Logicscapes: Critical analysis of value creation in service-dominant logic, service logic, and customer-dominant logic

Abstract

A logic is a mental model or framework that guides an approach to marketing and management. Marketing’s logic since the 1980s has been going through a transformation in academic literature and practice. A goods-dominant logic (GDL) which conceived value as deliverable through goods or services and readily managed by firms has given way to a service-oriented, process-based view of value creation.

This thesis is a literature review and critical analysis of service-dominant logic (SDL/ S-D logic), service logic (SL), and customer-dominant logic (CDL). It explains the emergence and development of a service-centred dominant logic of marketing, criticisms to this perspective, and the alternate views put forward by the Nordic School of Service. SDL, SL, and CDL will be compared based on their conceptions of value creation, differing semantic values, and implications for a marketing logic.

This paper concludes that SDL is a broad view of service ecosystems and actor networks which can provide a lexicon and foundation for a theory of market but is not substantial in its strategic marketing or management implementation. SL is a managerial framework based on service which provides an interactive and relational view of marketing and management. CDL is the most robust perspective, which is centred on the customer’s logic in their well-being goals and activities within their idiosyncratic customer ecosystem. It guides firms towards observing and adapting to customer-dominant realms of value creation, particularly in digital environments.