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Callaghan, Andrew (2016) Value in the accumulated experience. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham.

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Abstract

Over the last decade access to cheap enabling technology has promoted widespread practitioner interest in online service propositions. In support of these propositions technology has become prominently established within the firm-consumer interface through self-service technologies (SSTs). SSTs are attractive to firms due to opportunities for cost reduction and the targeting of previously in-accessible customer segments. This attractiveness has led to an increasing shift in the mode of service provision from traditional personal service delivery to SSTs, which have evolved from limited time saving alternatives to the proliferation of chargeable subscription-based services in operation today. However, the viability of these channels relies on the customers’ perception of value creation and the degree to which the SST contributes to it. Consequently, realising the potential benefits from SSTs has continued to be problematic for firms as they still have a poor understanding of how value is co-created across technology interfaces. Key to understanding this phenomenon is how value emerges through the customer experience, which has now transcended the traditional consumer/firm perspective to include the users’ wider social network of actors. This is a gap in the literature and an important area of enquiry since it directly affects subscription channel uptake and long-term customer retention.

To date the extant empirical literature has not conceptualised value as emerging through the customers’ experience or included current marketing thought, which views the customer as a resource integrator that co-creates value within a wider social network of actors. The contribution of this study lies in the development of a new measurement instrument that addresses these gaps and captures experiential value in an online subscription context. The context is Royal Mail’s online postage channel (SmartStamp®) and the research is set within the value literature. Service Dominant Logic specifies that value is always uniquely and phenomenologically determined by the beneficiary, which has led to criticism (by the phenomenological school of thought) of the way multi-dimensional value models have previously made knowledge claims about value, since it is potentially both subjective and context specific. Uniquely, this research seeks to empirically address the phenomenological criticisms using accumulated experience as the mainstay of claims to ontological and epistemological legitimacy. The conceptualisation of experiential value in this thesis is applicable to most online subscription contexts and the contribution of this study also extends to informing future studies in this topical and important area.

Item Type:	Thesis (University of Nottingham only) (PhD)
Supervisors:	Tynan, A. Caroline Story, Victoria M.
Keywords:	Value, measurement, co-creation, experience,
Subjects:	H Social sciences > HF Commerce
Faculties/Schools:	UK Campuses > Faculty of Social Sciences, Law and Education > Nottingham University Business School
Item ID:	38102
Depositing User:	Callaghan, Andrew
Date Deposited:	14 Dec 2016 06:40
Last Modified:	14 Dec 2020 04:30
URI:	https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/38102

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