The role of higher education (HE) in the development of societies is an unquestionable fact, and its management has traditionally been a major concern of governments. Lately, there has been worldwide debate on whether universities should adopt traditional management practices as applied in any business sector. This paper questions the adoption of these practices, because they tend to simplify the complexity of this service, and argues that service-dominant logic (SDL) is a more appropriate approach to manage HE institutions. It envisions HE as a complex system where many actors interact to co-create value and focuses on the student–teacher dyad. Through a critical literature review, this paper states that the increasing established analogy of the ‘student–customer’ and ‘teacher–provider’, adopted to simplify the complexity of the HE service and thus allow the implementation of traditional management practices, jeopardizes the sustainability of social development due to its effects on the long-term quality of professionals’ training. Then, under the frame of SDL, we define students as co-creators of value (rather than customers) and teachers as value proposers, providing new insights to the debate and critical new recommendations for policymakers and universities to manage this critical relationship.

Purpose: From a service ecosystem perspective, the purpose of this paper is to examine students’ evaluation surveys as a tool used by most higher education (HE) institutions worldwide to measure teaching quality with consequences for tenure and promotion. Design/methodology/approach: This study is based on the service-dominant (S-D) logic and specifically on the service ecosystem approach. Through an in-depth literature review and analysis the authors explore the effect of student evaluation surveys on the value co-creation process, describe the role they play in the HE ecosystem and critically evaluate their efficacy. The research is based on empirical data from the literature and previous studies findings. Findings: The literature review highlights the detrimental consequences of the use of students’ evaluation surveys for teachers and students and for the rest of actors of this service. The authors argue that institutions should embrace a service ecosystem perspective based on S-D logic. The authors highlight the role of institutions as moderators of the interactions between actors and, finally, the authors have introduced the concept of “service ecosystem pollution” which the authors define as the presence or introduction of disruptive elements in the service ecosystem adversely affecting the nature of value co-creation. Practical implications: This study emphasizes the importance for HE institutions to embrace a service ecosystem approach so as to foster and preserve the value co-creation processes taking place within the interactions among the HE actors. Conclusions drawn from this paper suggest that HE institutions should focus on strategies such as investing in improving students’ and teachers’ operant resources rather than polluting the HE service ecosystem with the use of students’ evaluation surveys. Originality/value: Hitherto there are no studies analyzing the tools HE institutions use to measure teaching quality from a service ecosystem perspective. The study is especially valuable due to the consequences and the use of these measures entails for teachers, students and society.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze how institutions can facilitate or inhibit radical innovation. The authors argue that organizational radical innovation is necessary to maintain a competitive advantage and to evolve in the market place, and institutions are the basis of this innovation. From an innovation and service dominant (SD) logic perspective, network ties are proposed to be a determining factor for the achievement of innovation through institutionalization in the university knowledge management context.Design/methodology/approach: A conceptual approach is applied to develop and propose a framework for deepening understanding of radical organizational innovation, institutions and network ties. Data were gathered from Link by UMA-ATech, which in the context of the University of Málaga (Spain) is with great success developing a strategy based on fostering innovation. In all, 22 in-depth interviews were conducted with actors in the Link context, together with additional important second-order data analyses (sector analyses, statistics and company websites). Because of the perceived desirability of innovation, public universities have established a model as a part of this strategy in order to foster and develop new businesses through technology transfer.Findings: Changing institutional arrangements are the basis of innovation. Opening universities to the actors around them, with an interest in exchanging resources through the evolution of network ties toward a less bureaucratic and more collaborative and open university (tertius iungens) is the basis for reaching organizational radical innovation in the university context to develop the provider-driven radical innovation network structure via the “University Living Lab” theoretical model.Research limitations/implications: A conceptual understanding is used in combination with an empirical approach, in which one case study and 22 organizations are considered in the context of Link-by-UMA ATech, at the University of Málaga. A range of different contexts from other universities would also be useful to add new perspectives to the development of the theory.Practical implications: Although radical innovation is occasionally seen in systems and arises naturally in markets, it is interesting to consider the possibility of designing strategies that facilitate the process from the beginning of the design of the business model. In this sense, the present findings could help organizations in general and universities in particular, to devise strategies resulting in positive relationships that could facilitate the design of business model structures. These could in turn foster the development of new institutions resulting in new network ties, which could give rise to radical innovation through the attraction of new actors interested in exchanging service-for-service resources.Originality/value: The present paper develops the provider-driven radical innovation network structure of the “University Living Lab” theoretical model, which encourages the university to make decisions to devise more open models based on a change of network ties, in turn based on the design of new institutional arrangements. These concepts have not previously been put together, and build on the theories of institutions and organizational radical innovation. This theoretical contribution is framed within the SD logic perspective and specifically in the 11th fundamental premise (FP 11/5th axiom) to better understand how innovation occurs in service ecosystems, allowing the provider the possibility of developing such processes through the design of institutional arrangements.

This article examines the role and characteristics of professional client partners in the value co-creation process. Previous literature has studied the role of clients in the co-creation process; however, the effects of different characteristics of clients on co-creation of value are less clear. This study examines these through a research design comprising depth multiple case studies of client relationships with professional service firms (PSFs). Empirical primary data were collected from in situ in-depth interviews with senior account managers in leading advertising agencies in Spain. Our initial results suggested that the type of clients and their characteristics was important for determining the potential and approach to managing their relationships for positive value creation. Further analysis identified key client characteristics and a classification of four types of clients: low involved novice clients, highly involved novice clients, control-concerned expert clients, and integration-concerned expert clients. We also found that not all client relationships resulted in positive value creation because some eventually produce detrimental or negative value consequence. We conceptualize this as the value depletion circle (VDC) and discuss the practical and theoretical implications of this phenomenon. Finally, alternative service relationships scenarios are described which can help institutions understand success and failure in their value creation relations and practices with clients and partners of different types. The contribution of this article is threefold. First, it analyses theoretically the role of client in the service co-creation process. Second, our multi-case study develops a classification of PSF clients into four categories. Third, we explain how dealing with called complex clients may generate a vicious circle, the VDC, which in the long run can seriously damage the sector image.

Purpose: This paper explores whether, in the context of university–industry (U–I) collaboration, new innovation strategies can be developed through actors' interactions, the exchange of resources and the co-creation of value for and within the system. In the context of the U–I relationship, the innovation perspective can highlight the need to develop strategies that elicit new formulas of value co-creation, which then facilitate innovation as a result of actor collaboration.Design/methodology/approach: A total of 45 public universities in Spain, representing 95% of the total, participated in qualitative research. Personal in-depth interviews with technology transfer officers (TTOs) were conducted by an external firm; in a second phase, two of the researchers conducted eight interviews with the directors of TTOs in those universities with higher rates of transfer.Findings: Findings reveal that enterprises with a technological focus are strengthening their relationships with universities and attempting to build a university business ecosystem by designing strategies for value co-creation such as co-ownership, co-patenting, and co-invention.Research limitations/implications: The empirical research is conducted in Spain, and results should be interpreted according to this context. Future research should examine new contexts (other countries) to improve the robustness of the data and enrich the results, thus enabling generalization of the management consequences.Originality/value: The results provide a means to design strategies under a new collaborative and innovating logic. The theoretical framework contributes to theory, with implications for management.

In the last decades, several studies related to the Service-Dominant Logic approach were carried out, where the tourism industry is not an exception. As such, multiple works associated with this research stream have been developed, with a special focus on the tourist value co-creation. This article presents a conceptual model that aims to aggregate the various dimensions of customer value co-creation with its antecedent and consequent factors in the tourism industry. On the other hand, it proposes practical implications for the tourist organizations building on conceptual contributions. Thus, this article reveals the importance of other constructs of tourist value co- creation which surpass the behavioral dimension of the customer, namely, attitude, significance and recognition. Furthermore, this study systematizes the multiplicity of antecedent and consequent factors, recognizing that they may be grouped into factors associated to the company as well as to the customer.