The evolution of markets - A service ecosystems perspective

Abstract: This conceptual dissertation aims to build an integrative and transdisciplinary framework of market evolution by reconnecting the study of innovations and markets, with help from the service ecosystems perspective. The service ecosystems perspective offers a processual, systemic, and institutional view on value creation, which is grounded in the axiomatic assumptions of service-dominant (S-D) logic. Hence, the dissertation departs from the premise that value, when perceived, is always cocreated by multiple, institutionally guided actors in service ecosystems through service exchange and the integration of resources. The dissertation extends the conceptualizations of innovations and markets from a service ecosystems perspective, with the help of institutional theory. The resulting transcending conceptualizations are then used to reconcile the paradoxical tensions identified in the conceptualizations of innovations within service research and markets within marketing literature in order to synthesize their substantial contributions into a cohesive framework of market evolution. By connecting insights from five appended papers and the reconciled literatures, the dissertation develops a recursive four-phase process model of market evolution as institutional dynamics of multi-dimensional value cocreation structures. The model explains how innovations as proto-institutional value cocreation structures emerge and how markets as institutionalized value cocreation structures evolve through institutional work carried out by multiple actors aiming to either maintain or disrupt a prevailing market. By beginning to unravel the institutional processes and market shaping strategies contributing to market evolution, the dissertation provides guidance to actors who are interested in markets and their development.