Value co-creation within buyer-seller relationships in knowledge-intensive business services

Purpose of the paper and literature addressed: Collaborative processes play an important role in the business marketing literature, as close interaction between buyers and sellers is a key to understanding inter-organizational exchanges. The recently emerged Service-Dominant logic also emphasises the importance of interaction and relationships in all exchange. Compared with the IMP discourse, the S-D logic puts more emphasis on the role of the customer by arguing that value is always defined and co-created by the customer. The point of departure in this paper is that the conceptual thinking of S-D logic can be drawn on to bring insight into value creation in buyer-seller relationships, particularly regarding the co-creation role of the customer. Many streams of literature assume that certain businesses involve such complex and unique knowledge and skills and high level of specialization, that both the seller and the buyer face challenges during value creation. The purpose of the paper is to analyze how value is cocreated within buyer-seller relationships in knowledge-intensive business services. We provide new knowledge to answer the following questions: What kind of activities and process elements constitute the value co-creation process? What kinds of resources do the seller and the buyer contribute to value co-creation? How do the inherent features of knowledge-intensive business services, such as information asymmetry and customization, influence value co-creation within buyer-seller relationships? The paper draws on literature in the domains of industrial marketing, S-D logic and professional services marketing. Research method: Value co-creation is examined through conceptual analysis and empirical data collected through qualitative theme interviews within companies offering and buying professional business-to-business services in Finland. Research findings: The study findings demonstrate how the characteristics of knowledge-intensive services, particularly the inherent information asymmetry and perceived risk, influence value-creation, and thereby increase understanding of co-creation of complex offerings in the b-to-b markets. We argue that complex offerings need to not only be co-created, but also co-clarified: the content of exchange needs to be communicated and some kind of consensus concerning the