Value co-destruction: Exploring the role of actors’ opportunism in the B2B context

Pathak, Buddhi; Ashok, Mona; Tan, Yin Leng

Abstract

This exploratory study investigates value co-destruction in the Business-to-Business (B2B) context and examines the impact of actors’ opportunistic behaviour on value co-creation. The research undertakes an in-depth case study based approach. It uses data triangulation, where multiple sources of evidence (interviews, conference audio recordings and documents) are collected from the case organisation (a vendor) and its service ecosystem partners in the ICT sector. The partners included in the study are distributors, channel partners, competitors, and customers. B2B alliances are driven by the motivations to maximise strategic value and minimise transaction cost. Thus, using the ecosystem lens, we find that actors’ capabilities (resources and perceived value), vendor's approach to achieving strategic benefit and the channel governance mechanism enable value co-creation. However, using the transaction cost theory lens, we report that actors’ opportunistic behaviour, technological disruptions and new business model challenges lead to value co-destruction (in the form of termination of relationship, conflict and business liquidation). Alliance partners need to evaluate the strategic benefits of collaboration, knowledge sharing, learning, trust building, market expansion and technology sharing, considering partners’ self-serving behaviour driven by transaction cost economies. All ecosystem actors are seeking to develop capabilities, exhibit knowledge differentiators, demonstrate technology leadership, reduce uncertainty and respond to new business model challenges thus causing value co-destruction. Thus, this research is more encompassing because it explores factors that lead to both value co-creation and co-destruction.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 28, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Feb 1, 2020
• Publication Date: Jun 1, 2020
• Deposit Date: Apr 29, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 2, 2021
• Journal: International Journal of Information Management
• Print ISSN: 0268-4012
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 52
• Article Number: 102093
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102093
• Keywords: Computer Networks and Communications; Library and Information Sciences; Information Systems
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/7308567
• Related Public URLs: http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/88809/
• Additional Information: This article is maintained by: Elsevier; Article Title: Value co-destruction: Exploring the role of actors’ opportunism in the B2B context; Journal Title: International Journal of Information Management; CrossRef DOI link to publisher maintained version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102093; Content Type: article; Copyright: © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.