The Interactive Approach to Exploring Value Co-Creation

Introduction

There is a general understanding among researchers who focus on S-D logic that the service provision domain is best described as an interaction. This chapter seeks to present, illustrate, and evaluate theoretical frameworks and research tools that are pertinent to such a study. It commences with a brief review of two fundamental social theories that are used to explore human interactions: Symbolic Interactionism (SI) and Social Exchange Theory (SET). It continues with a review of the interactive aspect of helping-behavior research in order to illustrate how the interactive approach is used to explore a specific research domain. It then presents a review of the interactive dimensions of Service-Dominant logic (S-D logic), including the formulation of some modifications of its fundamental premises that reflect the interactive approach to service. The next stage entails linking the interactive approach to the construct of value co-creation and elaborating on its meaning through the lenses of SI and SET. The differences between exploring value co-creation via SI and SET are then presented and compared. The chapter concludes with a review of the latest literature on value co-creation in order to evaluate which approach is more suitable.