Configurational fit: pathway for successful value co-creation

Value co-creation has been defined as a process of resource integration between a broader set of actors within a service system (Frow et al, 2010). This approach sets value co-creation in the context of the service-dominant logic (Vargo and Lusch, 2006) and the system perspective (von Bertalanffy, 1956; Parsons, 1971; Beer, 1972). A review of the extant literature on co-creation, shows that focus has been set in an array of research topics: on the different contexts for co-creation (e.g., Bendapudi and Leone, 2003), on the role of the customer in co-creating (Jaworski and Kohli, 2006; Kalaignanam and Varadarajan, 2006), on how other stakeholders engage in co-creative activities (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004; Payne et al, 2008), on B2B aspects associated to co-creation (e.g., Etgar, 2006; Flint and Mentzer, 2006; Lambert and Garcia-Dastugue, 2006; Woodruff and Flint, 2006), and on the conceptual implications of adopting a co-creational perspective (Normann and Ramirez, 1994; Sheth and Uslay, 2007). However, there is little discussion about the pre-requisites to a successful value co-creation process. Value co-creation takes place through interaction and dialogue (Vargo and Lusch, 2008) thus it is necessary to understand the different ways organizations relate to their context (i.e. to customers and other actors of the co-creation process). Management recent literature goes even beyond, by introducing organizations’ effective decision making and competitive behavior relation with harmonic and satisfactory relationships among the involved actors. The Viable Systems Approach (Golinelli, 2010; Barile, 2008), in fact, highlights how consonant (potential positive interactions) and then resonant (effective positive interaction) relations among systems actors are crucial for value creation and competitiveness on the longer run (Barile, Polese, 2010). It seems as if various disciplines (organization theories, management, marketing, ICT, service science) are converging towards the underpinning of the prerequisite for successful value co-creation processes, and that this is principally linked to structural components and systems features of the involved organizations (Polese, 2009). In fact, a marketing literature review shows a range of ways organizations relate to their context (Arndt, 1979; Webster, 1992; Möller and Wilson, 1995; Coviello et al, 1997; Day, 2000; Sheth and Parvatiyar, 2000) anchored at its extreme in the relational and transactional approaches (Jackson, 1985; Grönroos, 1991; Håkansson and Snehota, 1995; Pillai and Sharma, 2003). To understand the occurrence of diversity the paper builds on the organizational theory and strategic management literature. Specifically, it looks at the configurational literature as it suggests an approach to understand the diversity of ways organizations have to relate to their context (Miller, 1986, 1987, 1996; Miller and Friesen, 1977, 1978; Miller and Mintzberg, 1984; Miles and Snow, 1978; Snow and Miles, 1983). Where each configurational profile represents a different way an organization can understand and relate to its context. This paper argues that Configurational fit is a prerequisite to successful value co-creation process. Configurational fit means that organizations need to have non-conflicting ways of relating to their context in order to establish constructive dialogues and interactions that will enable a successful value co-creation process. The paper is structured as follows. First we briefly introduce the configurational literature. Next, we develop a Marketing Configurational Framework that enables to suggest viable Marketing Configurational Profiles. Then, we discuss which combinations of Marketing Configurational Profiles consent a Configurational fit. Finally, we discuss the managerial implications and suggest further research opportunities