Service Ecosystem and Institutions 3
Tracks
Track 4
| Saturday, June 18, 2022 |
| 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM |
| Conference Room 2 |
Speaker
Dr Paul Harrigan
Associate Professor
The University of Western Australia
How unsustainable practices resist deinstitutionalization in service ecosystems: lessons from the wildlife trade
Abstract.
RELEVANCE
Service research has the opportunity to sit at the forefront of tackling complex social problems (Field et al. 2021; Ostrom et al. 2021). Deinstitutionalization is the erosion of institutions and the elimination of previously taken-for-granted practices, and is at the core of social change (Oliver 1992). To understand why problematic value cocreation (VCC) practices persist, despite social and political pressures, we draw on service-dominant (S-D logic’s service ecosystem perspective and the concept of deinstitutionalization (Lawrence and Suddaby 2006; Maglio et al. 2009; Oliver 1992) to gain insights into a unique case study: the illegal wildlife trade across three different countries.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1. How do unsustainable VCC practices persist?
2. How do service systems respond to institutional disruptions that question the legitimacy of their practices?
3. How do systems’ responses to disruption influence the deinstitutionalization of problematic practices?
THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS
Institutional theory is interested in the gradual diffusion of ideas, practices and structures in such a way that they become habitual (DiMaggio and Powell 1991). These form institutions that are socially constructed through actions and interactions between their actors. This concept is integral to S-D logic; that VCC is coordinated through actor-generated institutions and institutional arrangements (Vargo and Lusch 2016). Conversely, the process by which practices and activities are eroded and rejected over time is referred to as deinstitutionalization (Oliver 1992). Deinstitutionalization is one of the ultimate goals of conservationists in the illegal wildlife trade context; to change social norms to reduce the prevalence of behaviors that threaten the survival of species.
METHOD
Using thematic discourse analysis, we identify and detail the complexity of how meaning and value are socially constructed and ascribed to resources such as exotic pets and the core practices involved in owning them (Maguire and Hardy 2009). We collected data from nine online communities of exotic pet ownership in three different countries, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and the Republic of Indonesia (final dataset of 270 posts and 15, 850 comments: NUK=3395, NUS=3607, NIndonesia=7966).
FINDINGS
We find that social media platforms are facilitating a processual and dynamic series of interactions that inform the way that group members respond to disruption events, such as interactions with wider society or law enforcement that directly challenge the legitimacy of their behavior. By providing an opportunity for the group members to discuss their experiences and practices, while integrating their pets into their social environment, the group is able to conduct institutional work and reconstruct institutions in a way that maintains their ability to enact the core practices of pet keeping.
CONTRIBUTIONS
Our research contributes to service research by elucidating how institutional disruption and questions of legitimacy of VCC practices in problematic service systems fit into the deinstitutionalization process. We propose a process model of institutional persistence that gives insights into the relationships and feedback loops that enable unsustainable practices to continue and slow down the rate of deinstitutionalization. Additionally, we provide conservation researchers with recommendations to create more effective campaigns to reduce demand for wildlife resources.
Service research has the opportunity to sit at the forefront of tackling complex social problems (Field et al. 2021; Ostrom et al. 2021). Deinstitutionalization is the erosion of institutions and the elimination of previously taken-for-granted practices, and is at the core of social change (Oliver 1992). To understand why problematic value cocreation (VCC) practices persist, despite social and political pressures, we draw on service-dominant (S-D logic’s service ecosystem perspective and the concept of deinstitutionalization (Lawrence and Suddaby 2006; Maglio et al. 2009; Oliver 1992) to gain insights into a unique case study: the illegal wildlife trade across three different countries.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1. How do unsustainable VCC practices persist?
2. How do service systems respond to institutional disruptions that question the legitimacy of their practices?
3. How do systems’ responses to disruption influence the deinstitutionalization of problematic practices?
THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS
Institutional theory is interested in the gradual diffusion of ideas, practices and structures in such a way that they become habitual (DiMaggio and Powell 1991). These form institutions that are socially constructed through actions and interactions between their actors. This concept is integral to S-D logic; that VCC is coordinated through actor-generated institutions and institutional arrangements (Vargo and Lusch 2016). Conversely, the process by which practices and activities are eroded and rejected over time is referred to as deinstitutionalization (Oliver 1992). Deinstitutionalization is one of the ultimate goals of conservationists in the illegal wildlife trade context; to change social norms to reduce the prevalence of behaviors that threaten the survival of species.
METHOD
Using thematic discourse analysis, we identify and detail the complexity of how meaning and value are socially constructed and ascribed to resources such as exotic pets and the core practices involved in owning them (Maguire and Hardy 2009). We collected data from nine online communities of exotic pet ownership in three different countries, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and the Republic of Indonesia (final dataset of 270 posts and 15, 850 comments: NUK=3395, NUS=3607, NIndonesia=7966).
FINDINGS
We find that social media platforms are facilitating a processual and dynamic series of interactions that inform the way that group members respond to disruption events, such as interactions with wider society or law enforcement that directly challenge the legitimacy of their behavior. By providing an opportunity for the group members to discuss their experiences and practices, while integrating their pets into their social environment, the group is able to conduct institutional work and reconstruct institutions in a way that maintains their ability to enact the core practices of pet keeping.
CONTRIBUTIONS
Our research contributes to service research by elucidating how institutional disruption and questions of legitimacy of VCC practices in problematic service systems fit into the deinstitutionalization process. We propose a process model of institutional persistence that gives insights into the relationships and feedback loops that enable unsustainable practices to continue and slow down the rate of deinstitutionalization. Additionally, we provide conservation researchers with recommendations to create more effective campaigns to reduce demand for wildlife resources.
Dr. Anu Helkkula
Manager of Hanken PhD Programme
Hanken School of Economics, CERS, the Centre for Relationship Marketing and Service Management
Rethinking Actors, Resource Integration and Value Cocreation to Achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Abstract.
The United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were launched in 2016 as a world-wide agenda on a 14-year time horizon to solve major environmental and social challenges and improve social well-being. Even if achievements can be recognized e.g., in environmental sustainability to reduce CO2 emission (Lei et al, 2021; López et al., 2018), studies show that CO2 emissions continue to climb through 2040 (Lotfi and Belkir, 2018.) Furthermore, studies show that climate change is the greatest threat to human well-being (United Nations, n.d.). Based on the wicked problems that our planet faces currently, the UN agenda calls for rapid actions to “to promote prosperity while protecting the planet” (United Nations, n.d)
Service has been understood to be the foundation of all business) and an engine for promoting prosperity, the latter conceived of as positive value experiences and well-being (Vargo and Lusch, 2018). Service-dominant (S-D) logic emphasizes that in the process of creating service, resources are integrated and value cocreated by multiple social and economic actors (Vargo and Lusch, 2017). Service, resource integration and value cocreation are coordinated “through actor-generated institutions and institutional arrangements” (Vargo and Lusch 2017, 47). However, until now, service research has paid little attention to how service research can contribute to different actors working towards the SDGs.
The purpose of this paper is to look at the role of humans vs. nature as actors and resource integrators in cocreation for achieving the SDGs. We discuss the role of nature in service research, focusing on resource integration and value cocreation in S-D logic. We pose two conceptual research questions. First, what is the potential for reimaging how S-D logic defines resource integrators in value cocreation to contribute to achieving the SDGs? Second, what is the potential to extend the resource integration and value cocreation concepts to qualify all actors, including non-human ones, as beneficiaries in service ecosystems?
Our contribution is three-fold and addresses the need for ontological and epistemological change in S-D logic to reach the SDGs. Both the UN agenda and S-D logic axioms are based on current market ontology, dominated by human beings’ economic interests and objectifying nature as a resource, not as consisting of resource integrating and value cocreating actors. Even service ecosystems research has mostly left nature outside its scope. Second, we present a new ontological and epistemological understanding, a neo-animist inspired approach to achieve the SDGs. Third, we present future research avenues for the transition to understand nature as an eligible actor in resource integration and value cocreation in ecosystems, where human and non-human actors can together cocreate prosperity and well-being for all actors in the ecosystems.
Service has been understood to be the foundation of all business) and an engine for promoting prosperity, the latter conceived of as positive value experiences and well-being (Vargo and Lusch, 2018). Service-dominant (S-D) logic emphasizes that in the process of creating service, resources are integrated and value cocreated by multiple social and economic actors (Vargo and Lusch, 2017). Service, resource integration and value cocreation are coordinated “through actor-generated institutions and institutional arrangements” (Vargo and Lusch 2017, 47). However, until now, service research has paid little attention to how service research can contribute to different actors working towards the SDGs.
The purpose of this paper is to look at the role of humans vs. nature as actors and resource integrators in cocreation for achieving the SDGs. We discuss the role of nature in service research, focusing on resource integration and value cocreation in S-D logic. We pose two conceptual research questions. First, what is the potential for reimaging how S-D logic defines resource integrators in value cocreation to contribute to achieving the SDGs? Second, what is the potential to extend the resource integration and value cocreation concepts to qualify all actors, including non-human ones, as beneficiaries in service ecosystems?
Our contribution is three-fold and addresses the need for ontological and epistemological change in S-D logic to reach the SDGs. Both the UN agenda and S-D logic axioms are based on current market ontology, dominated by human beings’ economic interests and objectifying nature as a resource, not as consisting of resource integrating and value cocreating actors. Even service ecosystems research has mostly left nature outside its scope. Second, we present a new ontological and epistemological understanding, a neo-animist inspired approach to achieve the SDGs. Third, we present future research avenues for the transition to understand nature as an eligible actor in resource integration and value cocreation in ecosystems, where human and non-human actors can together cocreate prosperity and well-being for all actors in the ecosystems.
Yasin Sahhar
Researcher
University of Twente
Micro Foundations of Ecosystems Acknowledging Emergent and Pragmatist Ontologies
Abstract.
There is a raising awareness that businesses do not operate solely but in service ecosystems. Such ecosystems illuminate the complexity and interrelatedness among actors, which in turn can help organizations to understand resource integration and value co-creation at different levels of aggregation. Service ecosystems are conceptualized from different ontological positions. On one hand, echoing the biological metaphor, we could view service ecosystems as a social construct that ‘emerges’ naturally and is continuously (re)shaped in complex reality. Service ecosystems can be seen as a relatively self-contained, self-governed (Reypens et al., 2019), and self-adjusting systems of resource-integrating actors intertwined by shared institutional arrangements and mutual value creation (Vargo and Lusch, 2016). This view underscores the complex, dynamic, and multi-actor nature of value cocreation (Vargo and Lusch, 2011; Vink et al., 2020). For organizational and interorganizational relationships constituting the service ecosystem, sources of legitimacy are complex, evolving and articulated to only a limited extent (Simpson et al., 2021).
On the other hand, we find a pragmatist position towards service ecosystems, considering them intentionally constructed networks in which different actors come together with a shared purpose and explicitly articulated sources of legitimacy at organizational and aggregated levels. A service ecosystem has a deliberate scope and can be ‘orchestrated’ by actors, either collectively or by a focal actor (Perks et al., 2017). Example would include service ecosystems around technology solutions, legally binding relationships for crisis response, and service ecosystems addressing grand challenges (Ferraro et al., 2015). In contrast to the former ontology, goals of pragmatist service ecosystem tend to be more explicit and linked to subgoals and interests of participating organizations.
Although these are distinct ontologies, each of them could prove useful in various situations. Where service ecosystems that emerge are strong in growing a network and adjusting to changing circumstances, pragmatist service ecosystems make sense in situations where pressure necessitates reliable, composite performances materialized by participant contributions.
There remains sparse knowledge about what exactly constitutes these two ontologically distinct service ecosystems, and how they are linked to each other. Extant literature tends to focus on either ontology or adopts a metatheoretical view (Vargo and Akaka, 2012), leaving micro foundations contributing to midrange theory relatively unexplored (Storbacka et al., 2016). Our objective is therefore to theorize on actors’ dispositions and characteristics in resource integration and the management of services – within and between ontologically distinguished service ecosystems.
To this end, we deploy actor engagement (Storbacka, 2019; Storbacka et al., 2016), resource and services management (Hibbert et al., 2012) and orchestration as lenses for building a typology of service ecosystems. We describe how actors interact, collaborate, and engage with each other in distinct ways, and how transformation may occur between ontologies.
This study proposes a typology contributing to micro foundations of ontologically distinguished service ecosystems. Our interontology perspective can contribute to reinterpreting intra-ontology characteristics of service ecosystems such as actor engagement, resource and services management, and orchestration, as well as inspiring research on inter-ontology transformation.
On the other hand, we find a pragmatist position towards service ecosystems, considering them intentionally constructed networks in which different actors come together with a shared purpose and explicitly articulated sources of legitimacy at organizational and aggregated levels. A service ecosystem has a deliberate scope and can be ‘orchestrated’ by actors, either collectively or by a focal actor (Perks et al., 2017). Example would include service ecosystems around technology solutions, legally binding relationships for crisis response, and service ecosystems addressing grand challenges (Ferraro et al., 2015). In contrast to the former ontology, goals of pragmatist service ecosystem tend to be more explicit and linked to subgoals and interests of participating organizations.
Although these are distinct ontologies, each of them could prove useful in various situations. Where service ecosystems that emerge are strong in growing a network and adjusting to changing circumstances, pragmatist service ecosystems make sense in situations where pressure necessitates reliable, composite performances materialized by participant contributions.
There remains sparse knowledge about what exactly constitutes these two ontologically distinct service ecosystems, and how they are linked to each other. Extant literature tends to focus on either ontology or adopts a metatheoretical view (Vargo and Akaka, 2012), leaving micro foundations contributing to midrange theory relatively unexplored (Storbacka et al., 2016). Our objective is therefore to theorize on actors’ dispositions and characteristics in resource integration and the management of services – within and between ontologically distinguished service ecosystems.
To this end, we deploy actor engagement (Storbacka, 2019; Storbacka et al., 2016), resource and services management (Hibbert et al., 2012) and orchestration as lenses for building a typology of service ecosystems. We describe how actors interact, collaborate, and engage with each other in distinct ways, and how transformation may occur between ontologies.
This study proposes a typology contributing to micro foundations of ontologically distinguished service ecosystems. Our interontology perspective can contribute to reinterpreting intra-ontology characteristics of service ecosystems such as actor engagement, resource and services management, and orchestration, as well as inspiring research on inter-ontology transformation.
