Many core marketing concepts (e.g., markets, relationships, customer experience, brand meaning, value) concern phenomena that are difficult to understand using linear and dyadic approaches, because they are emergent. That is, they arise, often unpredictably, from interactions within complex and dynamic contexts. This paper contributes to the marketing discipline through an explication of the concept of emergence as it applies to marketing theory. We accomplish this by first drawing on the existing literature on emergence in philosophy, sociology, and the theory of complex adaptive systems, and then link and extend this understanding to marketing using the theoretical framework ofservice-dominant (S-D) logic,particularly as enhanced by its service-ecosystems and institutionalization perspectives. Our work recognizes both emergence and institutionalization as integral or interrelated processes in the creation, maintenance, and disruption of markets and marketing phenomena. We conclude by discussing implications for marketing research and practice.

Purpose: With B2B (business‐to‐business) and new developments in marketing as the springboard, this paper seeks to emphasize complexity and context in marketing systems, embracing both B2B and B2C (business‐to‐consumer) marketing.Design/methodology/approach: The approach takes the form of a conceptual analysis of new developments in marketing through network theory and case study research.Findings: Recent theory points to a network and systems approach to marketing and to changing roles between suppliers and customers. Both many‐to‐many marketing as a broadening of relational approaches and the service dominant (S‐D) logic stress consumer involvement, exposing the customer's interactive role. The IBM service science programme enrols research and education in developing more functional service systems. The conventional divide in goods and services marketing is dissolved in favour of supplier‐customer interaction.Research limitations/implications: B2B and B2C are both part of complex contexts. Case study research and network theory allow complexity and context to come forward. Network theory should be applied in all marketing, and concepts in marketing need to be constantly evaluated as to validity and relevance. The conventional sectors (manufacturing, services, agriculture) are supplier‐centric whereas marketing prescribes customer centricity. By focusing on continuous theory generation better theory will replace previous theory.Practical implications: Marketers overview the complexity of specific marketing situations, to systematically observe relational phenomena and the customer's role, and will be better able to foresee opportunities and avoid mistakes in marketing planning and execution.Originality/value: The paper offers a network view which is little represented in research and education. With growing dependency on larger integrated systems such a coherent view becomes increasingly more urgent. In a new marketing logic of service and value creation, the reductionism, fragmentation and linearity of Western science are challenged in favour of a comprehensive network approach. B2B and B2C are treated as perspectives of a grander marketing context and not as independent categories, and the broadened role of customers in value networks is recognized. Goods and services can only be understood and handled in a unified context.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to highlight how systems thinking contributes to decision making in uncertain contexts that are characteristic of service systems. Based on the assumption that service systems face complex conditions, the paper posits that systems thinking may support the understanding of key issues in service management.Design/methodology/approach: This paper proposes an interpretation of complexity in the context of service systems, which highlights the perspective change that occurs when a systems approach is adopted. The offered conceptual perspective is then brought to an operational level, in spite of the complexity of the decisions driving a viable system, by modelling a service system as a network of agents, resources, processes and decisions through the use of fuzzy logic. The paper reviews service management research streams, and takes a deeper look at the concepts of service systems and complex service systems. The paper then proceeds to discuss how systems thinking contributes to service management by proposing a systems interpretation of complexity.Findings: Service management theories and models may be enhanced by integrating prevailing approaches, based on a quantitative and mechanistic view of service systems dynamics, with systems thinking‐based meta‐models that can be used in better understanding service exchanges. The findings of the paper also show how the integration of an engineering approach can be insightful to the understanding of service systems; adopting a Viable Systems Approach (VSA) as a meta‐model can be useful in fully comprehending market behaviour in uncertain conditions.Originality/value: The originality of this paper lies in exploring the contribution of systems thinking, in particular of the Viable Systems Approach (VSA), to service management and decision making.

In the service era, markets are reconceptualized as systems of actors interconnected through networked relationships based on resources exchange and producing value co-creation. Two of the main contemporary service research theories, Service-dominant logic and Service science, propose different organizational layouts for producing and harmonizing value co-creation: Service ecosystems and smart service systems. However, these two models show some limitations. So, this work aims at drawing an integrated model, the so called Smart service ecosystem that can be applied to hypercompetitive and experience-based sectors. The model was tested in the tourism sector by using a case study methodology. Ten interviews were administered to key informants to analyze their perception about the main dimensions of the smart service ecosystems. By adopting a holistic view, the results obtained can allow the elaboration of a framework which pinpoints: (1) the main stakeholder groups (actors); (2) the kind of resources exchanged (resource integration); (3) the tools employed (technology); (4) the institution exchange among users (institutions). Applying the model obtained to the tourism sector this work explores the main element-steps for managing and optimizing value co-creation and sustainability in the long run and thus for transitioning from innovation to social innovation.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to combine service science (service science, management and engineering, and SSME) and service dominant (S-D) logic contributions with the network and systems-based theories of many-to-many marketing proposed by Gummesson and the viable system approach (VSA), proposed by Italian researchers and highly diffused in Italy during the 2000s. Design/methodology/approach – This paper is a conceptual analysis based on recent developments in service science, S-D logic and network/systems theory. Findings – Being grounded in network theory, systems thinking and value co-creation, many-to-many marketing is found to be particularly supportive to both service science and S-D logic. It is also found that VSA, being broad, interdisciplinary and based on systems theory and resource-based theory, and with strong influences from biology, sociology and mechanics, is a key to the interpretation of complex phenomena. Both many-to-many and VSA embrace the whole and the general while still considering the detail and its contextual dependency. Both theories are highly suitable for analysing and designing service systems. Research limitations/implications – The network and systemic approach to business offer by many-to-many marketing and VSA and applicable to service and the value creation, relationship management and business finalities, are strongly coherent with the one proposed or tacitly implied by service science and S-D logic. Practical implications – The paper helps practitioners to better manage service and to enable efficient behaviour within multiple contexts with multiple actors and optimising inter-systemic relations. Originality/value – This is believed to be the only paper to apply network theories and the VSA perspective on service.

With the aim of addressing a gap in service research on co-creation in health care, this study discusses the problem of information asymmetry in the service provider–user relationship by adopting the Viable Systems Approach. We develop a three-step interpretative framework to support the understanding of the health service relationship by going beyond the traditional information asymmetry view towards a framework capable of examining the human side of service interaction. Using the case of the Italian Health System, we discuss whether and how the problem of information asymmetry affects the health care provider–user co-creation relationship. Our findings open up a wider view of information asymmetry, suggesting a shift in focus from information sharing to interpretation schemes sharing, all the way up to values sharing, offering new insights for co-creation in health care.