Abstract for QUIS15 Porto June 12-15 2017
Social capital as a Resource in Actors’ Value co-creation
Carlos Brambila1, Ana Valdes2, Javier Reynoso3 and Bo Edvardsson4
Abstract
All actors within service ecosystems are resource integrators, engaged in co-creating value for
themselves and others (Lusch and Vargo, 2014). A service ecosystem is a dynamic, complex, selfadjusting system of resource-integrating actors (both social and economic) connected by shared
institutional arrangements and mutual value creation practices (Vargo and Lusch, 2016). During value
co-creation processes, actors are guided by knowledge and skills as well as their social norms,
relations and roles when operating on available resources, shaping service for service exchange.
Despite of the importance of social norms, relations and roles, there is a knowledge-gap concerning
how social factors and resources shape actors and enable or inhibit value co-creation. A key concept
concerning the social nature of value co-creation is social capital. The introduction of the concept
social capital contributes to extend the understanding of how value co-creation occurs within
institutional arrangements in social contexts (Edvardsson et al., 2011).
Social capital in services has been studied before. Wirtz, Tambyah, and Mattila (2010) found that
relational capital (e.g. having a shared vision and trust in the leaders of the company) and structural
social capital (e.g. having efficient knowledge transfer systems and rewards) have the capacity to
enhance the reporting of customer feedback through service employees. Edvardsson, et al. (2011)
introduced key concepts from social construction theories and discussed how service exchange and
value co-creation is shaped by the social system, is reproduced in social structures, and can be
asymmetric for the actors. Although previous research has studied social capital in services in
relation to how social capital facilitates collaboration between multiple actors, its influence on value
co-creation has not been explicitly discussed.
The aim of this paper is to conceptualize and in an empirical contextualization show the relevance of
three key concepts from social capital theory that inform the dynamics of actors’ resource
integration and value co-creation: trust, reciprocity, and binding rules. We argue that value is not
only individually assessed but also social and collective in nature. We show how social capital both
enables and inhibit value co-creation efforts in the context of service ecosystems.
One type of organization in which social capital plays a particularly important role is that of
cooperatives. Cooperatives, defined as complex organizations with shared ownership of a productive
entity (Wanyama, 2014), are a natural expression of social capital in action and they are a useful case
to contextualize the generation and use of resources in social exchanges. Furthermore, social capital
shapes the values and behavior of cooperative members and reduces their uncertainty in relation to
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EGADE Business School, Monterrey Tech, Mexico
EGADE Business School, Monterrey Tech, Mexico
EGADE Business School, Monterrey Tech, Mexico
CTF Service Research Centre, Karlstad University, Sweden
each other and in their relationship to the business environment. Cooperatives help showing that
collaboration and resource integration is based on social capital which grows out of trust, reciprocity,
and binding rules, rather than legal contracts only.
Keywords: Social capital, social networks, value co-creation, social theory, base of the pyramid.