Re-purchase intention for product-service systems : the impact of co-capability in value creation

Pre-sale activities of buying and post-sale activities of use are separated by time and judged in two time-place forms. Exchange value being one kind of judgment of desirability, separate from use value. However, traditionally marketing has not fully captured the co-creation of value in use, or therefore, how it affects the perceived value of the offering at purchase. The separation of purchase and use has been shown to create buyer uncertainty at the point of purchase about the future value created in use. Consider the decision to buy a service support contract for capital equipment in which the act and experience of use could continue for up to ten years after the decision to buy. At purchase, buyers may not be certain about the future state of use, i.e. whether or not equipment will fail, or indeed how the service will perform in the event of failure. While uncertainty about the state of use will continue across time, it has been argued uncertainty about how the service will perform may be resolved through repeat use or interaction. Through an exploratory case and a web-based survey of 95 organisational buyers of Product Service Systems (PSS) in capital equipment markets, this thesis finds customer-provider co-capability, which facilitates service performance in use, mediates the customer’s perceived risk of re-purchasing. As a result, this thesis makes a contribution to B2B marketing in identifying how value of the offering at purchase is affected by future customer-provider co-capability in use.