Introduction

In Chapter 5, we introduced a systems view of actors and the cocreation of value to indicate how market exchange and economies function. Although actors exchange directly with one another, they are also part of many indirect and far-removed exchanges involving other actors that are also involved with this system. A systems view also extends to understanding the market. However, markets have historically been characterized as composed of “supply markets” and the movement of resources to customers, receivers, beneficiaries, or “customer markets,” the latter being a source of demand.

Viewing the market as comprising supply and customer or demand markets is misleading and especially so when adopting a generic actor-to-actor (A2A) view of the economy. A supply market is only a supply market when viewing an actor as a seller (supply source or service provider), and a customer market is only a customer market when viewing another actor as a buyer (demand source or service beneficiary). As we have noted, however, all actors are both resource-integrating sources of “supply” and resource-integrating sources of “demand” – that is, offering service and taking on the role of service beneficiaries. Service-dominant (S-D) logic offers some useful conceptual tools for enhancing this macro lens.