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This article develops a new model depicting how organizations can help customers test out and experience a service prior to purchase and consumption or use. When customers buy a new car, for instance, they are allowed to test-drive it to get the feel of it. When customers wish to purchase services, it can be more difficult to provide customers with a "test drive." In some service situations, service organizations can and do provide "test drives," but it is suggested that such experiences take place in a simulated setting. This article introduces the notion of hyperreality, the simulated reality of a service experience. It also introduces the concept of the "experience room," the place where the simulated experience takes place. Based on the existing literature, the authors apply six dimensions of experience rooms to demonstrate how organizations can cocreate value, in conjunction with the customer, through hyperreality in a preservice experience.

This article examines the transformation of service systems through actors' resource integration and value cocreation in contention. It is based on a netnographic study focusing on the use of information and communications technology (ICT) tools by online activists during the "Arab Spring." The transformation of service systems is conceptualized on the basis of existing service research and on the theory of strategic action fields. Focusing on Syria, the findings suggest that activists transformed four interdependent service systems—the media, the social movement, health care, and the financial service systems—during the Arab Spring by means of integrating resources and cocreating value within several ICT tools. A key contribution to transformative service research is the fact that the positive transformation of service systems derives from the conflict between two types of actors, namely, incumbents and challengers. This article also contributes to our knowledge of triggers of service system transformation, what motivates actors to transform service systems, how service system transformation is enabled by actors' integration and use of ICT tools serving as opportunity spaces, and the transformative roles actors adopt. In addition, this article contributes to the conceptualization of service systems and to the understanding of resource integration and value cocreation.

A new trend seems to be emerging for multinational manufacturing companies to make a strategic reorientation into becoming service providers. For some companies, such as Kone and IBM, the revenues from services are 50% or more of their total sales. Despite the increasing interest in exploring various aspects of the service part of the business in manufacturing companies, existing research has not focused on the interdependencies between different service strategies and organizational designs. This article studies different service strategies in manufacturing companies and highlights the organizational design necessary for implementing each service strategy. The service strategies explored are aftersales service providers, customer support service providers, outsourcing partners, and development partners. Each service strategy is supported by organizational design factors related to the service orientation of corporate culture, the service orientation of human resource management, and the service orientation of organizational structures. This research concludes that a specific strategy-structure configuration is needed in order to succeed with a chosen service strategy.

It is clearly recognized that service providers often have an incomplete and fragmentary understanding of their customers' relationship behaviors. Although it is clear that this incomplete understanding has serious implications for customer relationship management, and might even constitute a strategic risk, there have been no explicit attempts to analyze the phenomenon. The authors therefore introduce and develop the concept of the blind spot as a metaphor referring to situations where a service provider's visual field is obscured. The authors examine the phenomenon of blind spots in a temporal and a relational context, determine their consequences, and outline the implications for customer relationship management. A number of blind spot scenarios are presented in order to illustrate how blind spots obstruct the service provider's ability to make correct interpretations of customer relationships, and thereby also correct estimations of relationship stability. The conceptualization of blind spots as outlined in this article sheds light on the underlying mechanisms that drive customer behavior in terms of relationship stability and hence offers a deeper understanding of the dynamic nature of customer relationships. From a managerial point of view, proper monitoring systems and routines for analyzing relevant customer information play essential roles in understanding and managing blind spots.

PurposeThis research aims to understand the relationship among Intellectual Capital (IC), Service Dominant Orientation (SD-Orientation) and firms performance.Design/methodology/approachA model conceptualizing the relationship among the three constructs was tested through structural equation modelling on a sample of 101 firms from SABI Spanish database.FindingsThe results confirm the influence of IC, in all of its dimensions, on SD-Orientation and of SD-orientation on performance. Furthermore, the results show that SD- Orientation fully mediates the relationship between IC and performance, except for relational capital that by itself also directly influences financial performance.Research limitations/implicationsData is limited to a sample of only one country and 101 services firms. Therefore, future studies should be carried out with samples from other countries.Practical implicationsThe main results show HC, relational capital and SC are a great influence and antecedent on SD-Orientation, therefore, as an implication, firms need to take care of the several components (human, structural and social) of IC in order to become more service oriented, something that will allow them to achieve a better performance.Originality/valueUntil know there was no other study testing the influence of IC on SD-Orientation, therefore this study contributes to understand SD-orientation and the necessary resources to operationalize it, including the links to financial performance.

Resource integration has become an important concept in marketing literature. However, little is known about the systemic nature of resource integration and the ways the activities of resource integrators are coordinated and adjusted to each other. Therefore, we claim that institutions are the coordinating link that have impact on value cocreation efforts and are the reference base for customers' value assessment. When conceptualizing the systemic nature of resource integration, we include the regulative, normative, and cognitive institutions and institutional logics. This article provides a framework and a structure for identifying and analyzing the influence of institutional logics on resource integration in service systems.

While service design has been highlighted as a promising approach for driving innovation, there are often struggles in realizing lasting change in practice. The issues with long-term implementation reveal a reductionist view of service design that ignores the institutional arrangements and other interdependencies that influence design efforts within multi-actor service systems. The purpose of this article is to build a systemic understanding of service design to inform actors' efforts aimed at intentional, long-term change in service systems. To achieve this aim, we inform the conceptual building blocks of service design by applying service-dominant logic's service ecosystems perspective. Through this process, we develop four core propositions and a multilevel process model of service ecosystem design. The conceptualization of service ecosystem design advances service design theory by illuminating previously taken for granted aspects; explaining how intentional, long-term change emerges; and expanding the scope of service design beyond projects. Furthermore, this research offers a foundation for future research on service design that involves extending the systemic conceptualization of service design, conducting more holistic empirical investigations, and developing practical methods and approaches for the embedded, collective processes of designing.

While service design has been highlighted as a promising approach for driving innovation, there are often struggles in realizing lasting change in practice. The issues with long-term implementation reveal a reductionist view of service design that ignores the institutional arrangements and other interdependencies that influence design efforts within multi-actor service systems. The purpose of this article is to build a systemic understanding of service design to inform actors' efforts aimed at intentional, long-term change in service systems. To achieve this aim, we inform the conceptual building blocks of service design by applying service-dominant logic's service ecosystems perspective. Through this process, we develop four core propositions and a multilevel process model of service ecosystem design . The conceptualization of service ecosystem design advances service design theory by illuminating previously taken for granted aspects; explaining how intentional, long-term change emerges; and expanding the scope of service design beyond projects. Furthermore, this research offers a foundation for future research on service design that involves extending the systemic conceptualization of service design, conducting more holistic empirical investigations, and developing practical methods and approaches for the embedded, collective processes of designing.