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This article serves as an introduction to a special section on 'Extending Service-dominant Logic', which includes articles developed from manuscripts presented at the Forum on Markets and Marketing held in Sydney, Australia. This special section is, in turn, part of a combined 'special issue', with related articles published in the Australasian Marketing Journal, the European Journal of Marketing, and the Journal of Macromarketing. Together with the articles in these journals, the four articles presented here move S-D logic closer to a theory of the market and marketing by further connecting conceptual dots and exploring the role of theory in relation to S-D logic, and S-D logic in relation to theoretical orientations.

This commentary uses the Customer Integration—Facilities, Transformation, Use (CI-FTU) framework of Moeller as a platform for discussing two nested challenges in the development of service-dominant (S-D) logic. The first is the potency of the traditional, goods-dominant (G-D) logic paradigm, including the pitfalls of using its lexicon for describing a transcending logic. The second is the related need to develop a broader perspective for understanding value creation than is apparent in traditional conceptualizations or in the CI-FTU conceptualization. In addition, the challenge of isolating S-D logic in its rapid evolution beyond G-D logic is discussed.

Marketing science is built on a foundation of economic science, which in turn is founded on Adam Smith's normative notions of how to create national wealth in the context of industrialization, rather than on a positive theory of economic exchange. This paper explores the formation of economic theory, discuss its role as a foundation for marketing theory, suggest the need for a positive theory of the market that is relatively independent of economic theory, and point towards a possible path for its development.

Triads examine the associations among three actors, involving, at a minimum, the analysis of two dyadic ties among three interrelated actors. By making apparent the indirect ties bearing on actors, the triad is the smallest unit of analysis for a network. Despite extensive conceptual and empirical work, little systematic attention is given to the triad in the marketing literature. This article reviews literature spanning multiple academic disciplines and makes three contributions. First, it provides an overview of the triad concept combining sociological insights with more recent work emerging in operations management and marketing. Second, the article identifies three distinct forms of triadic relationships in existing literature: (1) brokerage, focused on the action of the third between two others; (2) mediation, describing different mechanisms by which a dyadic relationship affects and is affected by a relationship with a third party; and (3) coalition, capturing the configuration and evolution of ties in the three-actor system as a whole. Finally, this article develops an initial research agenda for triadic marketing research.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to propose and elaborate on a service‐dominant‐logic‐based conceptualization of relationship that transcends traditional conceptualizations.Design/methodology/approachThe paper consists of a review of traditional conceptualizations of relationship, a review of service‐dominant logic foundational premises that are useful in reframing the concept, and supporting views from the institutional economics and business ecosystems literature.FindingsA transcending, service‐dominant‐logic‐based conceptualization of relationship as a general term representing the network‐with‐and‐within‐network nature of value creation, with transactions as "temporal isolates" of relationships is suggested.Originality/valueThis higher‐order conceptualization of relationship provides a foundation for better understanding the role of relationship in value creation, as well as its correspondence to transactions and products.

Value creation, both its nature and scope, can be better and more accurately understood by inverting six characteristics of goods-dominant logic, or what is also known as "old enterprise logic" or "neoclassical economics," into a service-dominant-informed perspective. These six inversions include (1) entrepreneurship and the view that value creation is an unfolding, emergent process seen as superordinate to management, (2) effectual processes understood as primary in relation to predictive processes and better for informing actors about the interactive, resource-integrating, collaborate nature of value creation, (3) marketing being fundamental to value creation and taking primacy over manufacturing, (4) innovation as more fundamental to, and descriptive of, value creation than invention, (5) a focus on effectiveness as captured by value in use and value in context for beneficial actors taking precedence over efficiency, which is inherently a firm-centric lens, and finally (6) the the predominant reliance on heuristics rather than rational, calculative decision making.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of context in service provision and, more broadly, in market co-creation. We oscillate foci from an individual actor at the micro level to a market at the macro level to make the scaleable influence of context more salient. This reveals the meso level, which is nestled between the micro and macro levels. We discuss how these market levels influence one another. We conceptualize markets as simultaneous, continuous exchanges that are bounded by each of these levels of context.

As one of its own foundational premises implies, the value of service-dominant (S-D) logic is necessarily in its open, collaborative effort. Thus, the authors invite and welcome both elaborative and critical viewpoints. Five recurring, contentious issues among collaborating scholars, as they attempt to understand the full nature and scope of S-D logic, are identified. These issues are clarified and refined, as is appropriate to this co-creation of a service-centric philosophy by the worldwide marketing community.

Marketing was originally built on a goods-centered, manufacturing-based model of economic exchange developed during the Industrial Revolution. Since its beginning, marketing has been broadening its perspective to include the exchange of more than manufactured goods. The subdiscipline of service marketing has emerged to address much of this broadened perspective, but it is built on the same goods and manufacturing-based model. The influence of this model is evident in the prototypical characteristics that have been identified as distinguishing services from goods—intangibility, inseparability, heterogeneity, and perishability. The authors argue that these characteristics (a) do not distinguish services from goods, (b) only have meaning from a manufacturing perspective, and (c) imply inappropriate normative strategies. They suggest that advances made by service scholars can provide a foundation for a more service-dominant view of all exchange from which more appropriate normative strategies can be developed for all of marketing.

Globally a new wave of retailers are threatening the viability of many wholesalers, especially smaller more vulnerable wholesale distributors, as these new wave retailers aggressively compete for the business customer. To better understand this new form of competition, a theoretical model is developed from the organizational buyer behavior literature to explain the relative patronage preferences of business customers for wholesale‐distributors as a supply source versus two types of multiplex retailers ‐ warehouse home centers and office supply superstores. The model, previously untested in the business‐to‐business literature, postulates that business buyers select supply sources based on a "total value of purchasing" criterion. The total value is a function of price and the perceived costs associated with credit services, product‐acquisition services, and risk‐reduction services. The model is empirically tested in both an office supply superstore and warehouse home center setting with survey research conducted in six cities in the USA. Substantial empirical support, with the exception of the credit component, is obtained for the model.