Value Co-Destruction: A Conceptual Review and Future Research Agenda

Abstract

The service-dominant (S-D) logic lens for understanding value co-creation and customers’ interactive roles in the service exchange has emerged as a focal theme of interest among service academics and practitioners. While recent investigations have also focused on the process of value co-destruction—that is, how potential negative outcomes occur—the concept and its distinction from value co-creation remain unclear. This conceptual review synthesizes the concept of value co-destruction and proposes a framework consisting of two interrelated dimensions—actor–actor interaction and individual actor—and their components at three temporal points of the service encounter. We distinguish value co-destruction from other closely related concepts and take steps to integrate the value co-destruction concept into the S-D logic framework and the concept of value co-creation. The proposed integrative framework can help researchers and service practitioners alike to identify, analyze, and rectify the value co-destruction components in the service exchange and, thereby, avoid potential negative outcomes of service interactions. A threefold research agenda is proposed to obtain a more balanced understanding of the two dynamically interrelated concepts of value co-creation and value co-destruction and their application in practice.