The role of embeddedness for resource integration

Abstract

Marketing research highlights the importance of actors' relationships as mechanisms for integrating resources. With its roots in sociology, the concept of embeddedness has gained prominence in the literature on organizations, providing in-depth insight into how relational structures regulate resource integration processes and outcomes. However, the concept of an actor's embeddedness is rarely discussed in association with service-dominant (S-D) logic. This limits the extant understanding of factors that influence resource exchange and value cocreation among individual actors in service ecosystems. Against this background, this article links S-D logic with social capital theory to establish and conceptualize embeddedness as a key concept. More specifically, this research identifies and delineates structural, relational, and cultural properties of embeddedness and offers a systematic and complementary theoretical understanding to better explain relational constellations based on actors' resource integration potential. In so doing, this research significantly advances marketing science and particularly the S-D logic school of thought by explicitly clarifying the role of embeddedness and its implications for resource integration. A set of research propositions is presented laying the foundation for future research.

The Role of a Manager’s Intangible Capabilities in Resource Acquisition and Sustainable Competitive Performance

“…IC-being an intangible resource-facilitates firms in acquiring useful information about the market trends, upward and downward, environmental issues, and competition pressure [35]. Promoting skills such as human capital, relational capital, and structural capital influence the embeddedness of resource integration among firms [36]. For instance, Lee et al [37] argue that social capital helps firms to acquire both tangible and intangible resources that may not be gained through other sources.…”

Motivation: The missing driver for theorizing about resource integration

“…Resources only have potential value, which is realized through activity to become valuable. The activity can be behavioral or cognitive, such that it is defined as "performing" or "doing" (McColl-Kennedy et al, 2012), and it often occurs in interaction with and operating on other resources (Laud et al, 2015) or in collaboration with actors (Kleinaltenkamp et al, 2012). Resource integration involves combining (i.e.…”

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Consequences of customer engagement behavior: when negative Facebook posts have positive effects

“…Linking S-D logic with concepts from social network theory offers a complementary understanding to better explain processes of resource access and exchange (Laud et al 2015). The central premise underlying social network theory is that actors such as business firms and customers are embedded in networks of interconnected social relationships (i.e.…”