Paper presented at the 16th International Conference of Knowledge Management in Organisations 2022 in Hagen, Germany
Riss, U.V., Ziegler, M., Smith, L.J. (2022). Value in Digital Technologies and Services. In: Uden, L., Ting, IH., Feldmann, B. (eds) Knowledge Management in Organisations. KMO 2022. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1593. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07920-7_13
Abstract: Developing innovative digital services and applications is determined by the value of digital technologies. The value of technologies is difficult to grasp because it ultimately manifests itself only in customers’ active use. Therefore, the assessment of value of technologies must start with the study of customer activities. We synthesize service-dominant logic (SDL) and activity theory (AT) to provide an integrative approach to understand customer activities and their use of digital services. We demonstrate that both theories complement each other due to the focus on the individual and communal aspects of creating value. SDL concentrates on the social side of creating value, but this value is determined by the service beneficiary. AT has a focus on individual actors but also includes the social dimension of action in the division of labor. To this end, value creation theory (VCT) is taken as the common perspective and means to perform a theory synthesis of AT and SDL. Such synthesis allows for a comprehensive view of technology-enabled digital services. It is the aim to identify dimensions of technological development and investigate the value they provide to customers. Dimensions are the following four: dematerialization, virtualization, servitization and platformization. We show how they increase the customer value.