Investigating manufacturing companies value co-creation approaches during servitisation

Despite the enhanced interest in digital technologies as a means for SMEs to create new service offerings, little is known about how value co-creation is approached across business boundaries. Using the service-dominant (S-D) logic lens, we analyse how SMEs co-create value with their customers and other network partners. Drawing on qualitative data on 43 case companies, the findings of this study reveal five value co-creation approaches: awareness creation, experimentation, platform-orientation, process-orientation and acceleration. Theoretically, we contribute to the S-D logic literature by conceptualising different value co-creation approaches as adaptive strategies and their underlying mechanisms that companies practise during digital servitisation processes.