A service ecosystem experience-based framework for sport marketing

ABSTRACT

Traditional theories in sport marketing limit the context of the sport experience to firm–customer encounters or the consumer’s individual sphere of practices and processes. Our paper responds to recent calls for developing conceptual frameworks that better explain sport market exchanges. Specifically, we aim to contribute to sport marketing by attempting to provide a deeper understanding of sport experiences and the context that frames exchanges in sports. To accomplish this objective, we propose an integrative framework that combines the service-dominant logic ecosystem perspective with consumer culture theory. We broaden the context of the sport experience by applying a service-ecosystems perspective and identify five factors that influence sport experiences from this extended context – historical meaning, tribal logics, rituals and socialization processes, value-in-subcultural-context, and the co-construction/co-destruction of context. The proposed integrative framework directs researchers and managers toward an extended, rich context that is reproduced through the co-creation of value and influences evaluations of sport experiences.

KEYWORDS:

• Sport experience
• service-dominant logic
• consumer culture theory
• value-in-context
• value co-creation

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my gratitude to Stephen L. Vargo for his comments on an earlier version of the manuscript and for sharing his pearls of wisdom with me during the course of this research. Moreover, I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestion that assisted me in improving the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributors

Rodoula H. Tsiotsou (Ph.D.) obtained her Ph.D. from Florida State University and is currently Associate Professor of Services Marketing at the Department of Business Administration, University of Macedonia, Greece. She is also the founder and the director of the Marketing Laboratory MarLab at the University of Macedonia. She has co-edited with Prof. Ronald Goldsmith the book Strategic marketing in tourism services (Emerald) and she has guest co-edited special issues for the scientific journals: Journal of Service Management, Journal of Service Theory and Practice, the Service Industries Journal, Marketing Intelligence & Planning and Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics. She has published more than 70 scientific publications in a variety of international conference proceedings and scientific journals such as the Journal of Service Management, International Journal of Advertising, Computers in Human Behavior, The Service Industries Journal, Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Journal of Marketing Management, Journal of Services Marketing, Journal of Marketing Communications, International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management, and Journal of Sport Management. She serves at the editorial boards of the Service Industries Journal, the International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Tourismos and Central European Business Review. Her research interests include services marketing (focused on tourism and sports), brand management, relationship marketing, nonprofit marketing, and e-marketing.

ORCID

Rodoula H. Tsiotsou http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2035-0334

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Marketing Laboratory MarLab, University of Macedonia, Greece.