Business-to-business professional service relationships under multiple logics

Abstract

Trends towards service standardization and formalization appear to be contradicting rather than supporting service-dominant logic. Few studies have tried to understand how organizations deal with these contradictions. This paper explores the presence of contradicting logics in businessto-business professional service relationships. Based on 78 interviews with buyers and sellers, the study shows that the nature of the relationship is defined by the need to balance the contradicting logics at both the individual and firm level. While individual relationships have traditionally been intimate, more instant relationships and knowledge of context is replacing intimacy under increased formalization and goods-dominant logic to ensure co-production. At the firm level, parallel rather than single relationships are used under a more formalized and goods-dominant logic. These findings add to existing knowledge about the integration of service-and goods-dominant logics and suggest that a revised conceptualization of clientprofessional relationships is needed. 2 Keywords: Service logic, professional services, business relationships, parallel relationships, formalization. 2007) in line with the service-dominant logic. However, to the extent that the goods-dominant logic influences the relationship, it would be interesting to understand whether and how the relationship incorporates this logic. To do so, this paper addresses the following research question: What is the nature of the client-professional relationship under conditions of combined service-and goods-dominant logic? By addressing this question, this paper aims to contribute to two main theoretical areas: First, the research acknowledges the co-existence of service-and goods-dominant logics and shows empirically how these conflicting logics are combined in client-professional relationships.Second, the research adds to the development of a theory of professional service firms in general (Greenwood, Li, Prakash, & Deephouse, 2005;Løwendahl, 2005;Von Nordenflycht, 2010), as well as to research on client-professional relationships in particular.The paper is structured as follows: First, the core theoretical foundation of service-and goodsdominant logics is described. The concepts of a professional service firm, a professional service and the client-professional relationship are then addressed. Following this theoretical background, we describe the methodology used to study the research question and present the findings, showing how client-professional relationships are structured where goods-and service-dominant logics are present. The final sections of the paper contain a discussion and a conclusion describing implications for research and practitioners.

Employees’ agency in the formalisation of knowledge-intensive business service processes

“…Secondly, the study contributes to previous studies of flexibility, efficiency and agency in knowledge-intensive services by distinguishing between different levels of employees' agency in formalised KIBS processes (RQ2). This process-level focus supplements previous studies that have been conducted either at the firm level, assuming a homogenous formalisation approach across processes (Morris and Empson, 1998;Morris, 2001;Kärreman et al, 2003;Rahikka et al, 2011;Bettiol et al, 2012), or the individual level (Haas and Hansen, 2005;Skjølsvik, 2016). The study demonstrates that formalisation approaches can vary within a firm, and that formalised KIBS processes can co-exist with informal KIBS processes even within a single team.…”

“…Understanding employee perspectives in greater detail can significantly contribute to the service studies addressing flexibility and formalisation (Brozovic et al, 2016;Skjølsvik, 2016).…”

“…However, these differences have not been systematically and empirically studied at the level of the KIBS process. Many studies assume a uniform firm-level approach to formalisation (Morris and Empson, 1998; Morris, 2001; Kärreman et al , 2003; Rahikka et al , 2011; Bettiol et al , 2012) or analyse experiences at the individual level (Haas and Hansen, 2005; Skjølsvik, 2016), without making comparisons across KIBS processes. Because comparative studies are lacking, it is not known exactly how employees’ agency should be taken into account in different types of KIBS processes.…”

Facilitators and inhibitors of value co-creation in the industrial services environment

“…Value co-creation in the industrial service environment pertains to the collaboration of suppliers and customers (Chowdhury et al , 2016; Santos-Vijande et al , 2016; Franklin and Marshall, 2019) that generate mutual benefits such as the improvement of offerings (e.g. products and services) and the creation of resolutions for solving the client's problems (Skjølsvik, 2016; Chim-Miki and Batista-Canino, 2017; Dong and Sivakumar, 2017; Ribes Giner et al , 2017). In spite of these benefits, value co-creation in industrial services faces some hurdles (Jaakkola and Aarikka-Stenroos, 2019), such as lack of perception of the value co-creation benefits (Jaakkola and Aarikka-Stenroos, 2019), long lead time for value generation, lack of perception of the economic gains (Virtanen et al , 2015), inefficient information flow (Singh Panesar and Markeset, 2008; Rexfelt et al , 2011; Nätti et al , 2014), and unnecessary activities that slow down the value co-creation process (Breidbach and Maglio, 2016; Steinbach et al , 2018; West et al , 2018).…”

Picking professionals: a client-centric knowledge assessment framework

“…Additionally, the increased professionalization of purchasing and use of parallel frame agreements, involving multiple suppliers of professional services, in both the public and private sector (Skjølsvik, 2016;Van der Valk and Rozemeijer, 2009;Werr and Pemer, 2007), increases the relevance of theorizing about the client's perception of knowledge. In such contracts, the resources and knowledge are assessed in two rounds by the client before a supplier is selected.…”