The idea of conceptualizing services as a type of discrete entity that are different from goods provided the initial conceptual foundation of service research. Today, this foundation has been denounced and replaced by the service-dominant logic (SDL), which suggests that service is a logic reffering to how resources are integrated by actors in order to cocreate value-in-use. However, researchers and practitioners still commonly refer to services as a type of discrete entity. To facilitate the understanding of services, this paper develops a services-as-practices (SaP) framework consisting of six propositions. Key to the SaP framework is the fact that services are conceptualized as bundles of value cocreation practices (VCPs). These VCPs are organized and recurring activities that are intended to cocreate value, but they can also codestroy (i.e., diminish) value when performed. The SaP framework contributes to service research by developing: (1) a novel conceptualization of services that realizes the long-lasting opportunity to understand services-as-activities, (2) a novel conceptualization of value that aligns theoretically with this understanding of services, and (3) the service research discipline as a whole. The latter contribution is accomplished by revising the notion of services as a type of discrete entity in such a way that a fruitful alternative perspective to focusing on service as a logic along the lines of the SDL is achieved. The SaP framework also provides practitioners with a novel perspective as regards understanding, managing, and developing services.

PurposeThis paper aims to enhance the understanding of circular service innovation through a practice theory perspective. It addresses the following research question: How can circular service innovation be understood and conceptualised using a practice theory-based approach?Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses a six-year longitudinal analysis of the service Refill's development within a larger ecosystem involving multiple actors, including the focal firm, customers, distributors and designers.FindingsThis paper identifies the value co-creation practices (VCPs) underpinning both the circular Refill service and the linear service it replaces, detailing their transformation in the shift from linear to circular. This transition is driven by changes in the elements that organise practices - procedures, understandings, engagements and materials - and is captured in a theoretically grounded typology of circular VCPs: regenerative making, adaptive providing, looped exchanging and stewardly using.Research limitations/implicationsThe proposed framework contributes to the literature by illustrating circular service innovation as a transformation of VCPs. It further highlights the role of organising elements in shaping these innovations.Practical implicationsThis paper provides managers with a blueprint for how circular service innovation involves the transformation of VCPs. Furthermore, the proposed framework highlights the need to redefine the organising elements of VCPs to achieve circularity, including engagements, understandings, procedures and materials.Originality/valueThis paper offers an original contribution by conceptualising circular service innovation through the lens of practice theory, articulated in a dedicated framework.

Value co-creation (VCC) in public service provision has become increasingly influential in public administration and management research and practice, although empirical research reflecting on its proposed benefits is lacking. We address this lacuna through a study of social insurance services in Sweden. The findings are analysed based on the literature on VCC and by drawing on research carried out in the private sector, which suggests that exploitative consumer work ensues when citizens engage in service provision. The results show that public service provision entails a mix of VCC and consumer work with an emphasis on the latter.

This article examines field-level processes that condition actors' efforts to mobilize collective strategic action for institutional change in markets, showing how such efforts may unsettle existing arrangements while simultaneously laying the groundwork for new ones. Drawing on strategic action field theory, we analyze the transformation of the recorded music market from physical records to online streaming in the early 2000s. Conceptualizing markets as configurations of interconnected fields, we develop a process model of inter-field dynamics demonstrating how exogenous shocks in proximate fields reconfigure power relations and enable coordinated action. Our analysis traces how collective mobilization destabilized incumbent structures, how struggles over legitimacy facilitated organizational appropriation of emerging practices, and how temporary settlements consolidated a new market infrastructure. We contribute to macromarketing theory by specifying the mechanisms through which market-shaping unfolds across interconnected fields and by explaining why disruption often culminates in settlements that re-stabilize, rather than displace, incumbent power.

Despite the importance of public services, a sound conceptualization of what they are is lacking. Following an analysis of research on public service logic, public value and practices, this paper proposes a public services as practices framework. This framework defines public services as bundles of shared public value co-creation practices that consists of templates and performances. While templates are designed to co-create public and private value, these types of value can be both co-created and co-destroyed during performances. The framework contributes by conceptualizing what public services are and how public and private value are co-created and co-destroyed through public services.

In this study, the strategy-as-practice (SAP) perspective was adopted to gain a deeper understanding of how servitization is realized and unrealized through everyday micro-level activities. Three concepts that help understand servitization at the everyday micro-level were identified: (1) servitization practices, i.e. the instructions or templates that practitioners use to engage in servitization; (2) servitization practitioners, i.e. the individuals who are involved in concrete servitization work; and (3) servitization praxis, i.e. the actual activities performed. By applying these concepts to an empirical study of two manufacturing firms, this research makes three contributions to the servitization literature. First, it shows that the concepts of servitization practices, practitioners, and praxis can effectively guide future research on servitization through everyday micro-level activities. Second, it identifies specific servitization practices, practitioners, and praxis. Third, it develops a framework that describes how servitization is realized and unrealized on the everyday activity micro-level from an SAP perspective. On the basis of these contributions, propositions are put forward, and managerial implications are outlined. 

In this paper, strategic action field theory and public value theory are utilized to develop knowledge about conflicts over public value in public service ecosystems (PSEs), with disabled people’s striving for independent living serving as an illustration. Five propositions are developed to show how conflicts in PSEs i) are centred around public value, ii) occur between incumbents and challengers, iii) implicate social skills, iv) are triggered by exogenous shocks, and v) eventually settle. This paper also responds to calls for research on theory building about PSEs by integrating public value with public service logic (PSL) and conceptualizing power in PSL.

PurposeIn this study, we applied the strategy-as-practice (SAP) framework to analyse strategic communication practices. SAP implies approaching strategy as something that organisational members do and is useful for understanding the tensions between emergence and formalisation and between planning and improvisation that characterise the everyday communication work of communication practitioners.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on an ethnographic study of a record company and on qualitative interviews with various actors from the music industry.FindingsTensions exist between the emergence of inputs from active consumers that require flexibility and attempts to strategically formalise and continuously adapt plans and encourage consumers to act in anticipated ways. The findings revealed five strategic communication practices-meetings, working in the office, gathering and analysing consumer engagement and related data, collaboration and storytelling-that practitioners used to conduct strategic communication and navigate the tensions.Originality/valueThe study contributes to understanding the role of strategic communication practices in contemporary organisations and how practitioners manage the tensions within them. The study shows that an SAP approach can account for improvisation and emergence, as well as planning and formalisation. It also shows how SAP resonates with emergent and agile strategic communication frameworks.