Welcome to the Exploring Value Journey


At the heart of understanding innovation, being innovative, and where to innovate is understanding what we mean by value.

We know from service-dominant logic that value is co-created. As opposed to being embedded by a manufacturing chain. And value can be co-destructed – which is something we don’t often appreciate.

But what do we mean by value? It’s no longer sufficient to look at it as how much someone is prepared to pay. Rather, we need to think of it in terms of progress that a beneficiary is looking to make. This leads us to say there is something called progress sought. And this progress can be non-functional (safely, quickly, affordably,…) as well as functional (job to be done, hindrance to overcome, problem to solve)

There is then realised value. This is the progress that the beneficiary believes they have achieved when they integrate with a service (and remember, a service can also be self service with goods). That realised value is determined uniquely by the beneficiary and is also dependent upon their lived and living experience (“phenomenologically determined” to use the right phases).

We also know the world is based on service exchange, although indirect trade may mask this. And this indirect trade is often supported by service tokens (cash).  Amount paid is not a direct measure of value. Rather, it is a measure of “how much service do I have to give (or have given) to get this service”.  We use that in our determintion to hire a service, and to keep going with it for duration.

Value - it's more than the price someone is prepared to pay

It is the proposal to help a beneficiary make functional and/or non-functional progress in some aspect of their life. And it is the amount of progress made in use (co-creation of value).

That we measure value today by price paid and/or volume sold is a result of our product-dominant logic view of the world. It turns out, these are proxies we end up using as we are not relational enough. Something service-dominant logic opens our eyes up to.

Reading time <12 mins

Much is made in service-dominant logic about value being co-created. But if it can be co-created, can it also be co-destructed?

Yes, it can. But early descriptions of interactive value formation either down played it or ignored it - destroying value is old school goods-dominant thinking.

But we can define it as occurring when interactions between actors results in a decline in at least one of the actors' well-being

And we investigate a framework that looks at components of orientation, resources and perceptions over time (before, in use and after) contribute to value co-destruction

Reading time <11 mins

In service-dominant logic, we see value differently to the traditional approach (where value is set by manufacturer and measured by the price paid - value-in-exchange). We see a beneficiary who is seeking to make progress in some aspect of their life. And they are hiring a service that proposes to help them make that progress.

Value is therefore only measurable by the beneficiary, and measures the amount of progress the beneficiary feel they have made

This measure is complicated by the baggage the beneficiary brings to the service - there lived experience. As well as the experience they have during the service provision - context, their mood, servicescape etc. Both this lived and living experience are phenomenological

We could interpret this foundational premise as the more approachable: Value is always uniquely determined by the beneficiary based on their lived and living experience

Reading time <11 mins