Value co-creation: The role of actor competence

Adopting a Service-Dominant Logic lens, recent research within industrial marketing contexts increasingly recognizes the role of operant resources in value co-creation. Incumbent within operant resources is actor competence. Despite this, an investigation into the role of actor competence in value co-creating processes is scant and the competence literature, in general, has tended to concentrate on specialized knowledge and skills based interpretations that potentially restrict our understanding of the construct. To address this gap, this research adopts a phenomenological approach to explore perceived behavioral attributes of competent actors. Findings confirm two broad behaviorally based conceptualizations of competence: 1) extra-role behavior demonstrated through organizational citizenship behavior, and 2) in-role behavior demonstrated through understanding of work, and engagement behavior. To this end, the contribution of this research is twofold, First and from a theoretical perspective, it offers empirical insights into a relational based framework of competency within industrial marketing contexts. Second, and from a pragmatic perspective, this framework may aid managers in developing a broader understanding of actor competence and how such competencies may be enhanced within the workplace to optimize value co-creation.