Towards a service‐dominant professional identity : An organisational socialisation perspective

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to contribute to understanding of how a service‐dominant (S‐D) professional identity can be established among the employees of an organisation that wishes to inculcate the tenets of S‐D logic. Design/methodology/approach – The paper reports a case study of a large Swedish public sector organisation in which the transition to e‐government provided an opportunity to inculcate a new service‐based professional identity among employees. The main data collection method is interviewing. Findings – The study identifies four characteristics of a S‐D professional identity: interaction; customer orientation; co‐creation; and empowerment. The study finds that such an identity can be established through five socialisation processes: collective socialisation; random socialisation; serial socialisation; investiture socialisation; and divestiture socialisation. Research limitations/implications – As with all case study research, the paper draws analytical generalisations but is unable to provide any statistical generalisations; further quantitative research is needed in this area. Moreover, the paper takes a intra‐firm perspective; future studies could approach the topic from a consumer perspective. Practical implications – Managers who wish to inculcate S‐D logic in their organisations should focus on developing the interactive and co‐creation skills of their employees, as well as empowering them and providing them with an enhanced understanding of customer orientation. Originality/value – The study is novel in several respects: it provides a systematic empirical analysis of how S‐D logic can be established in an organisation; the notion of a S‐D professional identity is introduced; and the theory of organisational socialisation is applied to S‐D logic research for the first time.