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The Naples Forum is focused on the “3 Pillars of Service”: S-D logic, network and systems theory, and service science. The Pillars are catching the imagination of scholars and practitioners worldwide as viable efforts to improve service and service systems to the benefit of all society. The Pillars are supportive to each other and they should be seen in this integrative spirit, all in line with network and systems thinking. S-D logic transforms the divides between goods/services and suppliers/customers into value propositions, resource integration, and co-created service. Service science attempts to provide more efficient and innovative service systems with user value in focus. They foster the development of a new logic of service, and require methodologies that address complexity, context, the whole and the parts. The integrative approach further strives to bridge the gap between service theory and service practice.

This is a theoretical discourse on contributions to the marketing discipline primarily from service-dominant (S-D) logic, relationship marketing and the many-to-many network approach. The study combines a literature review with theoretical insights. Framed within a relational context it specifically addresses interaction and its role in the co-creation of value through resource integration. As a consequence, the article also deals with elevating midrange theory in the direction of more abstract and general theory, grand theory. The article concludes with a model which outlines interaction between parties as the most crucial antecedent to resource integration. The actors involved set up a dialog and transfer knowledge and other resources for organizational learning and resource creation and renewal. Resource integration is generalized to actor-to-actor (A2A) interaction through which the actors link their resources for mutual benefit. The integration assumes that resources can differ in terms of quality and quantity and require complementarities, or can be similar leading to an increase in the joint volume and sometimes to redundancy, or there can be mixed forms. In all of these situations interaction and co-creation in networks strive to improve service systems through a better matching between resources, processes and outcomes.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore collaborative innovation practice in the context of industrial renewal that is framed by ideological setting of the future based on sustainable growth. Design/methodology/approach: Our approach is founded on a practice-based school of innovating, where a researcher is part of what is being researched and the interplay between multiple actors is emphasized. Although, this is mainly a conceptual paper, a participatory roadmapping process has been utilized as a tool for engaging a large group of experts of industrial ecosystems in co-innovation around the topic. Findings: Our research describes how many mission-oriented innovations, aiming at sustainable growth, call for ideological compromises between private and social goals. Therefore, actors’ engagement to the vision building is crucial. Originality/value: This paper emphasizes that crossing the theoretical and paradigmatic borders enables actors to build shared meanings and gain better understanding of the multifaceted nature of business reality. Practical implications: For managers, the core practical implication of the study is related to (eco)system thinking. The outcomes of the study highlight that going beyond industry 4.0 requires interaction with key players, as the resources, roles and offerings of industrial ecosystem actors are interconnected. In addition, through the identified emerging research themes of looking beyond Industry 4.0, we call researchers to co-innovating and creating a multilevel movement of challenge driven research looking beyond Industry 4.0.

Purpose – Innovation and Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) are new levers on which act for redesigning social and economic relations and structures. The technology shifts produce disruptive effects on business models, having revolutionary impacts on internal growth strategies for the future of manufacturing. Joining the vibrant debate about the role of Innovation and ICTs in ensuring companies’ viable survival, the paper aims at investigating Open Innovation and Industry 4.0 using an interpretative framework rooted in Service and Systems research highlighting new opportunities to advance knowledge about value co-creation. Methodology/approach – A brief literature review on Open Innovation and Industry 4.0 is conducted using the interpretative lens provided by the Service and Systems perspectives. A deductive approach is adopted for interpreting key processes of Open Innovation and Industry 4.0 as drivers for enhancing value co-creation. Findings – The findings direct to identify Technology Readiness, Cognitive Alignment, Collaborative Orientation, and Shared Strong Beliefs as possible drivers that enhance the value co-creation potential created by Open Innovation and Industry 4.0. A framework of synthesis is outlined that can represent a useful reference for exploiting the value co-creation opportunities of Open Innovation and Industry 4.0. Research implications/limitations – The paper contributes to the multi- and inter- disciplinary research stream aimed at overcoming the limitations of a still dominant reductionist view by adopting systems approaches. Analyzing Open Innovation and Industry 4.0 as potential paths for addressing future evolutions in value co-creation studies, the paper enriches previous managerial researches. Nevertheless, the work is currently a preliminary study mainly directed to share ideas and views within the multi-perspective context of the Naples Forum on Service. Practical implications – Valorizing the opportunities for value co-creation linked to Open Innovation and Industry 4.0 practices, the paper provides decision makers with a road map for better understanding and managing critical drivers for effectively implementing value co-creation logics. Originality/value – The paper enriches the ongoing debate about Open Innovation and Industry 4.0 providing new insights through the interpretative lens of the Service and Systems perspectives that highlight the great potential for value co-creation linked to these new technologies.

Purpose – This paper examines the introduction of logistics robots from a multi-actor network perspective in a hospital service system. The focus is on complex dynamics, emerging practices and value-in-use.Methodology – A longitudinal case-study approach was applied to examine the stepwise introduction of the advanced logistics robot system empirically in the Finnish Central Hospital. Aligned with implementation, two-phased interviews of different involving actors/professions in addition to observations were conducted during 2016-2018.Findings – The empirical findings reveal complex interdependences in the dynamic hospital service system. All actors shared their conception of the systemic change boosted by the logistic robotic system to enable more efficient and customer-centric care work as a core service. However, the multi-actor insights and emerged new practices show the diversity with conflicting interests in terms of changing mutual roles, resource integration and related redesign possibilities.Research limitations – The chosen research approach provided rich empirical data. However, the findings are tentative with case-study limitations, and thus open avenues for further research.Research implications – The paper brings new empirical insights by combining practice-based, service systems thinking and S-D Logic approaches with previous research on service, and particularly logistics, robots in the hospital context.Practical implications – The paper provides a deeper understanding, and alternatives to considersystemic and all relevant actors’ perspectives when logistics robots are designed and activated for everyday use.Originality/value – The study narrows the identified research gap considering the lack of empirical research on the introduction of service robots in health care from the systemic perspective.

Purpose – The increasing variety and variability of social and economic dynamics is pushing both researchers and practitioners in developing approaches, models, and tools for supporting decision makers in observing, interpreting, understanding and managing emergent dynamics. For contributing to the ongoing debate, the paper aims at discussing possible paths for facing the challenges of the increasing complexity through flexible decisional and behavioral approaches. Methodology/approach – The paper adopts a qualitative approach for systematizing and refreshing the interpretative role of existing literature within managerial and organizational fields. Through the interpretative contributions provided by the systems thinking, a multi-disciplinarity literature review is conducted for identifying possible constructs through which addressing the development of flexible managerial and organizational models. Findings – Managerial and organizational fields are enriched through the concepts of exaptation and bricolage as explicative domains able to provide useful indications to decision makers interested in building more flexible decisional and behavioral approaches. A possible path for managing the increasing social and economic complexity is depicting in the light of systems perspective, and a system based interpretative framework is defined for explaining actors’ reciprocal adaptation as a way for supporting value co-creation. Research implications – The paper provides possible pillars on which acting to build managerial and organizational approaches able to enhance actors’ contributions through the definition of shared processes. The concepts of exaptation and bricolage enrich previous managerial and organizational literature promoting research on value co-creation as a driver for ensuring systems’ viability in dynamic ecosystems. Practical implications – The paper calls the attention of decision makers on the need for the systems’ flexibility trough the enhancement of actors’ contributions for facing the challenges of increasing social and economic complexity. Acting on exaptation and bricolage, a possible model is provided for clarifying managerial and organizational paths for increasing the systems’ flexibility and for supporting practitioners in defining approaches able to support actors’ collaboration as a required condition for value co-creation. Originality/value – Adopting a multi-disciplinary perspective the paper enriches previous managerial and organizational literature trough the definition of concepts, processes, and approaches able to support both researchers and practitioners for better understanding and managing increasing social and economic complexity by acting on exaptation and bricolage. Thanks to the interpretative lens provided by the systems studies, a conceptual model for addressing systems’ decisions and behaviors in the light of value co-creation is proposed.

The aim of this research is to adopt the Service-Dominant (S-D) logic lens (Vargo et al., 2008; Akaka & Vargo, 2014) to analyse a particular service industry, namely energy, in order to identify the ongoing and future trajectories. The main empirical contexts analysed in service scholars’ studies are usually retail (Willems et al., 2016; Balaji & Roy, 2017), healthcare (McColl- Kennedy et al., 2017), and tourism (Carlson et al., 2016) while energy is mainly studied by engineers with research published in non-service journals. However, energy management is a field of study strictly related to the changing role of suppliers and customers where the concept of prosumer (Chandler & Chen, 2015) is widely adopted (Espe et al., 2018; Zafar et al., 2018). So, the S-D logic can be very useful in order to better understand this phenomenon, stimulating service scholars’ attention to energy management as a particular context of analysis for empirical research.

Service marketing literature suggests that omnichannel approach (Verhoef et al., 2015) can influence engagement metrics such as, among others, awareness, conversions, cross-channel, customer retention, customer lifetime value (Ailawadi and Farris, 2017; Broussard 2016) and can generate a positive word-of-mouth (advocacy) and a higher revisit rate (Sopadjieva et al., 2017). Starting from the point that “a customer is always a co-creator of value” (Vargo and Lusch 2006), firms are trying to combine physical and digital touch points (Verhoef et al., 2015) with the aim of providing the customer a seamless experience with no barriers between channels (Rodríguez-Torrico et al., 2017 Ailawadi and Farris, 2017; Lemon and Verhoef, 2016; Beck and Rygl, 2015) which lead to greater engagement and value co-creation (Payne et al., 2017; Nordgren and Johansson, 2017). The aim of this work is to analyse how the omnichannel strategy, as a communication proposition, can influence customers’ value through the lens of S-D Logic.