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 i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The starting point for this research is that value co-creation is difficult to observe empirically, whereas actor en-
Received 1 August 2015 gagement is observable and thus more likely to be designable and manageable. Informed by the microfoundation
Received in revised form 1 January 2016 movement in strategic management, actor engagement is conceptualized as a microfoundation for value co-
Accepted 1 February 2016
creation within the context of a service ecosystem. Using a trans-disciplinary perspective, actors are viewed
Available online 8 April 2016
not only as humans, but also as machines and various combinations of humans and machines. Actor engagement
Keywords:
is defined as both the actor's disposition to engage, and the activity of engaging in an interactive process of re-
Micro-foundation source integration within a service ecosystem. This leads to identifying research issues for actors, engagement
Actor engagement platforms, actor disposition, engagement properties and resource integration patterns. We conclude by drawing
Service ecosystems 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
designable and manageable. Hence, actor engagement plays a central
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 label action-
3009
formation mechanisms, which explains how an individual actor 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 departure from a dyadic
3010 K. Storbacka et al. / Journal of Business Research 69 (2016) 3008–3017
Fig. 1. The Coleman bathtub: Actor engagement explains value co-creation.
world view, as a systemic view necessitates the “emancipation from the
shackles of the dyad (and the myopia connected to this)” (Storbacka
and Nenonen, 2011, p. 242).
Lusch and Vargo (2014) do not specifically define what an actor is,
but use it as a general construct similar to the idea of ‘social actors’.
Hence, actors can be humans or collections of humans, such as organiza-
tions. The key is that they are involved in a “logic of human exchange
systems” (ibid., p. 102).
However, limiting our view to human actors alone ignores the im-
pact of technologies. Researchers on sociomateriality view the human
and social dimension interwoven with the realm of the material, includ-
ing technologies (Cecez-Kecmanovic, Galliers, Henfridsson, Newell, and
Vidgen, 2014; Orlikowski and Scott, 2008). Adding technologies or ma-
chines to the equation is imperative because of the fast pace of develop-
ment of smart machines in service interactions (Brynjolfsson and
McAfee, 2014). Advances in autonomous technologies provide increasing
opportunity for re-shaping actor-to-actor interaction, for instance, by
substituting human-based interaction with technology-to-technology in-
teraction (e.g., an automobile that autonomously alerts emergency ser-
vices) or new, more customized and contextual forms of human-to-
machine interactions (e.g., augmented reality). These advances build
on developments in machine learning (Bishop, 2007; Kohavi and
Provost, 1998), big data and advanced analytics (Brynjolfsson and
McAfee, 2012), robots in customer service (Stafford, MacDonald,
Jayawardena, Wegner, and Broadbent, 2014), computers-as-social-
agents (Nass, Steuer, and Tauber, 1994; Schaumburg, 2001), machine-
to-machine communication (Chen and Lien, 2014), cognitive comput-
ing (Kelly and Hamm, 2013), and the role of avatars vs. algorithms
(Bente, Rüggenberg, Krämer, and Eschenburg, 2008; Fox et al., 2014)
in relation to automated online assistants.
Consequently, actors need to be viewed not only as humans, but also
as machines/technologies, or collections of humans and machines/tech-
nologies, including organizations. Earlier research (Maglio, Vargo,
Caswell, and Spohrer, 2009; Spohrer, Maglio, Bailey, and Gruhl, 2007)
views service systems as comprised of entities interacting or engaging
with one another to create value. These entities are collections or ar-
rangements of resources, including people, technology, information,
and organizations. For the present purpose, entities are identified as ac-
tors, highlighting the action, interaction, and engagement required for
effective resource integration and value creation.
Technologies are human-created things that serve human purposes
(Arthur, 2009), including for instance, automobiles and computational
systems (the terms technologies and machines are used interchange-
ably). In the transportation service ecosystem of urban taxis, for exam-
ple, the physical taxi (technology), the driver (human), the passenger
(human), and other vehicles (human-technology entities) can be
considered as actors, and distinguishing interactions between pairs of
actors and among groups of actors help us to understand their roles
and relationships. In the not-too-distant future, vehicles can drive
themselves, eliminating the human driver and possibly changing the
nature of interactions with other vehicles and with the road network
as well (e.g., Markoff, 2010). In the case of the human taxi driver, the
technology of the automobile is under the direct control of the taxi driv-
er, whereas in the case of the autonomous taxi, technology itself is in
control, and this change has implications for the way the entire system
works, as the technology can interact seamlessly with the technology of
other vehicles and the road network, potentially eliminating accidents
and other unanticipated problems.
Glushko (2014) identifies seven contexts for designing service sys-
tems involving advanced forms of interaction between human and
technology actors. Building on these, but using the vocabulary of this
paper they are: (1) human-to-human, (2) technology-enhanced
human-to-human, (3) human-to-technology (e.g., self-service),
(4) human-to-human or human-to-technology in multiple channels,
(5) human-to-multiple technologies (e.g., services used on multiple de-
vices), (6) technology-to-technology, and (7) context-aware human-
to-technology, meaning human-to-technology interactions supported
by location-based or other context-aware applications. Glushko's argu-
ment is that encounters are becoming more information-intensive and
that designers of service systems need to use new design elements
to leverage new opportunities for autonomous technologies and to
manage complexity. This view resonates with the work of Molina
(1999) who argues for the importance of sociotechnical alignment,
in which sociotechnical constituencies, consisting of dynamic en-
sembles of technical constituents (e.g., machines, technologies)
and social constituents (e.g. institutions, humans), “interact and
shape each other in the course of the creation, production and diffu-
sion of specific technologies” (p. 8).
Drawing on this more nuanced view of the actor concept, we identi-
fy three research issues relevant to a focal actor aiming at designing and
managing AE.
1. Volume and variety of actors. Ubiquitous autonomous technology
has the potential to changes the volume and variety of actors avail-
able for engagement, as well as the number of connections between
actors that engagement can build on. A focal actor needs to recognize
this changing context of engagement as possible opportunities for
enhancing engagement.
2. Actor combinations. Viewing all ecosystem actors as able to interact,
means that engagement applies to a much richer set of actor combi-
nations, both in dyads (human-to-human (H2H); human-to-
machine (H2M); machine-to-machine (M2M), in triads (humans-
 K. Storbacka et al. / Journal of Business Research 69 (2016) 3008–3017
to-(human & machine) (H2H&M); (human & machine)-to-(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 customer journeys, which relates
3011
to a longitudinal and relational view of how customers and firms inter-
act or ‘touch’ each other in time and space; where firms aim at securing
a seamless multi-channel experience (van Bommel, 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, plat-
forms do not engage themselves but foster engagement between
two or more actors. This helps to differentiate engagement platforms
3012 K. Storbacka et al. / Journal of Business Research 69 (2016) 3008–3017
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.
 K. Storbacka et al. / Journal of Business Research 69 (2016) 3008–3017
1. Disposition of machine actors. What seems evident is that the dispo-
sition to engage needs to be extended beyond the psychological and
emotional state of humans to cover also increasingly autonomous
technologies with conditioned agency. 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-
tions are characterized by temporal contexts. Hence, AE “is based on ac-
tors' present-day connections that have emerged from past service
experiences and are oriented toward future service experiences”
3013
(p. 5), and AE “is based on actors' present-day connections as comprised
of other actors and the social roles that affiliate them with these actors”
(p. 5). Temporal properties are a key ingredient, as 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 (heteropathic resource integration). This is
similar to Barney and Felin (2013), who submit that the way lower
level factors aggregate to higher levels can be viewed as additive or
3014 K. Storbacka et al. / Journal of Business Research 69 (2016) 3008–3017
complex. Additive aggregation would imply simple accumulation of 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 reinforce each
other in order to achieve a high degree of configurational fit. This reso-
nates with the idea that there may be some generic patterns that are
preferred due to their potentiality (see Parmar, 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, engagement platforms, actor disposition, engagement properties
and resource integration patterns. Based on a broad literature review
and logical argumentation a number of research issues are documented,
 K. Storbacka et al. / Journal of Business Research 69 (2016) 3008–3017 3015

which are summarized in Table 1. The research issues are broad and in-
tegrative in scope and do not relate directly to any specific research con-
texts. It is, however, beyond the scope of this paper to develop specific
research questions around the research issues.
In addition to the identified research issues, the paper makes four
particular contributions to SDL and especially to the literature on cus-
tomer engagement. First, it explicates and expands the notion of an
‘actor’ by deliberately looking beyond humans or collections of humans
as actors. Actors are defined as humans, machines/technologies and
various collections of humans and machines/technologies, including or-
ganizations. The diversity of actors means that there will also be diver-
sity in the ways actors offer value and seek value, and in how mutual
value creation shapes an ecosystem. This expansion is very relevant as
increasingly we see technology-enabled engagement opportunities oc-
curring in many contexts.
Second, the research expands the conceptual research on customer
engagement (Brodie, Hollebeek, et al., 2011; Chandler and Lusch,
2015; Van Doorn et al., 2010) to create a deeper understanding of the
nature of the interface between generic actors in a service ecosystem.
In doing so, it suggests fundamental changes in the discussion on en-
gagement. With the expanded view of actors, the conception of disposi-
tions to engage needs to be extended beyond the psychological and
emotional state of humans to cover increasingly autonomous technolo-
gies with conditioned agency. Consequently, actor disposition is defined
as a capacity of an actor to appropriate, reproduce, or potentially inno-
vate upon connections in the current time and place, in response to a
specific past and/or toward a specific future. Furthermore, the discus-
sion on engagement needs to cover not only the dispositions to engage
but also the engagement properties, defined as observable engagement
activities. Subsequently, actor engagement is re-conceptualized as both
the disposition of actors to engage, and the activity of engaging in an in-
teractive process of resource integration within the institutional context
provided by a service ecosystem.
Third, this research is one of the first within SDL that defines an en-
gagement platform: a multi-sided intermediary that actors leverage to
integrate resources. This definition aims at highlighting the difference
between an actor and a platform: platforms are passive intermediaries,
whereas actors (by definition) are active and have dispositions to en-
gage. Engagement platforms do not modify or enhance the resources
to be integrated during the AE — they bring actors and their resources
together. A platform that takes an active stance needs – based on our
definitions above – to be viewed as an actor that engages in resource in-
tegration. Most research on platforms, with the exception of Frow et al.
(2015), does not provide clear definitions of what an engagement plat-
form is, and typically describes them as being both intermediaries and
mediators, using Latour's (2005) definition (see, e.g., Ramaswamy and
Ozcan, 2015).
Finally, the resource integrations patterns, which we define as dis-
tinct combinations of actors, engagement platforms, actor dispositions
and engagement properties, provide the fundamental structure for a
focal firm wanting to better understand and manage effective value
co-creation. The effectiveness of patterns is likely to vary between con-
texts, indicating the need for a deeper understanding of the relationship
between potentially generic patterns and the service ecosystem under
analysis. The research suggests that actor engagement may lead to
both homeopathic (summative) and heteropathic (emergent) resource
integration patterns (Peters, this issue). As actors engage in resource in-
tegrating activities the outcomes on a macro level cannot be fully de-
signed, planned or controlled. Heteropathic resource integration
generates new and sometimes surprising properties (e.g., entities,
structures, concepts, qualities, capacities) in the service ecosystem.
Thus heteropathic resource integration can be viewed as a mechanism
for emergence, implying that not only is actor engagement a
microfoundation for value co-creation, but it is also a microfoundation
for service ecosystem emergence. Hence, to understand service ecosys-
tem or market dynamics more research is needed related to actor
engagement.
6.2. Implications for managerial practice
The findings of our paper contain important suggestions for practi-
tioners. First, it provides guidance for a focal firm wanting to design
co-creation strategies, by delineating the elements of resource integra-
tion patterns that can be influenced. Some of these elements are more
likely to be designable. It is, for instance, likely that engagement
platforms can be designed to incentivize certain actors to contribute
their resources and enable service-for-service exchange. Moreover, un-
derstanding the dispositions of actors will enable firms to plan for en-
gagement properties that support their design goals. A particularly
important field for exploration is to systematically gather data about
all of the elements of engagement patterns. This data would form the
input for more advanced analytics aimed at finding effective patterns
which may enable firms to move from predictive modeling to prescrip-
tive modeling and inform managerial decision-making toward higher
value creation (Davenport, 2013).
Second, the fast pace of digitalization is driving innovation of novel
forms of engagement involving increasingly smart machines. Advances
in autonomous technologies provide interesting prospects for substitut-
ing human-based interaction with machine-to-machine interaction or
more customized and contextual forms of human-to-machine interac-
tions. It is paramount for managers to embrace these opportunities
and explore the ways to use them for enhanced value creation.
Third, we suggest that managers need to focus more on understand-
ing the new dynamics of markets. As discussed in the paper, service eco-
systems are partly designed and partly emergent. Hence, market
development cannot be ‘designed’ by a focal actor — all design efforts
must allow for emergence. Viewing markets as plastic (Nenonen et al.,
2014) highlights the role of non-predictive strategy (Wiltbank, Dew,
Read, and Sarasvathy, 2006), which gives less attention to planning
while emphasizing experimentation and learning. Based on the re-
search presented in 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
3016 K. Storbacka et al. / Journal of Business Research 69 (2016) 3008–3017
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?
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