Journal of Business Research 69 (2016) 3008–3017

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Business Research

Actor engagement as a microfoundation for value co-creation

Kaj Storbacka a,⁎, Roderick J. Brodie a,1, Tilo Böhmann b,2, Paul P. Maglio c,3, Suvi Nenonen a,1
a
University of Auckland Business School, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, 1142, New Zealand
b
Universität Hamburg, Department of Informatics, Vogt-Koelln-Strasse 30, 20527 Hamburg, Germany
c
University of California, Merced, 5200 N. Lake Road, Merced, CA 95343, USA

a r t i c l e in f o
abstract
Article history:
Received 1 August 2015 The starting point for this research is that value co-creation is difficult to observe empirically, whereas actor
Received in revised form 1 January en- gagement is observable and thus more likely to be designable and manageable. Informed by the
2016 microfoundation movement in strategic management, actor engagement is conceptualized as a
Accepted 1 February 2016 microfoundation for value co- creation within the context of a service ecosystem. Using a trans-disciplinary
Available online 8 April 2016
perspective, actors are viewed not only as humans, but also as machines and various combinations of humans
and machines. Actor engagement is defined as both the actor's disposition to engage, and the activity of
Keywords:
engaging in an interactive process of re- source integration within a service ecosystem. This leads to
Micro-foundation
Actor engagement identifying research issues for actors, engagement platforms, actor disposition, engagement properties and
Service ecosystems resource integration patterns. We conclude by drawing implications based on the identified research issues.
Co-creation of value © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction stakeholder management, innovation, ambidexterity, networks, organi-

In their recent book, Lusch and Vargo (2014) explore perspectives
and possibilities for advancing service-dominant logic (SDL) to provide
the foundations for a general theory of markets and marketing. At the
core of this narrative is the notion of value co-creation, which involves
generic actors integrating resources coordinated through service ex-
change within actor-generated institutions nested and interlocked in
service ecosystems (Vargo and Lusch, 2015). From a theoretical per-
spective, SDL concepts such as value co-creation constitute what is re-
ferred to in the strategic management and organizational theory
literature as macro constructs. Aligning with the microfoundational
trend in strategic management and organizational theory (Felin, Foss,
and Ployhart, 2015) implies that advancing theoretical understanding
about SDL requires more focus on the microfoundations that underpin
the macro constructs provided in the general theoretic perspective.
In the last decade, the microfoundation movement (e.g. Barney and
Felin, 2013, Felin and Foss, 2005, Gavetti, 2005, Lippman and
Rumult, 2003, Teece, 2007) has grown in momentum and has become
a major research stream in strategic management and organizational
theory. This has led to microfoundational research about the role of
routines, institutional logics, performance, absorptive capacity, firm
R&D,
⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +64 9 923 1528.
E-mail addresses: k.storbacka@auckland.ac.nz (K. Storbacka),
r.brodie@auckland.ac.nz (R.J. Brodie), tilo.boehmann@uni-hamburg.de (T. Böhmann),
pmaglio@ucmerced.edu (P.P. Maglio), s.nenonen@auckland.ac.nz (S. Nenonen).
1
Tel.: +64 9 923 1528.
2
Tel.: +49 40 42 883 2299.
3
Tel.: +1 209 228 4400.
zational capabilities, R&D capabilities, HR capabilities, and dynamic
ca- pabilities (Felin et al., 2015). Apart from providing deeper
theoretical explanation, microfoundation research provides a bridge
for empirical investigation, thus anchoring the more abstract macro
concepts in strat- egy and organizational theory.
As elaborated by Felin et al. (2015), microfoundations are funda-
mentally explanations on a lower analytical level, and do not necessarily
relate to individuals. Thus while microfoundation research may include
individuals as actors in a service ecosystem, the purpose of the research
is to provide theoretical and empirical explanation at a level of analysis
lower than that of the phenomenon itself. While the macro constructs
define the conceptual domain, Foss and Pederson (2014) warn that
“macro scholars too often work with firm-level constructs with often
unclear microfoundations, and proceed as if there are direct causal rela-
tions between macro variables (e.g., arguments that capabilities cause
performance), where, in fact, the real causal relations involve lower
level actions and interactions” (p. 3).
This paper explores actor engagement as a microfoundation for
value co-creation. Actor engagement is chosen based on a corpus
lin- guistics analysis of over one hundred academic articles that
examines the way the concept of engagement is used in theoretical
discussion about SDL (Fehrer, Smith, and Brodie, 2015). This
analysis illustrates that for value co-creation to occur, actors engage
in service-for-service exchange and in related interactions that lead
to resource integration. Consequently, without actor engagement, no
resource integration hap- pens and no value can be co-created.
However, whereas value co- creation is difficult to observe
empirically, actor engagement and relat- ed resource integration is
observable and thus more likely to be

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2016.02.034
0148-2963/© 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
 K. Storbacka et al. / Journal of Business Research 69 (2016) 3008–
3017 30
designable and manageable. Hence, actor engagement plays a central label action-
role as a microfoundation in aligning theory with practice and allowing
for empirical investigation.
Building on this proposition, the research has two main objectives:
(1) to develop a framework that conceptualizes actor engagement as
a microfoundation of value co-creation within a service ecosystem,
and
(2) to use this framework to identify research issues to guide future
work.
These objectives respond to the calls for research that address theory
construction to include mid-range theory, empirical research, and contin-
ued refinement of a trans-disciplinary lexicon for SDL (Brodie, Saren, and
Pels, 2011). In the broadest sense, the contribution of the paper is the in-
troduction of microfoundations into theorizing about SDL, building in a
trans-disciplinary way on the initial framing of microfoundations in the
strategic management literature and from related framing in the manage-
ment, information systems and service marketing literatures. The partic-
ular contributions are the research issues that can guide future work
toward theoretical and empirical understanding about SDL. The research
provides a multi-level research approach that combines top-down theo-
rizing framed by macro constructs of SDL, with bottom-up theorizing
based on the microfoundation of actor engagement (Foss, 2009).
The next section provides an overview of the microfoundation
movement and elaborates how actor engagement is an important
microfoundation for value co-creation. The paper then proceeds by ex-
amining the conditions for actor engagement – that is, the actors and
the engagement platforms. The next section looks at actor engagement,
by identifying the dispositions and the properties of actor engagement,
followed by a section analyzing the emergence of various resource inte-
gration patterns. These three sections identify research issues,
pertinent particularly to focal actors in service ecosystems, defined as
actors aiming at designing or managing actor engagement with the
intent of improving resource integration and value co-creation. In the
final sec- tion implications are drawn from the identified research
issues.

2. The microfoundation movement and actor engagement

An important motivation for the microfoundation movement in

strategic management is to make theory more relevant to managers
by anchoring the more abstract macro concepts. For example, in
factors like dynamic capabilities, or social capital, routines that are
linked to firm-level performance are seen to be lacking in
explanatory power and the “macro constructs and causal claims
often stood on shaky grounds” (Foss and Pederson, 2014 p. 3).
Thus an important contribu- tion of the microfoundation movement
is to “unpack collective concepts to understand how individual-level
factors impact organizations, how the interaction of individuals
leads to emergent, collective and organization-level outcomes and
performance, and how relations be- tween macro variables are
mediated by micro actions and interactions” (Felin et al., 2015, p.
4). The movement recognizes that to understand collective
phenomena we need to understand the constituent parts that make
it up: individuals and their social interaction.
The microfoundational approach provides a multi-level explanation
portrayed by what is now commonly referred to as the Coleman ‘boat’
or ‘bathtub’. In his original work Coleman (1990) makes a distinction
between the macro–macro level explanation where social facts lead to
social outcomes and the micro–micro level explanation where condi-
tions for action lead to observable actions. The ‘bathtub’ is created by
the links between the macro–micro explanation where the social facts
inform conditions for action, and micro–macro explanation where ob-
servable actions inform social outcomes.
Building on the idea of the Coleman bathtub, Hedström and
Swedberg (1998) introduce a typology of social mechanisms. They
posit that there are three types of mechanisms at play: (1) the
macro– micro mechanisms that they label situational mechanisms,
which aim to understand how macro-level-generated conditions or
contexts affect actors; (2) the micro–micro mechanisms that they
 K. Storbacka et al. / Journal of Business Research 69 (2016) 3008–
30formation mechanisms, which explains how 3017 an individual actor departure from a dyadic
assim- ilates the contextual conditions into action; and (3) the micro–
macro mechanisms that they label transformational mechanisms,
which aim to describe how a number of actors through their actions
and interac- tions generate macro-level outcomes.
Combining this idea with a more granular view of social mecha-
nisms, as proposed by Jepperson and Meyer (2011), would suggest
that the situational and the transformational mechanisms can be best
explained on a meso-level. This is congruent with Dopfer, Foster, and
Potts's (2004) argument that dynamic change can only be effectively
understood at the meso-level.
The logic of the Coleman bathtub, including the social
mechanisms and the macro–meso–micro levels of analysis
constitute the corner- stones for generating a microfoundational
view of value co-creation. Lusch and Vargo (2014, p. 161) define
service ecosystems as: “relatively self-contained, self-adjusting
systems of resource-integrating actors that are connected by
shared institutional logics and mutual value crea- tion through
service exchange”. Fig. 1 portrays the primary macro– macro
explanation (arrow 1) of SDL, which implies an outcome of
value co-creation based on service exchange within the context
provid- ed by the institutional logic of a service ecosystem.
However, the concept of being relatively self-contained implies
that a service ecosystem may be nested within or be part of a larger
system. Hence, service ecosystems are systems of systems in which
the various systems interact, and different levels of analysis can
be applied: micro (actor engagement), meso (sets of actors and
their resources), and macro (ecosystem and institutional logic).
An alternative to the macro–macro explanation is provided by
exploring mechanisms at play on the other levels of analysis.
The institutional logic of a service ecosystem forms a context for
actors to engage with their resources on engagement platforms
(arrow 2). These situational mechanisms form the meso-level
conditions for action influencing the engaging actor (arrow 3), and,
combined with the actor's disposition to engage, they lead to
engagement activities, that can be characterized by observable
engagement properties (action-formation mechanisms - arrow 4). As
many actors engage, various resource integra- tion patterns (arrow 5)
emerge on the meso-level, which transforms ex- tant resource
configurations of the actors, leading to value co-creation (arrow
6). Consequently, actor engagement (AE) is conceptualized as
both the disposition of actors to engage, and the activity of
engaging in an interactive process of resource integration within the
institutional con- text provided by a service ecosystem.
Next, the three mechanisms at play are explored: situational
mech- anisms (macro–meso–micro), action-formation
mechanisms (micro– micro), and transformational mechanisms
(micro–meso–macro).

3. Situational mechanisms: Conditions for actor engagement

The institutional logic of a specific service ecosystem is the

founda- tion for the situational mechanisms forming the conditions
for AE. For AE to happen there needs to be actors engaging and
engagement plat- forms that enable engagement.

3.1. The engaging actors and their resources

The concept of resource-integrating actors highlights the idea of

ge- neric actors that have ownership of, or access to resources.
These actors can be viewed as open systems, “effectively
depending on the resources of others to survive” (Vargo, Maglio,
and Akaka, 2008, p. 149). The con- sequence is that all actors are
fundamentally engaged in similar ways in resource integration
processes. Hence, the previously strict roles of pro- ducer vs.
consumer or seller vs. buyer are fleeting, and actors can have
many different roles. An actor-to-actor perspective effectively
renders useless clearly specified and static actor roles. All actors
have similar processes of engagement and what is needed is a
generic view of the properties and patterns of AE. This leads to a
 Fig. 1. The Coleman bathtub: Actor engagement explains value co-creation.

world view, as a systemic view necessitates the “emancipation from

considered as actors, and distinguishing interactions between pairs
the shackles of the dyad (and the myopia connected to this)”
of actors and among groups of actors help us to understand their
(Storbacka and Nenonen, 2011, p. 242).
roles and relationships. In the not-too-distant future, vehicles can
Lusch and Vargo (2014) do not specifically define what an actor is,
drive themselves, eliminating the human driver and possibly
but use it as a general construct similar to the idea of ‘social actors’.
changing the nature of interactions with other vehicles and with the
Hence, actors can be humans or collections of humans, such as
road network as well (e.g., Markoff, 2010). In the case of the human
organiza- tions. The key is that they are involved in a “logic of
taxi driver, the technology of the automobile is under the direct
human exchange systems” (ibid., p. 102).
control of the taxi driv- er, whereas in the case of the autonomous
However, limiting our view to human actors alone ignores the
taxi, technology itself is in control, and this change has implications
im- pact of technologies. Researchers on sociomateriality view the
for the way the entire system works, as the technology can interact
human and social dimension interwoven with the realm of the
seamlessly with the technology of other vehicles and the road
material, includ- ing technologies (Cecez-Kecmanovic, Galliers,
network, potentially eliminating accidents and other unanticipated
Henfridsson, Newell, and Vidgen, 2014; Orlikowski and Scott,
problems.
2008). Adding technologies or ma- chines to the equation is
Glushko (2014) identifies seven contexts for designing service sys-
imperative because of the fast pace of develop- ment of smart
tems involving advanced forms of interaction between human and
machines in service interactions (Brynjolfsson and McAfee, 2014).
technology actors. Building on these, but using the vocabulary of
Advances in autonomous technologies provide increasing opportunity
this paper they are: (1) human-to-human, (2) technology-enhanced
for re-shaping actor-to-actor interaction, for instance, by
human-to-human, (3) human-to-technology (e.g., self-service),
substituting human-based interaction with technology-to-technology
(4) human-to-human or human-to-technology in multiple channels,
in- teraction (e.g., an automobile that autonomously alerts emergency
(5) human-to-multiple technologies (e.g., services used on multiple
ser- vices) or new, more customized and contextual forms of
de- vices), (6) technology-to-technology, and (7) context-aware
human-to- machine interactions (e.g., augmented reality). These
human- to-technology, meaning human-to-technology interactions
advances build on developments in machine learning (Bishop,
supported by location-based or other context-aware applications.
2007; Kohavi and Provost, 1998), big data and advanced analytics
Glushko's argu- ment is that encounters are becoming more
(Brynjolfsson and McAfee, 2012), robots in customer service
information-intensive and that designers of service systems need to
(Stafford, MacDonald, Jayawardena, Wegner, and Broadbent,
use new design elements to leverage new opportunities for
2014), computers-as-social- agents (Nass, Steuer, and Tauber,
autonomous technologies and to manage complexity. This view
1994; Schaumburg, 2001), machine- to-machine communication
resonates with the work of Molina (1999) who argues for the
(Chen and Lien, 2014), cognitive comput- ing (Kelly and Hamm,
importance of sociotechnical alignment, in which sociotechnical
2013), and the role of avatars vs. algorithms (Bente, Rüggenberg,
constituencies, consisting of dynamic en- sembles of technical
Krämer, and Eschenburg, 2008; Fox et al., 2014) in relation to constituents (e.g., machines, technologies) and social
automated online assistants.
constituents (e.g. institutions, humans), “interact and shape each
Consequently, actors need to be viewed not only as humans, but also
other in the course of the creation, production and diffu- sion of
as machines/technologies, or collections of humans and machines/tech-
specific technologies” (p. 8).
nologies, including organizations. Earlier research (Maglio, Vargo,
Drawing on this more nuanced view of the actor concept, we
Caswell, and Spohrer, 2009; Spohrer, Maglio, Bailey, and Gruhl, 2007)
identi- fy three research issues relevant to a focal actor aiming at
views service systems as comprised of entities interacting or engaging
designing and managing AE.
with one another to create value. These entities are collections or ar-
rangements of resources, including people, technology, information,
1. Volume and variety of actors. Ubiquitous autonomous
and organizations. For the present purpose, entities are identified as ac- technology has the potential to changes the volume and variety
tors, highlighting the action, interaction, and engagement required for of actors avail- able for engagement, as well as the number of
effective resource integration and value creation. connections between actors that engagement can build on. A focal
Technologies are human-created things that serve human actor needs to recognize this changing context of engagement as
purposes (Arthur, 2009), including for instance, automobiles and possible opportunities for enhancing engagement.
computational systems (the terms technologies and machines are
2. Actor combinations. Viewing all ecosystem actors as able to
used interchange- ably). In the transportation service ecosystem of
interact, means that engagement applies to a much richer set of
urban taxis, for exam- ple, the physical taxi (technology), the driver
actor combi- nations, both in dyads (human-to-human (H2H);
(human), the passenger (human), and other vehicles (human-
human-to- machine (H2M); machine-to-machine (M2M), in
technology entities) can be
triads (humans-
 to-(human & machine) (H2H&M); (human & machine)-to- customer journeys, which relates
(human & machine) (H&M2H&M), and in networks (many-
humans-to- human (MH2H); many-humans-to-machine(s)
(mH2M). Of these combinations, many can be seen as
organizations. Hence, a human may engage with a firm's
technology (e.g., customer using internet banking), and a firm,
using humans and technology, may engage with another firm's
humans and technologies (a supplier engages with a buyer,
involving both personal engagement between sales person and
purchaser and integration of enterprise resource plan- ning
software). A focal actor wishing to facilitate engagement in a
service ecosystem needs to consider how various combinations
sup- port its design objectives.
3. Machines/technologies as actors. Engagement by, or with machines/
technology will differ from engagement by, or with people, which
suggests that research ought to focus on how machines/technologies
(typically autonomous computer algorithms) function as actors. And
as it has been shown that machine interfaces can use controllable
models of the human face including related expressive dynamics
(Sagar et al., 2014), a key question relates to the possibility of emo-
tionally conditioned engagement of machines.

3.2. Engagement platforms

The second condition for action relates to the platform on which

en- gagement happens. The term ‘platform’ has been used to
describe man- agement phenomena such as individual products,
product systems, industry supply chains, markets, industries, and
even constellations of industries (Gawer, 2009). By consolidating
results of major studies re- garding platforms, Thomas, Autio, and
Gann (2014) suggest a typology of platforms: (1) platform as a set of
organizational capabilities that en- able superior performance, (2)
platform as the stable center used for a family of products, (3)
platform as an intermediary between two or more market
participants, and (4) platform as a system or architecture that
supports a collection of complementary technology assets. In this
research platforms are viewed as intermediaries of connections.
Within the strategy and marketing literature the concept of an
engagement platform stems from Prahalad and Ramaswamy's
(2004) work on service innovation within experience environments.
Ramaswamy and Gouillart (2010) define engagement platforms
as purpose-built, ICT-enabled environments containing artifacts,
inter- faces, processes and people; permitting organizations to co-
create value with their customers.
The research by Frow, Nenonen, Payne, and Storbacka (2015)
recog- nizes that effective co-creation is dependent on a platform for
actors to engage. In contrast to Ramaswamy and Gouillart (2010), they
identified five types of both virtual (ICT enabled) and/or physical
engagement platforms: “(1) digital applications, such as web sites that
extend the reach and speed of interactions with multiple and diverse
actors;
(2) tools or products used on a recurring or continuous basis as a device
to connect actors (e.g., software companies providing software develop-
er toolkits); (3) physical resources, where collaborators come together
occasionally for mutual benefit, to share and enhance their knowledge
(e.g., retail formats such as Apple stores); (4) joint processes involving
multiple actors (e.g., P&G's ‘connect + develop’ innovation initiative);
and (5) dedicated personnel groups, such as call center teams” (ibid,
p. 472–473).
These platform types can be used individually or in various combina-
tions over time. Brodie, Hollebeek, Juric, and Ilic (2011a) show that
practicing managers use the concept of engagement in a variety of
ways to describe how firms interact with customers. Engagement is
used as a synonym for a firm's ‘go-to-market’ approach: that is,
what channels are used to interact with customers, how resource-
intensive is the approach (ranging from on-line selling to strategic
account man- agement), and what is the process applied to generate
exchange and in- teractions both pre- and post-purchase. The
management practice literature also emphasizes the idea of
to a longitudinal and relational view of how customers and firms plat- forms do not engage themselves but foster engagement
inter- act or ‘touch’ each other in time and space; where firms aim between two or more actors. This helps to differentiate
at securing a seamless multi-channel experience (van Bommel, engagement platforms
Edelman, and Ungerman, 2014).
In their investigation of value co-creation in the online and
physical shopping environment, Breidbach, Brodie, and Hollebeek (2014)
sug- gest that an engagement platform consists of multiple touch-
points made up of a combination of virtual and physical
interactions. Drawing on Sawhney, Verona, and Prandelli (2005) and
Ramaswamy (2009), they introduce the concept of touch-point to
define how an engagement platform is employed. Breidbach et al.
(2014) define an engagement platform as “physical or virtual
touch points designed to provide struc- tural support for the
exchange and integration of resources, and thereby co-creation of
value, between actors in a service system” (p. 594).
This research views engagement platforms as more than a set of
multiple touch-points and define engagement platforms as
multi- sided intermediaries that actors leverage to engage with
other actors to integrate resources. Latour (2005) makes a
distinction between intermediaries and mediators, where
intermediaries are viewed as facilitating the force of some other
actor (more or less) without transformation. Thus they do not
engage in resource integration. Me- diators, on the other hand,
are entities that multiply differences, in- dicating that their
outputs cannot be predicted by their inputs, as the inputs are
dependent on a process of resource integration. This difference is
relevant when exploring and categorizing the roles of
engagement platforms, and we posit that engagement platforms
al- ways assume the role of an intermediary; that is, they do not
partic- ipate in the engagement but facilitate it. Consequently,
mediators are viewed as actors rather than as platforms.
Finally, there is considerable benefit from engagement-related
net- work effects in which additional actors joining the platform
strengthens it, and in which joining the platform yields benefits
related to the num- ber other actors that have joined the platform
(Katz and Shapiro, 1994, Thomas et al., 2014). Such yields or
benefits can take three forms: rela- tional, informational, or
motivational benefits. Relational benefits refer to the ability to
engage with other actors using the same engagement platform.
Informational benefits accrue through the data held by the
platform and the ability to generate customized information from
this data. Motivational benefits stimulate engagement activity by
actors on the platform, for instance, through gamification.
Drawing on the above discussion, we identify three issues
related to the significance and constitution of engagement
platforms. These serve as the basis for our agenda for research.

1. Platform modality. Engagement platforms – that is,

environments containing artifacts, interfaces, processes and
people – facilitate AE by providing access to engagement
opportunities. Through engage- ment platforms, actors can
engage with a focal firm (e.g., in the course of a customer
relationship) or with other actors (e.g., a com- munity of actors
engaging around a specific subject of their interest).
Consequently, the engagement platform can be provided by a
focal firm (e.g., electronic banking platform enabling self-
service), by other actors (e.g., mobile phone when calling your
bank), or even by the natural world (e.g., inspiring forest or
beach setting when hav- ing a walking meeting to brainstorm
with colleagues). This provision is likely to have implications for
the type of engagement facilitated by the platform: platforms
provided by the focal actors tend to be more specific whereas
other platforms may facilitate a broader range of en- gagement.
The platform provision is also an important factor for those
actors that seek to influence or design the engagement in their
service ecosystem. It is expected that those service ecosystems
in which the dominant engagement platform is provided by
other ac- tors are more immune to deliberate design efforts by a
focal actor.
2. Roles of platforms vs. actors. When facilitating engagement,
 from actors in the service ecosystem: actors participate in the
en- gagement activities whereas platforms do not. Furthermore,
engage- ment platforms do not modify or enhance the resources
to be integrated during the actor-to-actor engagement — they
bring these actors and their resources together. However,
sometimes plat- forms may evolve to be fully-fledged actors in
service ecosystems. For instance Skype has been a platform for
many human-to-human engagements. When Skype is upgraded
into Skype Translator, offer- ing real-time translation, then this
former platform becomes an actor as it starts to modify (in this
case by translating) the resources that are being integrated
during the engagement. As the example illus- trates, the
sometimes ambiguous and fleeting distinction between actors
and platforms warrants more research.
3. Platforms and engagement-related network effects. As
engagement platforms are aggregators of actors, both direct and
two-sided net- work effects apply. Hence, an increase in the
numbers of actors en- gaging will increase the value of the
platform for the actors but also make it possible for the actor
managing the platform to generate re- sources to further develop
the platform. In the context of engage- ment, research focus
should seek to understand the development of the relational,
informational, and motivational benefits when ac- tors join or
leave engagement platforms.
4. Action-formation mechanism: From disposition to action
The above-discussed conditions for action form the context in
which action-formation mechanisms are at work (the micro–micro
explana- tion). The individual actor has a range of possible
dispositions for engage- ment, which lead to engagement activity,
observable as engagement properties.
4.1. Actor disposition
Engagement is used in many different contexts and with various
meanings. In an examination of the social science literature,
Brodie, Hollebeek, et al. (2011) reveal a broad range of contexts
leading to a di- versity of context-laden definitions. Within
marketing, Brodie, Hollebeek, et al. (2011), for instance, define the
conceptual domain of customer engagement and develop five
propositions concerning cus- tomer engagement: (1) customer
engagement “reflects a psychological state, which occurs by virtue of
interactive customer experiences with a focal agent/object within
specific service relationships”; (2) varying states of customer
engagement “occur within a dynamic, iterative pro- cess of service
relationships that cocreate value”; (3) customer engage- ment plays a
“central role within a nomological network of service relationships”;
(4) engagement “is a multidimensional concept subject to a context-
and/or stakeholder-specific expression of relevant cogni- tive,
emotional, and behavioral dimensions”; and (5) customer engage-
ment “occurs within a specific set of situational conditions
generating differing customer engagement levels.” Based on the
above discussion, these propositions cover both the conditions and
the activities of engagement.
In a recent paper, Chandler and Lusch (2015) build on the work of
Brodie, Hollebeek, et al. (2011) and develop a framework to describe
the role of AE in service systems. They refer to AE generically, although
their examples are to do with customer engagement; and whereas they
acknowledge many-to-many engagement in networks, they particular-
ly do not consider machines/technologies as engaging actors. The
framework portrays engagement as based on the dispositions (internal)
and connections (external) of actors.
However, common to all of the conceptualizations in marketing
is the notion that AE is an interactive co-creative process in which
the actor's internal disposition is a central condition for engagement
activi- ty. Brodie, Hollebeek, et al. (2011) and Chandler and Lusch (2015)
refer to the disposition as a psychological state (of humans), which
does not fit our definition of actors.
Another related question is: do machine actors have agency? In
the context of sociomateriality, researchers view agency as not
limited to humans, but instead recognize that the material can also
have agency, albeit of a different character. For example, Cecez-
Kecmanovic et al. (2014) refer to Leonardi (2012) who defines
social/human agency as “coordinated human intentionality” (p. 42)
and of material agency as “ways in which a technology's materiality
acts” (ibid.), continuing to say “material agency is activated as
humans approach technology with particular intentions …” (ibid.).
The key difference lies in the intention- ality which is constitutive
for human agency and absent in material agency (Leonardi, 2012;
Pickering, 2001). No matter how autonomous or meaningful
human-to-technology engagement becomes, responsi- bility lies
with system entities that can be governed and which have rights
(Maglio et al., 2009) — which includes both humans and
corporations.
Most of engagement research in marketing either explicitly or
implicitly assumes that engagement is an actor-specific characteris-
tic, and discuss issues such as ‘willingness to engage’ as part of an
actor's disposition. However, realizing that AE happens governed
by the institutional logic of a specific service ecosystem means that
actors do not engage in a vacuum — quite the opposite. The
concept of shared institutional logics includes values, norms and
governing principles that guide interactions between the actors in
the system. This is congruent with the ideas of how organizational
fields influ- ence actors. Phillips, Lawrence, and Hardy (2000) submit
that orga- nizational fields provide the rules and resources upon
which collaboration is constructed, and collaboration (which we
interpret as AE) provides a context for the on-going processes of
structuration that build and sustain the organizational fields of the
participating actors. Actors' engagement in terms of interfacing
and exchanging occurs within shared institutional logics, and
simultaneously builds and sustains such logics. This resonates
with Barney and Felin (2013) who highlight misconceptions
related to microfoundational research, and argue that
microfoundations are not psychology, human resources, or
micro-organizational behavior, nor do microfoundations deny the
role of structure and institutions.
Consequently, engagement properties are not only results of actor-
specific characteristics. The conceptual and physical context also deter-
mines why, when and how actors engage. Hence, the context in which
AE occurs is central to our understanding of how actors engage in re-
source integration activities. AE will be path-dependent in terms of
both the history and experience of the actor, and the routines related
to the engagement. This view raises questions related to the application
of practice theory (Schatzki, 2001) in understanding AE. Practices can be
defined as “more or less routinized actions, which are orchestrated by
tools, know-how, images, physical space and an [actor] who is carrying
out the practice” (Korkman, 2006, p. 27). According to Korkman,
Storbacka, and Harald (2010), a practice-based approach could be cate-
gorized as an anti-individualistic stance. A practice is neither deter-
mined by the actor, nor by context alone, but more specifically
happens in the integration of resource elements.
Based on the above discussion, and building on Chandler and Lusch
(2015), actor disposition is defined as a capacity of an actor to appropri-
ate, reproduce, or potentially innovate upon connections in the current
time and place, in response to a specific past and/or toward a specific fu-
ture. This definition allows us to consider machines as having disposi-
tions (Davenport, 2013), and supports the idea that the capacity of
actors to engage may be determined by the institutional context.
For a focal actor wanting to design AE, this definition implies the
ne- cessity both to assume a longitudinal perspective to actors
relevant to the designer (and so to understand both past, present
and desired fu- tures of the actor), to systematically collect and
process information ap- plicable to the actor's interactions and
development over time, and to understand the institutional context
that influence actors.
We identify four specific issues for the research agenda, related
to actors' disposition for engagement.
1. Disposition of machine actors. What seems evident is that the tions are characterized by temporal contexts. Hence, AE “is based on
dispo- sition to engage needs to be extended beyond the ac- tors' present-day connections that have emerged from past
psychological and emotional state of humans to cover also service experiences and are oriented toward future service
increasingly autonomous technologies with conditioned agency. experiences”
Cognitive computing and pre- scriptive analytics will mean that
technological systems (such as computer systems and robots
governed by advanced algorithms) will play a much bigger role in
service ecosystems. Such technologies will be able to integrate
and synthesize multiple heterogeneous streams of information,
learning and changing as they receive new information; based
for instance on new users, new interactions, or new contexts of
inquiry or activity, making human-to-machine en- gagement
more contextual and more meaningful. Deeper under- standing
is, however, necessarily related to how the disposition of
technologies to engage can be programmed and controlled.
2. Actor intentionality. As noted, we are not suggesting that
technolo- gies are equivalent to human actors for all purposes.
Technologies do not have intentions and do not have agency in
and of themselves. However, modern technologies have ever
increasing capabilities for autonomy and for engaging human
actors and other technologies in service interactions. Given that
autonomous systems have a dispo- sition to engage, can we
suppose that they will have conditioned in- tentionality in the
future (cf. Maglio, Matlock, Gould, Koons, and Campbell, 2002)?
Is it necessary to suppose such intentionality for ef- fective
human-to-technology engagement?
3. Disposition vs. engagement properties. Further research is needed
in order to explore how the disposition and the temporal and
relational characteristics of an actor relate to the motives for
engagement (mon- etary, personal fulfillment, access to resources),
levels and intensity of engagement expected, type of engagement
(cognitive, emotional, or behavioral), and an actor's valence
(negative or positive).
4. Engagement practices. To fully understand AE, more research is
needed on how shared institutional logics, including values,
norms and governing principles guide interactions between the
actors in a service ecosystem. It seems obvious that shared
institutional logics lead to engagement practices that become
routine or in other situa- tions create inertia. For example a
customer may engage on many different levels and driven by
internal dispositions in a holiday travel setting, whereas
engagement in self-servicing transactions in a retail bank setting
is routinized and influenced by contextual elements ex- ternal to
the actor.

4.2. Engagement properties

All approaches within marketing related to how customer

engage- ment is conceptualized, view engagement as something
longitudinally and conceptually broader and more complex than
exchange transac- tions. Van Doorn et al. (2010), for instance, argue
that engagement is be- havioral by nature, and their interest lies in
understanding how various motivational drivers lead to behavioral
manifestations toward brands and firms, beyond purchase
transactions. They identify five dimensions of customer engagement
behavior: valence, form, scope, nature of im- pact and customer
goals. Building on Van Doorn et al. (2010); Verhoef, Reinartz, and Krafft
(2010) develop a conceptual model covering the an- tecedents,
impediments, and firm consequences of customer engage- ment.
Verleye, Gemmel, and Rangarajan (2014) use the behavioral view
to investigate how customer engagement behaviors can be man-
aged to secure long-term profitability. Jaakkola and Alexander
(2014) expand the behavioral view into multi-stakeholder service
systems, and identify four types of customer engagement behaviors
based on in- formational properties: augmenting, co-developing,
influencing and mobilizing behaviors. They also identify the drivers
and value outcomes of these behaviors.
According to Chandler and Lusch (2015), an actor's external connec-
(p. 5), and AE “is based on actors' present-day connections as (heteropathic resource integration). This is similar to Barney and
comprised of other actors and the social roles that affiliate them with Felin (2013), who submit that the way lower level factors aggregate
these actors” (p. 5). Temporal properties are a key ingredient, as to higher levels can be viewed as additive or
engagement varies in terms of the duration (Füller, 2010), including
one-off engagement, recurring engagement, and continuous
engagement. Duration differ- ences have important implications for
designing the activity in terms of engaging actors and use of
channels. One-off engagement may typi- cally occur in a single
channel, whereas continuous engagement may profit from multiple
channels supporting continued interaction. Addi- tional
considerations relate to frequency, regularity, recency and con-
currence, where everything happens in parallel not sequentially.
Relational properties are also a key issue because actors' level of
en- gagement varies, from providing comments and suggestions,
participat- ing in specific forms of co-creation, to becoming involved in
self-service and outsourcing activity. In online learning environments,
Milligan, Littlejohn, and Margaryan (2013) have identified that
participants are active, passive or lurkers (‘lurkers’ are defined as
those who are actively following a course but not actively engaging
with other learners).
Based on the discussion above, engagement properties are
defined as observable engagement activities. We identify four
issues relating to engagement properties.

1. Co-production vs. value-in-use activities. Building on Ranjan

and Read's (2014) categorization, we suggest that the
engagement activ- ity can be divided into co-production
activities, in which actors en- gage in, for instance, co-design, co-
development, co-production, co- promotion (cf., Frow et al.,
2015) of products; and value-in-use activ- ities, in which actors
engage in value-creating activities utilizing other actors'
resources, without these actors being actively present.
2. Relational properties. An actor's engagement is determined by
its present-day connections in the service ecosystem, and the
social and institutional roles assigned to it. The relational
properties of an actor can be determined by analyzing the types
of relationships the actor has within the service ecosystem:
how many relationships the actor has; how many of these
relationships can be classified as primary contacts; how central
the market actor's position is within the ecosystem; and what
the actor's relative power position is.
3. Informational properties. Engagement varies in terms of
information. Issues to be considered include whether the actor is
trying to influ- ence, is open to influence, or trying to mobilize
support or access to resources.
4. Temporal properties. Engagement varies in terms of duration,
regu- larity and frequency. Hence, engagement may be momentary
or on- going. The recency of an engagement is likely to be
connected to the impact that the engagement has on the actor. The
concurrence of AE implies both that many actors engage
simultaneously and that one actor may engage with many actors
simultaneously. AE is dynamic and iterative in nature, and thus
the temporal properties extend the spatial, contextual, relational
and informational properties.

5. Transformational mechanisms: Resource integration patterns

The changing set of actors with various dispositions, the

multitude of engagement platforms and the engagement
properties resulting from various activities constitute the
elements of evolving resource integra- tion patterns, defined as a
distinct combination of these elements.
The meso-level transformational mechanisms play a key role in
the micro–meso–macro explanation that links the micro-level
process of AE with the macro-level co-creation of value. The key
mechanisms at play are processes of resource integration. Peters
(this issue) argues that there are two types of processes: resource
integration based on summative or aggregative relations between
resources (homopathic re- source integration), and resource
integration based on emergent rela- tions between resources
complex. Additive aggregation would imply simple accumulation of reinforce each
the effects generated by individual actors, whereas complex
aggregation implies that results are surprising and unforeseen as a
result of actor in- terdependence and inter-actor influence.
Complex aggregation can be seen as the explanation for emergence
and could, hence, explain phe- nomena such as service ecosystem
emergence.
Hence, heteropathic resource integration can be viewed as a
mecha- nism for emergence in which new properties (e.g. entities,
structures, totalities, concepts, qualities, capacities, textures,
mechanisms, etc.) are generated (Peters, — this issue).
Arthur (2014) suggests that emergence in complex systems relates
to the development of patterns on a meso-level. As a result of
collective actions of many actors various development trajectories
converge into a pattern that enables innovation. Taking a focal actor
stance: attempting to identify effective resource integration
patterns, and using such pat- terns for designing effective AE
processes will become a central mana- gerial task (acknowledging
that AE cannot be designed entirely, as some aspects will be
emergent).
Patterns have been proposed in computer science, architecture, and
other areas (Alexander et al., 1977; Gamma, Helm, Johnson, and
Vlissides, 1994) as facilitators for the construction of new information
systems or buildings that can be adapted and recombined in the design
process. Patterns encapsulate solutions to recurring design problems,
and capture a recurring problem and its context, an abstracted solution
for specific instances of such problems, and the consequences of apply-
ing this solution: that is, results and trade-offs (Gamma et al., 1994).
Thus, these patterns describe recurring opportunities for engaging ac-
tors in resource integration, and solutions for engaging the actors
given such opportunities. Moreover, a resource integration pattern ex-
plicates the consequences of applying the pattern by illustrating the
benefits and trade-offs for the engagement of actors.
Henfridsson, Mathiassen, and Svahn (2014) argue that patterns
should inform our ‘architectural understanding’ of fast-paced digital in-
novation. Thinking about architecture as a network of adaptable pat-
terns captures the inherent adaptability of software-based systems.
This complements the traditional view of (service) architecture as a hi-
erarchy of components that allows adaptation through recombination
and change of individual modules (Dörbecker, Harms, and Böhmann,
2013; Ulrich, 1995; Voss and Hsuan, 2009). Patterns are thus an essen-
tial concept for understanding the design of complex service systems
and the emergence of service ecosystems.
The network-of-patterns architectural frame also informs
under- standing of complex forms of AE that combine and link
multiple pat- terns. Such a network of resource integration patterns
may be expressed as ‘choreography’. In the design of technical
service systems, a choreography defines how different parties
interact in digital business processes, without assuming that one of
these parties controls the pro- cess (Peltz, 2003). The choreography
of resource integration patterns explicates the network of temporal,
spatial or other relationships be- tween two or more engagement
patterns, thus defining architectural pathways that connect
multiple instances and environments of engagement.
Whether designed or emergent, patterns capture effective
engage- ment processes that achieve the kind of effects that
participating actors are expecting. Over time it is likely that certain
patterns will be more ef- fective than others. Hence, it can be argued
that the patterns can be an- alyzed by building on configuration
theory (Meyer, Tsui, and Hinings, 1993; Miller, 1996; Vorhies and
Morgan, 2003). Hence, elements of the four categories – actors,
platforms, actor dispositions and engage- ment properties –
interact if the value of one element depends on the presence of
another element. They reinforce each other if the value of one
element is increased by the presence of another element, and they
are independent if the value of an element is independent of the
presence of another element (Siggelkow, 2002). Equifinality of
configu- rations indicates that several configurations may be equally
effective (Doty, Glick, and Huber, 1993), as long as the elements
other in order to achieve a high degree of configurational fit. This engagement platforms, actor disposition, engagement properties and
reso- nates with the idea that there may be some generic resource integration patterns. Based on a broad literature review and
patterns that are preferred due to their potentiality (see Parmar, logical argumentation a number of research issues are documented,
Mackenzie, Cohn, and Gann (2014) for a discussion on similar
innovation patterns).
Based on the above discussion, we identify four research
issues relat- ed to engagement patterns.

1. Evaluation of effective resource integration patterns. As digital

trans- formation influences actors, engagement properties and
platforms, it drives innovation of novel forms of engagement.
Research can ad- vance the design of new patterns or identify
novel ones designed by others. However, resource integration
patterns will need to be evaluated rigorously for effectiveness,
and this implies the need for the development of ways to
assess effectiveness.
2. Trade-offs between patterns. In each given situation,
multiple re- source integration patterns might be applicable
and equifinal from an effectiveness point of view. Selecting
an alternative requires un- derstanding the trade-offs of
making such a choice. Trade-offs can re- late to the type of
actor, the properties, and/or the benefits of an engagement
platform. Research should seek to elucidate trade-offs to
support actors in making informed choices between
alternative patterns.
3. Generic resource integration patterns. An important research
area relates to the identification of potential generic resource
integration patterns, which would be ecosystem indifferent.
Such patterns have for instance been identified in the use of
data for business model innovation (Parmar et al., 2014.).
Such patterns are likely to be organized around some
common themes, such as open innova- tion, mobilizing
support, or self-service, and are likely to be overlap- ping in
terms of content. Generic patterns have the potential to be
particularly helpful for managers looking for ideas for
business development.
4. Choreography of resource integration. Engagement platforms can
con- nect actors within and across different environments, such as
digital spaces, physical places, as well as with processes and
activities. Under- standing and designing the temporal, spatial and
contextual configura- tion of patterns as a choreography is a key
architectural aspect of engagement.

6. Discussion

This section summarizes the identified research issues and

discusses the contributions of the research, and as well,
highlights how this re- search informs managerial practice.

6.1. Implications for research

This research aims to provide a more managerially-oriented

frame- work for understanding, and ultimately designing value co-
creation with- in service ecosystems. The argument is that, whereas
value co-creation is abstract and difficult to observe empirically,
AE is observable and thus more likely to be designable and
manageable. Hence, the purpose is to de- velop a framework that
conceptualizes AE as a microfoundation for value co-creation
within a service ecosystem, and to use this framework to
identify research issues. The multi-level research approach
combines top-down theorizing framed by macro constructs of
SDL, with bottom- up theorizing based on the microfoundation of
AE.
A microfoundational approach is fundamentally a question of
choos- ing a lower analytical level. Using the logic of Coleman's
(1990) bathtub, albeit adding a meso level of analysis and
combining this with Hedström and Swedberg's (1998) typology of
social mechanisms, the situational, action-formation, and
transformational mechanisms related to AE are elaborated. Five
areas for further research are identified: the engaging actor,
which are summarized in Table 1. The research issues are broad and
co-creation. The effectiveness of patterns is likely to vary between con-
in- tegrative in scope and do not relate directly to any specific
texts, indicating the need for a deeper understanding of the relationship
research con- texts. It is, however, beyond the scope of this paper to
between potentially generic patterns and the service ecosystem under
develop specific research questions around the research issues.
analysis. The research suggests that actor engagement may lead to
In addition to the identified research issues, the paper makes four
both homeopathic (summative) and heteropathic (emergent) resource
particular contributions to SDL and especially to the literature on cus-
integration patterns (Peters, this issue). As actors engage in resource in-
tomer engagement. First, it explicates and expands the notion of an
tegrating activities the outcomes on a macro level cannot be fully de-
‘actor’ by deliberately looking beyond humans or collections of humans
signed, planned or controlled. Heteropathic resource integration
as actors. Actors are defined as humans, machines/technologies and
generates new and sometimes surprising properties (e.g., entities,
various collections of humans and machines/technologies, including or-
structures, concepts, qualities, capacities) in the service ecosystem.
ganizations. The diversity of actors means that there will also be diver-
Thus heteropathic resource integration can be viewed as a mechanism
sity in the ways actors offer value and seek value, and in how mutual
for emergence, implying that not only is actor engagement a
value creation shapes an ecosystem. This expansion is very relevant as
increasingly we see technology-enabled engagement opportunities oc- microfoundation for value co-creation, but it is also a microfoundation
curring in many contexts. for service ecosystem emergence. Hence, to understand service ecosys-
Second, the research expands the conceptual research on tem or market dynamics more research is needed related to actor
customer engagement (Brodie, Hollebeek, et al., 2011; Chandler engagement.
and Lusch, 2015; Van Doorn et al., 2010) to create a deeper
understanding of the nature of the interface between generic actors 6.2. Implications for managerial practice
in a service ecosystem. In doing so, it suggests fundamental
changes in the discussion on en- gagement. With the expanded view The findings of our paper contain important suggestions for
of actors, the conception of disposi- tions to engage needs to be practi- tioners. First, it provides guidance for a focal firm wanting to
extended beyond the psychological and emotional state of humans design co-creation strategies, by delineating the elements of
to cover increasingly autonomous technolo- gies with conditioned resource integra- tion patterns that can be influenced. Some of
these elements are more likely to be designable. It is, for instance,
agency. Consequently, actor disposition is defined as a capacity of an
likely that engagement platforms can be designed to incentivize
actor to appropriate, reproduce, or potentially inno- vate upon
certain actors to contribute their resources and enable service-for-
connections in the current time and place, in response to a specific
service exchange. Moreover, un- derstanding the dispositions of
past and/or toward a specific future. Furthermore, the discus- sion
actors will enable firms to plan for en- gagement properties that
on engagement needs to cover not only the dispositions to engage
support their design goals. A particularly important field for
but also the engagement properties, defined as observable
exploration is to systematically gather data about all of the
engagement activities. Subsequently, actor engagement is re-
elements of engagement patterns. This data would form the input
conceptualized as both the disposition of actors to engage, and the
for more advanced analytics aimed at finding effective patterns
activity of engaging in an in- teractive process of resource
which may enable firms to move from predictive modeling to
integration within the institutional context provided by a service
prescrip- tive modeling and inform managerial decision-making
ecosystem.
toward higher value creation (Davenport, 2013).
Third, this research is one of the first within SDL that defines an
Second, the fast pace of digitalization is driving innovation of
en- gagement platform: a multi-sided intermediary that actors
novel forms of engagement involving increasingly smart machines.
leverage to integrate resources. This definition aims at highlighting
Advances in autonomous technologies provide interesting prospects
the difference between an actor and a platform: platforms are
for substitut- ing human-based interaction with machine-to-
passive intermediaries, whereas actors (by definition) are active and
machine interaction or more customized and contextual forms of
have dispositions to en- gage. Engagement platforms do not modify
human-to-machine interac- tions. It is paramount for managers to
or enhance the resources to be integrated during the AE — they
embrace these opportunities and explore the ways to use them for
bring actors and their resources together. A platform that takes an
enhanced value creation.
active stance needs – based on our definitions above – to be viewed
Third, we suggest that managers need to focus more on
as an actor that engages in resource in- tegration. Most research on
understand- ing the new dynamics of markets. As discussed in the
platforms, with the exception of Frow et al. (2015), does not provide
paper, service eco- systems are partly designed and partly
clear definitions of what an engagement plat- form is, and typically
emergent. Hence, market development cannot be ‘designed’ by a
describes them as being both intermediaries and mediators, using
focal actor — all design efforts must allow for emergence. Viewing
Latour's (2005) definition (see, e.g., Ramaswamy and Ozcan, 2015).
markets as plastic (Nenonen et al., 2014) highlights the role of non-
Finally, the resource integrations patterns, which we define as dis-
predictive strategy (Wiltbank, Dew, Read, and Sarasvathy, 2006),
tinct combinations of actors, engagement platforms, actor dispositions
which gives less attention to planning while emphasizing
and engagement properties, provide the fundamental structure for a
experimentation and learning. Based on the re- search presented in
focal firm wanting to better understand and manage effective value
this paper, heteropathic resource integration pat- terns are the
mechanisms that explain and drive emergence. Thus,

Table 1
Research issues: actor engagement as a microfoundation of value co-creation.

Engaging actor Engagement platform Actor disposition Engagement Resource integration

property pattern

Definition Humans, machines/technologies
and various collections of
humans and
machines/technologies,
including organizations
Research • Volume and variety of actors
issues • Actor combinations
• Machines/technologies as
actors
A multi-sided intermediary
that actors leverage to
engage with other actors to
integrate resources
• Platform modality
• Roles of platforms vs.
actors
• Platforms and
engagement-related
network effects
A capacity of an actor to appropriate,
reproduce, or potentially innovate
upon connections in the current time
and place, in response to a specific
past and/or toward a specific future
• Disposition of machine actors
• Actor intentionality
• Disposition vs. Engagement
properties
• Engagement practices
Observable engagement A distinct combination of
activity actors, engagement
platforms, actor dispositions
and engagement properties
• Co-production vs. • Evaluation of effective
value-in-use activities patterns
• Relational properties • Trade-offs between
• Informational properties patterns
• Temporal properties • Generic patterns
• Choreography of patterns
focal actors wanting to innovate or design service ecosystems need
to focus on enabling (for instance with new technology) patterns
that ful- fill their design objectives, and drive market development
in their favor using market-shaping strategies (Storbacka and
Nenonen, 2015).
Finally, as digitalization makes organizational boundaries more
per- meable, managers must extend their influence beyond the
conceptual borders of transactions, and beyond the factual borders
of the firm. Much of market management literature focuses on the
seller–buyer dyad, in which both parties have pre-determined roles.
However, adopting a worldview of generic actors engaging in
resource integration in service ecosystems, requires firms to find
ways to foster and support the formation of effective resource
integration patterns among a large number of actors in the
ecosystem, including communities of suppliers, partners, and
customers. This means that managerial practices need to change to
incorporate a systemic view — the key question being: how can a
leader have impact in the ecosystem, without having authority?
References
Alexander, C., Ishikawa, S., Silverstein, M., Jacobson, M., Fiksdahl-King, I., & Angel, S.
(1977). A pattern language. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Arthur, W. B. (2009). The nature of technology: What it is and how it evolves. New York, NY:
Free Press.
Arthur, W. B. (2014). Complexity and the economy. New York, NY: Oxford University
Press. Barney, J., & Felin, T. (2013). What are microfoundations? Academy of
Management
Perspectives, 27, 138–155.
Bente, G., Rüggenberg, S., Krämer, N. C., & Eschenburg, F. (2008). Avatar-mediated net-
working: Increasing social presence and interpersonal trust in net-based collabora-
tions. Human Communication Research, 34(2), 287–318.
Bishop, C. M. (2007). Pattern recognition and machine learning. New York, NY: Springer.
Breidbach, C., Brodie, R., & Hollebeek, L. (2014). Beyond virtuality: From engagement
plat- forms to engagement ecosystems. Managing Service Quality, 24(6), 592–611.
Brodie, R. J., Hollebeek, L. D., Juric, B., & Ilic, A. (2011a). Customer engagement: Conceptual
domain, fundamental propositions and implications for research. Journal of Service
Research, 14(3), 252–271.
Brodie, R. J., Saren, M., & Pels, J. (2011b). Theorizing about marketing and the S D logic:
exploring the bridging role of middle range theory. Marketing Theory, 11(1), 75–91.
Brynjolfsson, E., & McAfee, A. (2012). Winning the race with ever-smarter machines.
MIT
Sloan Management Review, 53(2), 53–60.
Brynjolfsson, E., & McAfee, A. (2014). The second machine age: work, progress, and
prosper- ity in a time of brilliant technology. New York, NY: WW Norton & Company.
Cecez-Kecmanovic, D., Galliers, R. D., Henfridsson, O., Newell, S., & Vidgen, R. (2014).
The sociomateriality of information systems: Current status, future directions. MIS
Quarterly, 38(3), 809–830.
Chandler, J. D., & Lusch, R. F. (2015). Service systems — A broadened framework and re-
search agenda on value propositions, engagement, and service experience.
Journal of Service Research, 18(1), 6–22.
Chen, K. C., & Lien, S. Y. (2014). Machine-to-machine communications: Technologies and
challenges. Ad Hoc Networks, 18, 3–23.
Coleman, J. (1990). Foundations of social theory. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.
Davenport, T. H. (2013). Analytics 3.0: In the new era, big data will power consumer
products and services. Harvard Business Review, 91(12), 64–72.
Dopfer, K., Foster, J., & Potts, J. (2004). Micro–meso–macro. Journal of Evolutionary
Economics, 14(3), 263–279.
Dörbecker, R., Harms, T., & Böhmann, T. (2013). Exploring prevalence, forms, and rela-
tionships of service modularity — A cross-sectional study of German private health
insurance services. The 13th International Research Symposium on Service
Excellence in Management (QUIS) 2013, June 10–13, 2013, Karlstad, Sweden.
Doty, D. H., Glick, W. H., & Huber, G. P. (1993). Fit, equifinality, and the organizational
ef- fectiveness: a test of two configurational theories. Academy of Management
Journal, 36(6), 1196–1250.
Fehrer, J., Smith, S., & Brodie, R. J. (2015). Theorizing in marketing using corpus-
linguistics: A new methodological framework. Proceedings from the EMAC
Conference Leuven.
Felin, T., & Foss, N. (2005). Strategic organization: A field in search of micro-foundations.
Strategic Organization, 3, 441–455.
Felin, T., Foss, N. J., & Ployhart, R. E. (2015). The microfoundations movement in strategy and
organization theory. The Academy of Management Annals, 9(1), 575–632.
Foss, N. J. (2009). Alternative research strategies in the knowledge movement: From
macro bias to micro-foundations and multi-level explanation. European
Management Review, 6, 16–28.
Foss, N. J., & Pederson, T. (2014). Microfoundations in strategy. Strategic Management
Journal. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/smj.2362 (forthcoming).
Fox, J., Ahn, S. J., Janssen, J. H., Yeykelis, L., Segovia, K. Y., & Bailenson, J. N. (2014). Avatars
versus agents: a meta-analysis quantifying the effect of agency on social in fluence.
Human–Computer Interaction. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07370024.2014.921494.
Frow, P., Nenonen, S., Payne, A., & Storbacka, K. (2015). Managing co-creation design: a
strategic approach to innovation. British Journal of Management, 26(3), 463–483.
Füller, J. (2010). Refining virtual co-creation from a consumer perspective. California
Management Review, 52(2), 98–122.
Gamma, E., Helm, R., Johnson, R., & Vlissides, J. (1994). Design patterns: elements of
reus- able object-oriented software. Reading: Addison-Wesley.
Gavetti, G. (2005). Cognition and hierarchy: Rethinking the microfoundations of
capabil- ities' development. Organization Science, 16, 599–617.
Gawer, A. (2009). Platform dynamics and strategies: From products to services. In A.
Gawer (Ed.), Platforms, markets and innovation (pp. 45–76). Cheltenham, UK: Ed-
wards Elgar Publishing.
Glushko, R. J. (Ed.). (2014). The discipline of organizing. Core (concepts ed.). Sebastopol,
CA: O′Reilly Media.
Hedström, P., & Swedberg, R. (1998). Social mechanisms: An introductory essay. In P.
Hedström, & R. Swedberg (Eds.), Social mechanisms. An analytical approach to
social theory (pp. 1–31). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Henfridsson, O., Mathiassen, L., & Svahn, F. (2014). Managing technological change in the
digital age: The role of architectural frames. Journal of Information Technology, 29(1),
27–43.
Jaakkola, E., & Alexander, M. (2014). The role of customer engagement behavior in value
co-creation. Journal of Service Research, 17(3), 247–261.
Jepperson, R., & Meyer, J. W. (2011). Multiple levels of analysis and the limitations of
methodological individualisms. Sociological Theory, 29(1), 54–73.
Katz, M. L., & Shapiro, C. (1994). Systems competition and network effects. The Journal of
Economic Perspectives, 8(2), 93–115.
Kelly, J. E., III, & Hamm, S. (2013). Smart machines: IBM's Watson and the era of cognitive
computing. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Kohavi, R., & Provost, F. (1998). Glossary of terms. Machine Learning, 30, 271–274.
Korkman, O. (2006). Customer value formation in practice — A practice-theoretical ap-
proach. Helsinki, Finland: Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration
No. 155.
Korkman, O., Storbacka, K., & Harald, B. (2010). Practices as markets: Value co-creation in
e-invoicing. Australasian Marketing Journal, 18, 236–247.
Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor–network-theory. Oxford,
UK: Oxford University Press.
Leonardi, P. M. (2012). Materiality, sociomateriality, and socio-technical systems: What
do these terms mean? How are they different? In P. M. Leonardi, B. A. Nardi, & J.
Kallinikos (Eds.), Materiality and organizing: social inter- action in a technological
world (pp. 25–48). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Lippman, S. A., & Rumult, R. P. (2003). The payments perspective: micro-foundations of
resource analysis. Strategic Management Journal, 24(10), 903–927.
Lusch, R. F., & Vargo, S. L. (2014). Service-dominant logic: Premises, perspectives, possibilities.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Maglio, P. P., Matlock, T., Gould, S. J., Koons, D., & Campbell, C. S. (2002). On
understanding discourse in human-computer interaction. Proceedings of the twenty-
fourth annual conference of the cognitive science society (pp. 602–607). Mahwah,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Maglio, P. P., Vargo, S. L., Caswell, N., & Spohrer, J. (2009). The service system is the basic
abstraction of service science. Information Systems and e-Business Management, 7(4),
395–406.
Markoff, J. (2010, October 9). Google cars drive themselves in traffic. The New York Times.
Meyer, A. D., Tsui, A. S., & Hinings, C. R. (1993). Configurational approaches to organiza-
tional analysis. The Academy of Management Journal, 36(6), 1175–1195.
Miller, D. (1996). Configurations revisited. Strategic Management Journal, 17(7), 505–512.
Milligan, C., Littlejohn, A., & Margaryan, A. (2013). Patterns of engagement in connectivist
MOOCs. MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 9(2), 149–159.
Molina, A. H. (1999). Understanding the role of the technical in the build-up of
sociotechnical constituencies. Technovation, 19, 1–29.
Nass, C., Steuer, J., & Tauber, E. R. (1994). Computers are social actors. Proceedings of the
SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 72–78).
Nenonen, S., Kjellberg, H., Pels, J., Cheung, L., Lindeman, S., Mele, C., ... Storbacka, K. (2014).
A new perspective on market dynamics: Market plasticity and the stability–fluidity
dialectics. Marketing Theory, 14(3), 269–289.
Orlikowski, W. J., & Scott, S. V. (2008). Sociomateriality: Challenging the separation
of technology, work and organization. The Academy of Management Annals, 2(1),
433–474.
Parmar, R., Mackenzie, I., Cohn, D., & Gann, D. (2014). The new patterns of innovation.
Harvard Business Review, 92(1–2), 86–97.
Peltz, C. (2003). Web services orchestration and choreography. Computer, 36(10), 46–52.
Peters, L. D. (2016). — This issue). Heteropathic vs. homopathic resource integration and
value co-creation in service ecosystems. Journal of Business Research (accepted for
publication).
Phillips, N., Lawrence, T. B., & Hardy, C. (2000). Inter-organizational collaboration and the
dynamics of institutional fields. Journal of Management Studies, 37(1), 23–43.
Pickering, A. (2001). Practice and posthumanism: Social theory and a history of agency. In
T. R. Schatzki, K. Knorr-Cetina, & E. von Savigny (Eds.), The practice turn in
contempo- rary theory (pp. 163–174). London: Routledge.
Prahalad, C. K., & Ramaswamy, V. (2004). The future of competition: Co-creating unique
value with customers. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Ramaswamy, V. (2009). Co-creation of value—towards an expanded paradigm of
value creation. Marketing Review St. Gallen, 26(6), 11–17.
Ramaswamy, V., & Gouillart, F. (2010). The power of co-creation. New York, NY: The
Free Press.
Ramaswamy, V., & Ozcan, K. (2015). Brand value co-creation in a digitalized world: An in-
tegrative framework and research implications. International Journal of Research in
Marketing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2015.07.001.
Ranjan, K. R., & Read, S. (2014). Value co-creation: Concept and measurement. Journal
of the Academy of Marketing Science. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11747-014-0397-2.
Sagar, M., Bullivant, D., Robertson, P., Efimov, O., Jawed, K., Kalarot, R., & Wu, T. (2014).
Embodying models of expressive behaviour and learning with a biomimetic virtual
 infant. Proceeding of the 4th international conference on development and learning and
onepigenetic robotics (IEEE ICDL-EPIROB 2014).
Sawhney, M., Verona, G., & Prandelli, E. (2005). Collaborating to create: The internet
as a platform for customer engagement in product innovation. Journal of
Interactive Marketing, 19(4), 4–17.
Schatzki, T. R. (2001). Introduction: Practice theory. In T. R. Schatzki, K. Knorr-Cetina, &
E.
von Savigny (Eds.), The practice turn in contemporary theory (pp. 10–23). London,
UK: Routledge.
Schaumburg, H. (2001). Computers as tools or as social actors? The users' perspective on
anthropomorphic agents. International Journal of Cooperative Information
Systems, 10(1/2), 217–234.
Siggelkow, N. (2002). Evolution toward fit. Administrative Science Quarterly, 47(1),
125–159.
Spohrer, J., Maglio, P. P., Bailey, J., & Gruhl, D. (2007). Steps toward a science of service
sys- tems. Computer, 40, 71–77.
Stafford, R. Q., MacDonald, B. A., Jayawardena, C., Wegner, D. M., & Broadbent, E. (2014).
Does the robot have a mind? Mind perception and attitudes towards robots
predict use of an eldercare robot. International Journal of Social Robotics, 6(1),
17–32.
Storbacka, K., & Nenonen, S. (2011). Markets as configurations. European Journal of
Mar-
keting, 45(1/2), 241–258.
Storbacka, K., & Nenonen, S. (2015). Learning with the market: Facilitating market inno-
vation. Industrial Marketing Management, 44, 73–82.
Teece, D. (2007). Explicating dynamic capabilities: The nature and microfoundations
of
(sustainable) enterprise performance. Strategic Management Journal, 28, 1319–
1350. Thomas, L., Autio, E., & Gann, D. (2014). Architectural leverage: Putting
platforms in con-
text. The Academy of Management Perspectives, 28(2), 198–219.
Ulrich, K. (1995). The role of product architecture in the manufacturing firm. Research
Policy, 24(3), 419–440.
van Bommel, E., Edelman, D., & Ungerman, K. (2014). Digitizing the consumer decision
journey. McKinsey & Company: Insights & Publicationshttp://www.mckinsey.com/
insights/marketing_sales/digitizing_the_consumer_decision_journey (accessed 14.1.
2014)
Van Doorn, J., Lemon, K. N., Mittal, V., Nass, S., Pick, D., Pirner, P., & Verhoef, P. C.
(2010). Customer engagement behavior: theoretical foundations and research
directions. Journal of Service Research, 13(3), 253–266.
Vargo, S. L., & Lusch, R. F. (2015). Institutions and axioms: an extension and update of
service-dominant logic. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. http://dx.doi.
org/10.1007/s11747-015-0456-3.
Vargo, S. L., Maglio, P. P., & Akaka, M. A. (2008). On value and value co-creation: A service
systems and service logic perspective. European Management Journal, 26(3), 145–152.
Verhoef, P. C., Reinartz, W. J., & Krafft, M. (2010). Customer engagement as a new perspec-
tive in customer management. Journal of Service Research, 13(3), 247–252.
Verleye, K., Gemmel, P., & Rangarajan, D. (2014). Managing engagement behaviors in
a network of customers and stakeholders: evidence from the nursing home sector.
Journal of Service Research, 17(1), 68–84.
Vorhies, D. W., & Morgan, N. A. (2003). A configuration theory assessment of
marketing
organization fit with business strategy and its relationship with marketing perfor-
mance. Journal of Marketing, 67(1), 100–115.
Voss, C. A., & Hsuan, J. (2009). Service architecture and modularity. Decision Sciences,
40(3), 541–569.
Wiltbank, R., Dew, N., Read, S., & Sarasvathy, S. D. (2006). What to do next? The case for
non-predictive strategy. Strategic Management Journal, 27(10), 981–998.