SUSTAINABLE VALUE CO-CREATION IN BUSINESS NETWORKS
pp.1235-1236
Although the SDL paradigm has contributed to the conceptualization of “value co-creation”, and despite the prioritization of sustainable marketing by business-to-business corporations, the academic literature has failed to study the role played by sustainability in business-to-business (BtoB) value co-creation. Here, using case studies, we examine how business-to-business companies embrace the concept of sustainability to co-create value, and we further develop the theory through a qualitative approach. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of the interaction between the supplier and customer networks and how the SDL value co-creation translates into business-to-business offering. The customer network is first used by the supplier to create sustainability awareness among end users (social marketing) or to understand their behaviors, whereas the supplier network creates the fit with the customer or end-user expectations for sustainability by delivering a sustainable service targeting performance or supply chain integration (green marketing). The dichotomy between green and social marketing is of high interest for BtoB marketers as in vertical business relationships, upstream companies may implement green marketing but they cannot be certain their efforts will meet the needs of the end users as they have little to no direct contact with these users. Ross et al. (2011) define green marketing, as “companies applying sustainable thinking holistically, from production to post-purchasing service, aiming to balance the company’s need for profit with the wider need to protect the environment”. The authors also recognize that “while companies may do all they can to pursue a green marketing effort to contribute to sustainability, if consumers do not change their own behavior to become more sustainable then little will be achieved” (2011: 149). To overcome this potential hurdle they introduce the concept of “social marketing”, which can be defined as “the systematic application of marketing concepts and techniques, to achieve specific behavioral goals for a social or public good” (French and Blair-Stevens, 2006: 4). If we apply the SDL value co-creation model to this diachronic approach, splitting the production from the use of the product, and even looking at the use of the product across time (i.e., during the product life cycle), then we have to look at the network of actors involved in the different stages of this value co-creation model in a BtoB context. The SDL paradigm implicitly recognizes the value creation network (Lusch and Vargo, 2006), which can be defined as when “actors come together to co-produce value” (Norman and Ramirez, 1994). Cova and Salle (2008: 272) show that to translate the SDL into a BtoB offering, the supplier network must interact with the customer network, “thereby co-creating value with them and for them”. From there, we can suggest that a sustainable value proposition in BtoB will be the process by which companies link the supplier and the customer network while incorporating green and social marketing (Ross et al., 2011). Our findings improve and detail our understanding of this interaction between the supplier and customer networks.