Call for papers: "Organization Management Through Value for the Customer"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Business Performance Management.

This special issue will present theoretical and practical aspects of the management of value for customers both in B2B and B2C markets. Each article will cover core concepts (theories) and research results expanding the current knowledge on organisation management through value for customers.

Building up the competitive and financial position of a company nowadays requires particular focus on the value delivered to customers. This approach means shaping the company’s strategy along with its organisational structure to aim at creating, communicating and delivering value to customers. Despite the rising significance attributed to value for customers, there are only a few coherent and widely accepted concepts explaining its meaning, the ways of creating and delivering it to customers, or the way companies perceive it. According to the paradigm of consumer behaviour rationality recognized in economics, the sources of this value have been traced to product usability, physical attributes and price.

Recently however, what has been observed is not merely focusing attention on the product itself as the only source of value for the customer, but also on the consumption process. Consumption, as a kind of experience for a customer and the emotions and feelings arising as its result, is being recognised as the main source of value. For a particular experience to leave a customer impressed, it needs to have a vital meaning for them, that is, it needs to positively influence their emotions. This experience and the emotions generated drive customers to buy offers because of not only the physical features or cost level, but of the symbolic meaning as well.

Directing a company’s actions to create satisfying experiences stems from the fact that a consumer looks for values that are not only useful, but also hedonistic, aesthetic and spiritual. Thus it is assumed that value for customer results not only from the product itself and accompanying additional services, but also from work, competence, personnel motivation, service quality and the supplier’s image. These activities lead to a certain emotional state in the consumer connected with security, trust, credibility, reliability, guarantee of flexibility and continuity of cooperation. Technology and employees knowledge also play an important part, hugely influencing customer time management efficiency.

Literature on the subject is increasingly stressing the fact that a customer alone is the source of value for a customer. This fact results from the development of so-called interactive forms of market communication and the more and more important presumption process of a company’s offer. All actions aimed at creation and delivery of value to customers must be the effect of the company strategy, painstakingly planned and consciously realised in the long term.

Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Providing value for the customer as a source of competitive and financial advantage of contemporary companies
• Value for customer management (defining, creating, communicating and delivering value to customer)
• Value for customer as the basis for the formulation, modification and implementation of corporate strategy
• Innovations as a source of value for the customer
• Experiential marketing as a source of value for the customer
• The role of human capital in the process of creating value for the customer
• Co-creation as a source of value for the customer
• Creating value for customer in the value chain
• Corporate social responsibility vs. value for the customer
• Sources of value for the customer in the market of goods and services
• Relations with stakeholders vs. value for the customer
• Creating value for the customer on the internet
• The risk of creating value for the customer
• Financial consequences of implementing the concept value for the customer
• Value for the customer vs. value for the company

Important Dates

Submission of Abstracts: 15 March, 2014
Submission of Manuscripts: 15 May, 2014

Notification to Authors: 15 August, 2014

Final Versions Due: 15 November, 2014