Viable Service Business Models Towards Inter-cooperative Strategies: Conceptual Evolutionary Considerations

Around half a decade ago, first scholars and practitioners started to think about the basic characteristics and marketing opportunities of services. These efforts underwent multiple conceptual transitions throughout the years, ultimately resulting in a new conceptualization called ‘Service-Dominant Logic’ (S-D Logic). Thus, the main goals of this work are twofold: on the one hand, a retrospective view on the development of viable service models is given, on the other hand, a detailed investigation of the S-D Logic evolution, into the context of inter-cooperative strategies and resources planning, is provided. Consequently, this chapter provides a retrospective view on the development of the field of service science and its viable service business models. It reviews how—commencing in the late 1970s—the field started to be developed into the contemporary era where a service-dominant (S-D) Logic has gained much scientific attention. The most important developments and debates regarding the (non-) usefulness of a differentiation strategy between goods and services in this period are highlighted. In addition, some illustrative examples regarding scientific application of the contemporary S-D Logic perspective are given.