این همه B2B ... و فراتر از آن: به سوی چشم انداز سیستم های بازار

The delineation of B2B from ‘mainstream’ marketing reflects the limitations of the traditional, goods-dominant (G-D) model of exchange and a conceptualization of value creation based on the ‘producer’ versus ‘consumer’ divide. Service-dominant (S-D) logic broadens the perspective of exchange and value creation and implies that all social and economic actors engaged in exchange (e.g., firms, customers, etc.) are service-providing, value-creating enterprises; thus, in this sense, all exchange can be considered B2B. From this perspective, the contributions of B2B marketing (and other sub-disciplines) can be seen as applicable to ‘mainstream’ marketing. This generic, actor-to-actor (A2A) orientation, in turn, points toward a dynamic, networked and systems orientation to value creation. This article discusses this systems-oriented framework and elaborates the steps necessary for developing it further into a general theory of the market, informed by the marketing sub-disciplines, marketing practices, and disciplines external to marketing.

As the global, networked economy becomes more pervasive and its nature more compelling, it is (should be) becoming increasingly clear that we rely on one another through the voluntary exchange of applied skills and competences (Vargo and Lusch, 2004 and Vargo and Lusch, 2008a). Consequently, one might think that the above quotation is contemporary; it is, however, from Plato's The Republic (360 BCE/1930), published over 2000 years ago. Despite a globally interdependent world, the simple truth behind Plato's words often seems to be missed: we are all similarly human beings serving each other, through exchange, for mutual wellbeing. Perhaps his statement therefore punctuates our (Vargo and Lusch, 2004 and Vargo and Lusch, 2008a; see also Vargo, 2007) contention that it is important to develop a logic of and for the market (and society) and marketing that transcends time, geography, and the sometimes myopic conceptualizations of academic silos. It was in the spirit of this contention that we previously used a ‘linguistic telescope’ to zoom out to a broader, more transcending view of economic exchange and suggested (Vargo & Lusch, 2008b) “It's all B2B.” Since our early collaborative work on what has become known as service-dominant (S-D) logic, we have tried to nudge marketing thought away from fragmentation and toward a more unified theoretical conceptualization and framework. A first step was to suggest transcending the ‘goods’ verses ‘services’ divide with ‘it is all about service.’ More specifically and more recently, we recognized a need to overcome (mis)conceptual problems associated with the notion of a ‘producer,’ as a creator of value, versus a ‘consumer,’ as a destroyer of value, and have reflected this in one of the newer central tenets of S-D logic: all social and economic actors are resource integrators ( Vargo & Lusch, 2008a — as captured in foundational premise (FP) 9). That is, all parties (e.g. businesses, individual customers, households, etc.) engaged in economic exchange are similarly, resource-integrating, service-providing enterprises that have the common purpose of value (co)creation — what we mean by “it is all B2B.” We initially picked ‘B’ because, given the most commonly used designations of ‘B’ (business) and ‘C’ (consumer), economic (and social) actors come closest generically to what is captured by ‘business,’ rather than ‘consumer.’ Stated alternatively, a business is thought of as enterprising, a characterization that we find also more fully captures the activities of those with whom they exchange, than is implied by ‘consumer’ — which has rather passive, final connotations of a ‘target’ with a primary activity of using stuff up, rather than creating and contributing. Additionally, B2B scholars have been among those at the forefront in the conceptualization of generic ‘actors’ involved in value-creation processes. However, we now intend to zoom out even more with our linguistic telescope and use perhaps a more abstract designation such as ‘actor-to-actor’ (A2A) (see Vargo, 2009), which Evert Gummesson also has recently indicated to us that he is adopting, and is consistent with our adoption of the generic term ‘actor’ (e.g. Vargo & Lusch, 2008a, FP9) in our writings, as well as the convention of most Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) Group scholars (e.g. Håkansson & Snehota, 1995). Interestingly, it is also consistent with Bagozzi (1974) who, in writing about marketing as an organized behavioral system of exchange, defined the exchange system as a “set of social actors, their relationships to each other, and the endogenous and exogenous variables affecting the behavior of the social actors in those relationships” (p. 78). The A2A designation, taken together with another of S-D logic's tenets — value is always co-created (Vargo & Lusch, 2004, FP6) — point away from the fallacy of the conceptualization of the linear, sequential creation, flow, and destruction of value and toward the existence of a much more complex and dynamic system of actors that relationally co-create value and, at the same time, jointly provide the context through which ‘value’ gains its collective and individual assessment (Giddens, 1984, p. 25; Slater, 2002. P. 60). That is, they point beyond an anything-to-anything perspective to a systems orientation. A systems orientation is important to both academics and practitioners because it has different implications for understanding and applying principles of value co-creation, as is particularly essential in an increasingly interconnected, and thus increasingly dynamic, world. There is perhaps a certain irony in this position; it implies that we must move toward a more macro, systemic view of generic actors in order to see more clearly how a single, specific actor (e.g. a firm) can participate more effectively. Our purpose here is partly to elaborate further the claim that it is all A2A (or B2B) — that is, at an appropriate level of abstraction, all actors are fundamentally doing the same things, co-creating value through resource integration and service provision. But, perhaps more important, it is also our purpose to point toward what becomes possible once we have normalized the actors: (1) cross-fertilization among what have been seen as fragmented sub-disciplines and (2) a better vision of the collaborative, systemic nature of value creation and the implications for marketing theory and practice. To accomplish these purposes, we first establish the historical roots of the producer–consumer characterization and briefly explore the role of B2B and other sub-disciplinary scholars in shifting the focus toward a more complex and relational model of value creation. We then outline an S-D logic conceptualization of value creation and its implications for not only a network-based model, but also a systemic model. We then briefly discuss how practice can inform marketing theory and why a practice-informed and S-D-logic-based understanding of markets and marketing, that integrates sub-disciplinary knowledge, might provide better insights into the practice of marketing.

How should we proceed from the tenets of S-D logic to developing a systems perspective of the market that can ultimately inform practice and public policy? The first task is perhaps to exercise patience. As we (Vargo, 2007 and Vargo and Lusch, 2008a) and others (e.g. Venkatesh, Penaloza, & Firat, 2006) have suggested, what is needed is a theory of the market, one that perhaps better emulates the dynamics of ‘real-world’ events and processes and can thus provide better normative insights. As indicated, we think the appropriate perceptual lens for that theory of the market is one of value co-creation through mutual service provision, made possible by resource integration —what we call S-D logic. But it is important to note once more that S-D logic is not so much an academic invention as it is an organic, academic evolution, representing the convergence and extension of work going on in the sometimes stealthy enclaves of marketing and elsewhere. Service science is one of those ‘elsewhere’ formulations; one which could serve as a general approach to theory building, if it stays focused on a goal of building a basic science of service systems. In the meantime, even though we are cautious about moving too quickly to application, just the shift to an S-D logic lens points to possibilities for action. Core concepts like service, service-for-service, value co-creation, value propositions, resource integration, relationship, experience, etc. imply an approach to the market that is fundamentally different from that suggested by production, targeting, positioning, distribution, transaction, consumption, etc. The next step is respecifying the units and processes of analysis — the initial focus of this article. The basic notion is that the entities that are involved in a dynamic, reciprocal market activity do not fit neatly into categorical roles with different motives, needs, and desires. The CEO of a firm, the head of a household, a carpooling parent, an individual grocery shopper, a politician, etc. are not fundamentally different kinds of entities; they are all just people going about the business of their daily lives, and trying to improve them. Often, quite literally, they are the same person. A firm, a neighborhood, a subculture, and a political unit are similarly collectives of these same people, created by them to provide necessary structures for carrying out their activities. These structures connect actors and provide their context and become actors themselves. We have already suggested that we think these should be viewed as actors, generically engaged in service-for-service processes. In the service-science framework, they are service systems. Resource integration and application are the bases for this service provision. This view points us toward understanding the commonalities of the activities of actors that constitute the market(s). Giddens (1984) calls these activities “practices,” as do Kjellberg and Helgesson (2007). These practices both create and are constrained by the structures that represent their contexts — “structuration” in Giddens' terms. The next step is perhaps drawing on our vast, disparate knowledge about aspects of the market, looking for additional transcending concepts, and reframing what we know in terms of generic actors — that is, continuing to search for the commonalities, rather than the differences in what we know. The study of B2B markets and marketing over the last several decades has resulted in approximately 3000 (English-language) scholarly articles that have yielded some very important insights and conceptual and theoretical contributions to mainstream marketing thought, much of it foundational to S-D logic and, more importantly, to marketing knowledge in general. We have argued the same is true of the sub-discipline of service marketing ( Vargo and Lusch, 2004 and Vargo and Lusch, 2008a) and we contend that something similar is the situation with other sub-disciplines, such as international marketing, product development and innovation, marketing channels, relationship marketing, etc. As we have suggested previously, these marketing sub-disciplines largely developed in response to an inadequate or flawed G-D logic, based heavily on the neoclassical model of equilibrium economics, which has been unable to explain many marketing phenomena. It is important that we are clear that we are not advocating replacing what we know (or think we know), at least not on an a priori basis; rather, we are advocating trying to organize it through a common set of concepts and a common framework, albeit one that will have to be recursively (re)constructed in the process. Our expectation is that much of what is considered mainstream marketing will continue to be important; it will just be transcended by a more encompassing science of the market. The ‘final’ step is to use this science of the market to inform the practice of marketing. It of course is not a final step at all but rather an iterative one in which informed practitioners (our generic actors in all of their contextual roles), in turn, inform a science of the market, ad infinitum. In a very real sense, the practice of science, the practice of marketing, and the practices of creating and participating in markets are all fractally the same; recursively conceptualizing, normatively informing, and acting (cf. Kjellberg & Helgesson, 2007) in a never-ending, collaborative process of value co-creation that is the (multi-leveled) “State” about which Plato was speaking. However, we contend that seeing clearly this begins with understanding that “it is all B2B.”