Understanding the value process: Value creation in a luxury service context

Value is an important part of the service literature, which increasingly recognizes that value cocreation is a process. The literature on the entire value process remains limited, however, with a lack of empirical evidence on how value is (co)created and what the different activities of service providers and customers are. Addressing this situation, we analyze the joint and separate activities of both the service provider and the customers in the value process. Using an ethnographic case study approach, we combine observations and interviews with managers, service employees, and customers to identify five stages of the value process and offer three main contributions. First, we show that service providers have roles extending beyond mere value cocreation. Second, we describe how customers create value independent of the provider. Third, we extend previous research on customer value-in-use by our focus on escapism as an important part of customer value in luxury services.