This thesis provides a rich and thick (Geertz, 1973) understanding of customer value,and the process of customer value creation and delivery. It achieves this through athree-stage multi-method action research based study including survey work, multiplecases, and a single site industrial SME case. The study is grounded in the resourcebasedview (RBV) of the firm, providing a linkage between the strategic managementand marketing disciplines.The purpose of this research is to support theory development in the area of customervalue. A new definition of customer value was developed, recognising the complex,dynamic and multi-dimensional nature of the construct. The definition is supported bya series of empirically based conceptual frameworks, describing the customer valueconstruct and the customer value development process of the firm.A number of perspectives on customer value-related marketing practice were found.Successive stages of the research identified six approaches to creating and deliveringcustomer value: Traditional Transactional, Transitional or hybrid, TraditionalRelational, Network, Systemic and Pluralistic. These approaches are not mutuallyexclusive. Rather, they characterise various approaches to customer value creationand delivery practiced in various contexts (e.g. for-profit and not-for-profit, consumerand industrial) and at various levels within firms (e.g. senior management, functionaland front-line), strongly suggesting a contingency of practice.The customer value creation and delivery process was conceptualised as a triad,viewed through the lens of making, keeping, and enabling promises (Gronroos, 1996).A fourth dimension, realising promises, was added, encompassing the outputs of theprocess (i.e. financial and non-financial value for both customer and firm).Future research should be directed at testing and refining elements of the conceptualframeworks and value postures, offering significant benefits to practicing managers,to management education, and to theoretical understanding.
