who considered them to be inferior to traditional healthcare. All seven interviewees agreed that despite accessibility issues and complexity, they valued SST support of older people’s health, thereby confirming the relevance of Customer Dominant Logic in SST offerings. (4) Conclusions. Since older participants were positive and satisfied in using SSTs that are health-supporting, health professionals have a role in encouraging and assisting older people in their use. This requires targeted SST education for health professionals, and more accessible, user-friendly SST and technological support for older people.

Embodied knowledge in customer experience: reflections on yoga

ABSTRACT This article focuses on embodied knowledge in customer experience. The study draws from literature on embodiment within sociology, consumption, organizational, and management studies, where the active and skillful role of the human body is acknowledged. Based on an autoethnographic study of online and offline yoga services, I identify five dimensions representing how the knowing body enables customer experiences to evolve: knowing the body as situational, physical, social, affective, and transformative. The embodied approach advances current customer-dominant logic studies within service research by highlighting how the active, holistic involvement of the human body allows the customer to engage in the experience.

Elucidating Relational Dynamics between Experiential Value and Customer Engagement: A Customer-Dominant Logic Approach

Elucidating Relational Dynamics between Experiential Value and Customer Engagement: A Customer-Dominant Logic Approach

Value cocreation research in tourism and hospitality: a comparative bibliometric analysis

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to present a holistic review of journal articles on value cocreation in the tourism and hospitality field. By distinguishing similarities and differences in the contexts of China and other regions, the authors identify targeted research directions.Design/methodology/approachThis study collected 438 English articles and 31 Chinese articles on value cocreation in tourism and hospitality published in the Web of Science, Scopus and China National Knowledge Infrastructure online databases. After analyzing the study location of all articles in the sample, the authors identified 79 English-language articles that adopted China as the context of the study. The first data set included non-China-focused publications and the second data set included China-focused publications. A comparative bibliometric methodology was conducted.FindingsThe results indicate similarities and differences between the two data sets in terms of research methods, topics and future research directions. Seven major concepts were identified in the first data set: hospitality value cocreation; the value generation process; key stakeholders; outcome variables; the application of service-dominant logic; peer-to-peer accommodation and destination management. Four research focuses were identified in the second data set: the application of customer-dominant logic; the value generation process; resource integration and the cocreation experience.Research limitations/implicationsThis research contributes to the understanding of tourism and hospitality cocreation systems through literature analysis and encourages future research on the nexus of the Chinese and global contexts. This systematic investigation extends the concept of value cocreation by integrating its implementation process and value categories and further evaluates the consequences and benefits of value cocreation, which helps clarify how winners and losers can adjust their strategies accordingly.Originality/valueThe originality of this paper lies in the adopted comparative bibliometric analysis which comprehensively reviewed and compared the characteristics of value cocreation research across two contexts. In addition, the study dialectically assesses Chinese tourism cocreation phenomena and their impacts from a global perspective.

Effect of customer involvement on co-creation of services: A moderated mediation model

The study explored the influence of customer involvement on co-creation directly and indirectly through three customer engagement dimensions, namely identification, interaction, and absorption from lens of customer-dominant logic and stimulus-organism-response framework. Data were collected from 211 Chinese service customers in Hong Kong. Results of IBM SPSS PROCESS models showed that customer involvement influenced co-creation directly and indirectly through absorption and interaction, but not identification. Customer involvement was found to exert a greater impact on co-creation of services for those with a high rather than low relation orientation. Thus, service providers should utilize mass media effectively to arouse customers’ feelings of relevance and important of services to them. They should also interact with customers continuously through social media that can be enhanced by various kinds of immersion technology.

Financial well-being of customer-to-customer co-creation experience: a comparative qualitative focus group study of savings/credit groups

PurposeThis paper aims to explore the effects of the customer-to-customer co-creation experiences of savings/credit groups in the African context and how savings/credit groups influence financial capability and enhance financial well-being.Design/methodology/approachUsing purposive sampling, a study of a total of 18 focus groups was conducted in sub-Saharan Africa. Nine urban-based savings/credit groups were drawn from across South Africa and additional nine, rural-based savings/credit groups were studied in the Monduli district of Tanzania.FindingsFindings demonstrate that the African philosophy of Ubuntu, which promotes customer-to-customer interaction, is the cornerstone of the customer-to-customer co-creation experience. Ubuntu philosophical principles were found to influence the dialogue, access, risk and transparency model of co-creation and customer-dominant logic. The results show further that customer-to-customer co-creation experience positively influences the cognitive, financial, personal and social experiences of members. Specifically, it was found that cognitive and financial experiences positively influence financial satisfaction, financial self-esteem, financial self-efficacy and financial capability, all of which enhance financial well-being. In addition, personal and social experiences positively influence equality, self-confidence, entrepreneurial skills and motivation that in turn enhance social well-being.Research limitations/implicationsThis study has implications for many different stakeholders concerned with the financial inclusion of low-income consumers, particularly in the southern part of Africa.Originality/valueTo the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore the effects of customer-to-customer co-creation experiences in traditional financial services settings in order to understand how these indigenous financial services influence the financial capability and financial well-being of co-creation members.

CUSTOMER DOMINANT LOGIC (CDL): FEATURES OF SUPPLIER INVOLVEMENT IN CUSTOMER ECOSYSTEMS IN E-COMMERCE

In the conditions of the active development of the digital economy and the emergence of new marketing approaches, the determination of the features of the involvement of suppliers in consumer ecosystems based on the customer dominant logic (CDL) is the starting point for the use of this logic in e-commerce and an actual direction of scientific, theoretical and practical research. The purpose of this study is to determine the features of the involvement of suppliers in customer ecosystems in e-commerce based on CDL. The theoretical and methodological basis of the research is modern scientific concepts, theoretical developments of leading domestic and foreign scientists regarding their essence, possibilities and features of their use in electronic commerce. The method of theoretical generalization, and logical analysis and the graphic method were used. The conducted research made it possible to obtain the following results: firstly, the author substantiated the use by companies of indicators characterizing thoughts, emotions, experience and possible models of customer relationships while auditing content and promoting products in social networks. Unlike the existing approach, which is based on the traditional account analysis metrics, this one will enable companies to gain real-time information about how, where and when a customer orders a product, what they want and who they are, and become an element of their ecosystem. Considering the fact that different companies use different types of logic (goods dominant logic (GDL), maintenance dominant logic (SL) and service dominant logic (SDL)), this work offers to distinguish two groups of indicators of content audit and promotion - specific and general - which will give companies a reason to focus on indicators that are more significant for them. Secondly, the article proposes the involvement of suppliers in customer ecosystems based on the assessment of business clients using the methodology of auditing the activities of the main competitors in social networks, which will make it possible to significantly simplify the company’s entry into client ecosystems. The results of the given research can be useful for companies seeking to establish long-term and effective relationships with customers based on the introduction of new marketing approaches and technologies.

C2C co-creation of inclusive tourism experiences for customers with disability in a shared heritage context experience

ABSTRACT This study explores customer-to-customer (C2C) social co-creation practices in tourism when customers with and without disability share a heritage service environment. Despite a growing prevalence of heritage- and disability-related research in the tourism literature, few scholars have examined the phenomena from the emergent customer-dominant logic (CDL) perspective. This study makes empirical use of the perceptions of customers with disabilities (CwD) in a recent process of co-creation of CDL within the context of heritage sites through qualitative ethnographic techniques, interviews and observation methods. A sample of 125 individuals with and without disabilities participated in the fieldwork. The objective was to identify C2C social practices that occur among CwD and their related value, leading to either inclusion or exclusion. The results reveal the importance of focusing on C2C co-creation opportunities which create a value outcome. This paper provides heritage managers with clear guidance for creating inclusive and enabling servicescapes.

Assessing the influence of goal pursuit and emotional attachment on customer engagement behaviors

This study draws on customer-dominant logic and self-expansion theory to examine the drivers of customer engagement behaviors in the context of emerging online interest communities. The engagement behaviors seen in online communities are operationalized into four types: augmenting, co-developing, influencing, and mobilizing. Goal pursuit (gratifying-the-self, enabling-the-self, and enriching-the-self) and emotional attachment to the community are found to be the key antecedent factors of these behaviors. The attainment of gratifying-the-self has a direct influence on these behaviors, whereas the attainment of enabling-the-self and enriching-the-self influences them via emotional attachment to the community.

The effects of customer involvement on perceived service performance and word-of-mouth: the mediating role of service co-creation

PurposeThis study aims to use the framework of customer dominant logic to explore the mediating role of service co-creation on the relationships between customer involvement and perceived service performance and between customer involvement and word-of-mouth (WOM). It also investigates the moderating role of customer relational-motivational orientation on the relationship between customer involvement and service co-creation.Design/methodology/approachA questionnaire survey was conducted to collect responses from 289 Hong Kong's customers in different service settings. Structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed research model.FindingsThe results of structural equation modeling showed that the freedom of co-creation and the degree of collaboration fully mediated the effect of customer involvement on perceived service performance and WOM. Additionally, relational-motivational orientation moderated the relationships between customer involvement and the freedom of co-creation and between customer involvement and the degree of collaboration.Practical implicationsThis research provides implications to managers on how to facilitate an environment that stimulates customer co-creation. Customer-contact employees must be trained with the necessary interpersonal skills to serve customers with different levels of relational-motivational orientation.Originality/valueThe study is one of the first to identify customer involvement as a key antecedent of service co-creation attributes and the moderating role of relational-motivational orientation on the relationships between customer involvement and service co-creation attributes.

Building brand loyalty and endorsement with brand pages: integration of the lens of affordance and customer-dominant logic

PurposeNumerous companies have launched brand pages (BPs) on social networking sites to enhance customer-brand communication, cultivate the customer-brand relationship and promote brand loyalty. This study aims to investigate how BP affordances support social commerce.Design/methodology/approachThe study devises a theoretical model linking the proposed BP affordances (visibility, selectivity, persistence and interactivity) to three customer values (relationship quality, brand experience and smart shopping feeling [SSF]) to encourage brand loyalty and BP endorsement on the part of the customer.FindingsData collected from 591 respondents support all proposed hypotheses. The model explains high variances in brand loyalty and BP endorsement, indicating that relationship quality plays a more salient role in producing brand loyalty, while SSF plays a more important role in eliciting BP endorsement.Originality/valueThe study is unique in four ways. First, drawing on the lens of affordance, it proposes specific affordances for BPs and offers empirical results for their applicability. Second, by incorporating CDL into the research model, it illuminates the high explanatory power of these proposed BP affordances on the three customer values. Integrating the S-O-R model with the affordance perspective and CDL provides a more complete picture of the BP phenomenon. Third, it extends the reach of existing work by examining BP endorsement in social media as a dependent variable beyond brand loyalty, with SSF included as another source of values to shed more light on the relationships depicted in the model. Fourth, by taking trait competitiveness into account, it sheds further light on relationships between customer values and BP endorsement.

Value co-creation in service marketing: A critical (re)view

The present study critically explores and discusses the concept of value co-creation as revealed and recognized in the research streams that have formed the conceptual basis for the construct: service-dominant logic, service logic, and customer-dominant logic. The study is positioned within critical hermeneutics; thus, a hermeneutic review strategy is applied and the subsequent critical discussion is inspired by a Habermasian understanding of society as composed of a system and lifeworld. The findings of the study are twofold; they reveal how different underlying assumptions frame the perception of the unit of analysis when focusing on value co-creation and how that the relocation of the locus of value creation from the company to the customer sphere hides that value is an economic concept in service marketing research. Moreover, the analysis reveals that in services market research, the concept of value co-creation in a company is applied to analyze the customer domain. This dimension has not received much academic attention despite that the existing concept might be applicable neither analytically nor empirically. Extant literature on value co-creation acknowledges that the meaning of the concept is still obscure. The present study therefore contributes to literature with a refined conceptual understanding of how the underlying perceptions of the concept lead to different analytical foci in existing research and by identifying questions for further research. Moreover, the review and the discussion are based within a hermeneutic paradigm and contribute as such with a rarely applied review methodology within the field of service marketing.