his dissertation advocates that value and its creation are often misunderstood concepts since both lack robust comprehensive conceptual foundations from which to advance rigorous theoretical development and analysis. Furthermore, this dissertation characterized value as the subjective assessment of the total worth of benefits received for the price paid or costs, i.e. money, time, energy, etc. The purpose of this dissertation was to conduct a holistic examination of value through the lens of service-dominant logic (S-D) and several historical economic periods of thought.
I conducted a comprehensive S-D literature review in conjunction with a conceptual Boardman Soft Systems Methodology to develop a systemigram that captured the most critical S-D concepts and interrelationships to clarify its purpose and future research opportunities. During this process, value was recategorized and simplified into five primary dimensions, i.e. nature, perspectives, measures, storage, and creation. I employed Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory to illustrate that value at the lowest level of abstraction is the efficient satisfaction of human needs. I also investigated value creation and introduced a comprehensive value creation conceptual framework. Value creation is seen as a continuum of activity of key processes, i.e. value co-production, value in exchange, and value co-creation, and key procedural elements, i.e. actors, resource integration, ecosystems, services exchange, institutions and institutional arrangements as essentials to value creation. In addition, this dissertation also presented a Leyden value concept to the S-D lexicon. This concept complements use-value to capture associate upstream co-production activities and efforts as stored potential value.
This dissertation then employed this conceptual framework to perform two survey based empirical studies. The first tested Lusch et al. (2007) value-co-production framework and incorporated other constructs such as transaction cost, satisfaction, and future purchase intent into a single testable model. This study leveraged covariance based structural equation modeling with 477 respondents to simultaneously test the proposed model and advance Self Determination Theory and Transaction Cost Economics within the realm of value creation and S-D Logic. This research found that most of Lusch et al. (2007) hypotheses were supported and found statistical support for the inclusion of transaction cost as a construct that influences value-co-production. In addition, this study illustrated that value-co-production has a positive statistical association with satisfaction and its impact on consumer future purchase intent. Managerial, this study highlighted those customer characteristics and behaviors necessary to maximize value generation during co-production opportunities.
Finally, this dissertation empirically investigated the importance of benefits and equivalent cost reductions to entice consumer purchase intention across two different products and services scenarios. In total, this research gathered over 2,500 observations through a series of eight between subject survey experiments. This research found that consumers choose benefits such as warranty enhancements for new vehicle purchases and complementary desserts for dining experiences to enhance purchase intention. In addition, this research often revealed that consumers significantly decrease purchase intention when offered small value enhancements, i.e. 1% price reductions. This research also discovered that narcissism is negatively associated with those consumers who chose a donation to social causes. Finally, enhanced value offerings for expensive vacations, either through benefit enhancements or cost reductions, fail to significantly impact consumer purchase intention. The results of this research advance rational choice theory into the realm of value creation and S-D. Managerially, this research found that benefits, whether singular or offered as a menu, are powerful tools for retailers to employ to enhance consumer purchase intention.
