Practices as Markets: Value Co-Creation in E-Invoicing

This article proposes that a practice-based approach, accompanied by ethnographic methods, contributes to S-D logic by enriching our understanding of how resources are integrated, how value is formed, how markets ‘work’, and how firms can enhance value co-creation. The embeddedness of value creation implies that firms should focus on the practical relations between socio-cultural resources, available in the market space called everyday life. As a conclusion we suggest that S-D logic could incorporate practice-based viewpoints: (a) practices are fundamental units of value creation – value is created as actors engage in practices, (b) practices are resource integrators – value is created as customers integrate socio-cultural resources, (c) firms are extensions of customer practices – customers are not extensions of firm's production processes; value co-creation happens as firms participate in customer practices, (d) value propositions are resource integration promises – firms enhance value creation by providing resources that ‘fit’ into customers’ practice constellations.