Public defence in Applied Philosophy and Organisational Research, M.Sc. (Economics) Anssi Tuulenmäki

How to create as much business-relevant value as possible? Answering this underlying question requires an understanding of the mechanisms of both customer and company value creation and a simultaneous examination of these perspectives. In this work, these perspectives are combined with the help of the concept of offering. Offering refers to what companies offer for purchase or to barter in order to satisfy customer outcomes.

An Offering Based Theory to Value Creation, proposed in this book, consists of the four main value classes—use-value (for the customer), the company’s surplus, as well as exchange value and relationship value between the parties. The offering-based view combines these main value classes and complements other business-relevant value creation theories: if we want to explain how to shift from the customer’s goals and use-value to company surplus, it is vital to take into account the exchange value and essential role of offering as a mechanism that mediates the exchange. Similarly, if we want to shift our focus from company surplus and value capturing to customer value and customers’ outcomes, the focus must be on developing a commercially viable offering that, in addition to exchange value, enables customers to achieve their goals.

The offering is the mechanism which enables decisions to be made about, e.g., risk management, exchange currencies, the roles, and activities as well as interfaces that determine which interactions are direct or indirect. Each main value class can be associated with a particular value creation ideal type with distinct main drivers of increasing the value. These ideal types and the main value classes have not been considered together in previous value creation accounts and these partially conflicting and even opposing logics have not been distinguished. The joint analysis performed in this book allows for a more comprehensive and detailed explanation of the value creation principles and mechanisms, where the impacts of different value creation goals are more easily identifiable, down to the level of the offering’s individual value components, value activities, and interfaces.

The proposed offering level analysis conceptually connects companies and customers in a way that puts conscious management choices and business creativity at the heart of value creation. In addition to theoretical discourses, the offering-based view can be directly applied in practical value creating efforts, in any business fields.

Opponent: Professor Elina Jaakkola, University of Turku, Finland

Custos: Professor Mikko Jääskeläinen, Aalto University School of Science, Department of Industrial Engineering and Management

Contact details of the doctoral student: [email protected]

The public defence will be organised on campus and via Zoom. Link to the event

The dissertation is publicly displayed 10 days before the defence in the publication archive Aaltodoc of Aalto University

Electronic thesis