Talk
Shared outcomes in value co-creation processes: a case in mobile phone industry
João Menezes (Menezes, J.);
Event Title
"Operations Management at the Heart of the Recovery"
Year (definitive publication)
2013
Language
English
Country
Ireland
More Information
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of shared outcomes as the mechanism for firms to guarantee demand supply adaptation in value co-creation processes. It is considered that it is through the use and during the usage that value emerges or is created, implying that it is the user in a specific context who creates value, applying resources to generate processes and outcomes (Grönroos and Voima 2011). If the customer is the value creator, sometimes he needs the provider´s support to generate value proposals to accomplish value. In that sense, he generates opportunities to engage the provider in a co-creation of value (Vargo and Lush 2008) and as a facilitator to the value formation (Grönroos and Voima 2011). As value is experienced in the beneficiary use, the provider only can have access to the process of value co-creation if he directly or indirectly shares the user outcomes. This resource integration in relationships as a base to value co-creation was also addressed by Prahalad and Krishnan (2008) in the business ecosystems concept. This concept must be seen in terms of customers and suppliers networks, where both actors are simultaneously providers and beneficiaries. In the same direction Wieland et al. (2012) conceptualize service ecosystem as a dynamic and open system. Business ecosystems have also been characterized by Maglio et al. (2009) as organizational systems where actors interact to co-evolve capabilities and skills around a platform. In this sense, it is clear that the greater the number of direct interactions between the firm and the customer to co-create value, the greater the influence on the present and future behavior of both. What is not so obvious, and as such configures our research problem, is how, particularly in disruptive industrial situations, both parties perceive the impact of the necessary future adjustments and act upon the processes of value creation in order to adapt these challenges. The paper analyses a problem of a European mobile phone player concerning imaging components. The firm acts upon global outsourcing networks, well known for their agility and alignment, having had two different and nonexclusive suppliers for these specific modules. The unexpected increase in middle class income in several BRIC countries led to the need of the OEM, faced with possible customers losses to the competition, to respond with more mid-range smartphones availability. The suppliers had different modules upon the same setup, but obviously the production was concentrated in the most recent, with better technological performance. Soon it was concluded that the only possibility to get an on-time solution was to work with the more recent versions of the camera modules, but unfortunately these latest releases were only directly compatible with high-end android phones, which forced a painful and costly reset of hardware and software platforms. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based in a single case study and has both inductive and deductive characteristics. The combination of theoretical and empirical insights is justified to make sense of the empirical realities, since the researchers had no control over the narratives considered and the study reveals complex configurations of events and structures embedded in temporal contexts (Dubois and Araujo, 2007).The relationships addressed were long-term and project-oriented outsourcing contracts. Most data was extracted during 2011, from managers narratives belonging to the two dyads involved, using both narratives inquiry technique and critical events. Workshops, in a triangulation process, were held with industry experts to confirm the study boundaries and scope and define the critical events that shaped relationship development within the industry. Findings We observe that concepts using expressions as added value, supply agility, alignment demand–supply, share future demand information, could not accurately explain the phenomenon of value creation in industrial markets as Tokman and Beitelspacher (2011) had also mentioned, but we also find that it is not suffice to firms to have access and create direct interactions with their customers to influence the customer´s value creation and hinder value destruction. Indeed, without sharing future goals, consequences, opportunities and threats jointly in common temporal and spatial dependencies, it is difficult to build successful solutions. Our analysis presents several generic attributes that are essential for the capability to access value-in-use in these common spaces. Relevance/contribution The paper will contribute to increase knowledge about how firms co-create value in industrial environments and combine three streams of literature, service systems, value co-creation and supply networks, approaching a research gap in value creation at a network level from the lens of the supply side. We introduce the shared outcomes concept, as interdependent and co-evolving spaces but not fixed in advance by previous interactions, where firms act upon future joint co-creation processes References Dubois, A. and Araujo, L. (2007), “Case Research in Purchasing and Supply Management: Opportunities and Challenges”, Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management, Vol. 13 No. 3, pp. 170-181. Grönroos, C. and Voima, P. (2011), “Making sense of value and value co-creation in service logic”.Working paper, No. 559, Hanken School of Economics. Maglio, P.P., Vargo, S.L., Caswell, N. and Spohrer, J. (2009),“The service system is the basic abstrac¬tion of service science”, Information Systems and E-Business Management, Vol. 7 No. 4, pp. 395-406. Prahalad, C. K., and Krishnan, M. S. (2008), The new age of innovation: Driving cocreated value through global networks, McGraw Hill, New York. Tokman, M. and Beitelspacher, L.S. (2011) "Supply chain networks and service-dominant logic: suggestions for future research", International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, Vol. 41 No. 7, pp.717 – 726. VargoS.L. and Lusch, R.F. (2008), “Service-dominant logic: continuing the evolution”, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 36 No. 1, pp. 1-10. Wieland, H., Polese, F., Vargo, Vargo, S.L. and Lusch, R.F. (2012), “Toward a Service (Eco)Systems Perspective on Value Creation”, International Journal of Service Science, Management, Engineering, and Technology, Vol. 3 No. 3, pp. 12-25.
Acknowledgements
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Keywords
Managing Inter-firm Relationships in Supply Chains; Supply Network Design; Supply Chain Management