Abstract
The climate crisis and other global challenges make it clear that not only are new value cocreation practices (VCPs) needed, but some current VCPs must be discontinued. Prior service literature assumes that VCPs can be disrupted by reforming the institutions that govern them. However, empirical observations show that VCPs may persist even when targeted by institutional work, and recent organizational research points to contested practices that continue to be enacted even when challenged or criticized. To understand this phenomenon in value cocreation, we conducted an embedded case study of exotic pet-keeping—a set of VCPs that continue despite intervention efforts. Our findings reveal that when exotic pet-keepers became reflexive of contestation in the symbolic elements of their VCPs, they modified their material elements, leading to four types of contested VCP reconfiguration. Two of these types—conforming and confining—resulted in the dissipation of the contested VCPs, while the other two—converting and circumventing—led to their persistence. We contribute to service research by introducing the concept of contested VCPs and developing a typology and a theoretical framework of their reconfiguration. Our work offers practitioners and policymakers a new approach to designing interventions to discontinue VCPs and evaluating their outcomes.
Keywords
Introduction
Value cocreation practices (VCPs) have received significant attention in service research for the past two decades (Donthu et al. 2022; Zeithaml et al. 2020), and services themselves have recently been conceptualized as “bundles of tightly linked value cocreation practices” (Skålén and Gummerus 2023, p. 94, italics in original). While the majority of prior research has focused on how VCPs contribute to the well-being of actors in service ecosystems (e.g., McColl-Kennedy et al. 2012; Vargo and Lusch 2016), more recent work has begun to highlight how VCPs can also lead to adverse outcomes for individuals (Lumivalo, Tuunanen, and Salo 2023), communities (Skålén, Pace, and Cova 2015), and the planet at large (Koskela-Huotari et al. 2024). This latter line of research, sometimes referred to as value co-destruction (e.g., Plé and Cáceres 2010; Echeverri and Skålén 2011), has made it increasingly evident that to design sustainable service ecosystems (e.g., Field et al. 2021; Fehrer, Kemper, and Baker 2024), it may not be sufficient to merely innovate new VCPs but also to discontinue some of the current VCPs.
Prior service literature argues that VCPs can be disrupted by reforming their supporting institutions—the enduring regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive elements that provide stability and meaning to social life (e.g., Koskela-Huotari et al. 2016; Vargo, Wieland, and Akaka 2015; Vink et al. 2021). In such cases, reflexivity—actors’ awareness of prevailing institutions—is an important prerequisite for triggering institutional reformation processes (Vink and Koskela-Huotari 2022). This perspective aligns with institutional theorizing in organizational studies, where the persistence of practices is credited to their institutional support (Scott 2014) and where institutional work—the purposive action of individuals and organizations aimed at creating, maintaining, and disrupting institutions (Lawrence and Suddaby 2006)—is seen as the means to bring forth changes in practices (Zietsma and Lawrence 2010). Indeed, it is expected that as consensus around the perceived value of a practice erodes, for example as an outcome of purposive institutional work, the practice will be abandoned or “deinstitutionalized” (Maguire and Hardy 2009; Oliver 1992).
Yet recent organizational research indicates that practices can persist despite being seen as conflicting with changing societal values, designating them as contested in nature (e.g., Godart, Hsu, and Negro 2023; Raynard, Kodeih, and Greenwood 2021). This contestation arises when different actors or groups disagree sharply in their interpretations of a practice’s legitimacy or value (Godart, Hsu, and Negro 2023). Consequently, practices considered valuable to some actors can be criticized and challenged by those who perceive them as generating negative outcomes (Raynard, Kodeih, and Greenwood 2021). Empirical observations support this; consider the practice of cigarette smoking. Once widely supported by various institutionalized norms (e.g., as a valid excuse for a work break) and beliefs (e.g., “coolness”), cigarette smoking has become a contested VCP in many contexts due to institutional work by various stakeholders to restrict it because of its negative health outcomes. Yet the practice persists, even in countries like Australia that have stringent enforcement of health education campaigns, regulations, and tax policies aimed at its discontinuation (Berridge et al. 2023).
Prior service research has illuminated the processes that create new bundles of VCPs (Skålén and Gummerus 2023) and facilitate the emergence of desired VCPs (Vink et al. 2021). However, much less attention is given to the phenomenon of VCP persistence. As a result, very little is known about the mechanisms that lead to VCP persistence, especially in the case of contested VCPs. This research gap is concerning as it limits our ability to understand, and effectively respond to, situations where the discontinuation of VCPs is urgently needed due to these human actions contributing to existential threats and global challenges (see, e.g., Steffen et al. 2015), but the practicing communities resist intervention efforts.
This paper, therefore, aims to better understand contested practices and their persistence in value cocreation. To study this phenomenon, we focus on a particular set of contested VCPs—exotic pet-keeping, which comprises the harvesting, trade, ownership, and handling of nondomesticated species of animals (Bush, Baker, and MacDonald 2014; Feddema, Harrigan, and Wang 2021). Exotic pet-keeping is, thus, a set of VCPs in which various actors interact to integrate multiple resources (including nondomesticated animals 1 ) and jointly cocreate value. Exotic pet-keeping as a set of VCPs has become increasingly contested over time, as several laws restricting these practices have been introduced (Massé et al. 2020), and the normative view of an appropriate pet has evolved (Warwick et al. 2018). Despite these intervention efforts, exotic pet-keeping persists, and the threat to globally threatened and protected species continues and, in many cases, is increasing (Cardoso et al. 2021).
Through this study, we contribute to service research by introducing the concept of contested VCPs and developing a typology and theoretical framework of their reconfiguration types and mechanisms. We define contested VCPs as those VCPs perceived to result in positively valenced value outcomes by some actors and negatively valenced value outcomes by others, making them the object of debate and intervention efforts. The typology of contested VCP reconfiguration identifies four types of reconfiguration: two types—conforming and confining—result in the dissipation of contested VCPs (i.e., the overall practice remains, but its contestation is reduced), while the other two types—converting and circumventing—lead to the persistence of contested VCPs. Our theoretical framework provides a more nuanced understanding of the outcomes of reflexivity, demonstrating that increased reflexivity does not necessarily lead to the discontinuation of VCPs. Instead, for contested VCPs, reflexivity may lead to deliberate modification of material VCP elements to accommodate or avoid contested symbolic VCP elements, with consequences that may align or misalign with intervention efforts.
Theoretical Background
This section outlines the theoretical background of VCPs, which forms the basis of our work. Table 1 presents the key concepts in our theorization process that guide our empirical study and are further developed during the abductive analysis.
Key Concepts of the Study.
VCP, value cocreation practice.
Value Cocreation Practices
Value cocreation—a multi-actor process through which actors contribute to each other’s well-being (Vargo and Lusch 2018)—is one of the major research themes in service literature (Donthu et al. 2022; Zeithaml et al. 2020). In recent work, Skålén and Gummerus (2023, p. 94) conceptualize VCPs as consisting “of both the templates of collectively shared and organized routine activities and the concrete everyday activities that individual actors perform to cocreate value.” Prior service research has shed light on the relational (Kelleher et al. 2020), experiential (Helkkula, Kelleher, and Pihlstrӧm 2012; Kelleher et al. 2019), and institutional nature of VCPs (Vargo and Akaka 2012; Vargo and Lusch 2016). The latter line of research particularly examines how institutions and institutional arrangements both enable and constrain VCPs (e.g., Koskela-Huotari et al. 2016; Vargo, Wieland and Akaka 2015).
The conceptual relationship between practices and institutions is a subject of ongoing debate in service research. While some service scholars view practices to be institutions (e.g., Baron et al. 2018), others argue that they are distinct due to incommensurable conceptualizations of action and social order (Skålén and Gummerus 2023). In our work, we follow a third approach that argues for a more nuanced relationship between practices and institutions, suggesting that practices are the enactment of institutionalized regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive social structures in value cocreation (Vargo and Akaka 2012; Vink et al. 2021; see also Scott 2014). Underpinning this approach is, thus, a recursive view of the relationship between human action and social structure. That is, the enactment of practices influences, and is influenced by, the social structures associated with a particular social system in which those practices are enacted (Vargo and Akaka 2012).
This line of work on VCPs builds on Giddens’ (1984) structuration theory, which posits that structure in social systems has a dual nature. In this view, social structure consists of (1) the observable structure comprised of material elements such as artifacts and human activities, and (2) the invisible structure made of structural properties, such as rules, which exist in the memory traces of human beings and orient their conduct. This structural duality is instantiated within practices, which are ordered across time and space, and become the core unit of social analysis (Giddens 1984). This approach aligns with Antonacopoulou (2008), who views practices as the embodiment of tangible and intangible elements as actors engage with the world and embed actions with meaning. It also resonates with Scott (2014, p. 57), who recognizes that “although an institutional perspective gives heightened attention to the symbolic aspects of social life, we must also attend to the activities that produce, reproduce and change them and to the resources that sustain them.”
Based on the above, we conceptualize VCPs to be the nexus where both symbolic elements (invisible structure) and material elements (observable structure) are instantiated. This combinatorial approach aligns with Skålén and Gummerus (2023, p. 84), who highlight that VCPs also consist of more symbolic templates “that prefigure (i.e., guide or foreshadow) the concrete activities of actors” while maintaining the embodied and material nature of such practices. Building on Scott’s (2014) work, we view the symbolic VCP elements to consist of regulative (e.g., laws and rules), normative (e.g., norms and values), and cultural-cognitive elements (e.g., beliefs). To elaborate on the material elements of VCPs, we build on Vink and Koskela-Huotari (2021, see also Vink et al. 2021), who argue that activities, artifacts, relations, and signs represent the physical enactments of regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive elements. Aligning with Korkman (2006), we also consider built spaces (i.e., homes, workplaces) as part of the material element of artifacts. Both the symbolic and material VCP elements interact in the value cocreation process (Vargo and Lusch 2016), and a change in one VCP element can lead to subsequent changes in the others (Skålén and Gummerus 2023).
Contested Nature of VCPs
While the concept of value cocreation is founded on the idea that value is created through interaction and mutually beneficial relationships among actors within service ecosystems (Vargo and Lusch 2016), there is increasing acknowledgment that VCPs that result in value for some actors can be problematic for others and lead to adverse outcomes (e.g., Lumivalo, Tuunanen, and Salo 2023; Skålén, Pace, and Cova 2015). To counter the perceived “over-optimistic” view of the value cocreation literature, a reverse concept—value co-destruction—has been introduced in service literature (e.g., Echeverri and Skålén 2011; Plé and Cáceres 2010). Value co-destruction is defined as an interactional process that results in a decline in at least one of the actors’ well-being (Plé and Cáceres 2010). While insightful in highlighting the existence of negatively perceived value outcomes, the logical underpinnings of this approach have been recently criticized (for a fuller discussion on this, see Alexander and Vallström 2023). To avoid these conceptual issues and to acknowledge the multi-faceted nature of the valence of perceived value outcomes stemming from a set of VCPs, we turn to the concept of contested practices to better understand the situation with our focal VCPs.
Recent research in organizational studies has highlighted that it is possible for groups of actors to disagree sharply in their interpretations of a practice’s legitimacy or value, designating such practices as contested (e.g., Godart, Hsu, and Negro 2023; Raynard, Kodeih, and Greenwood 2021). In other words, the contested nature of practices stems from varying perceptions of their value outcomes. This discord can lead some actors to criticize and directly challenge other actors’ VCPs when they are seen to generate negative value outcomes (Raynard, Kodeih, and Greenwood 2021). Building on this work, we offer the concept of contested VCPs to reflect the assumption that each actor involved in value cocreation uniquely and phenomenologically determines the valence of perceived value outcomes (Vargo and Lusch 2016). Contested VCPs are perceived to result in positively valenced value outcomes by some actors and negatively valenced value outcomes by others. These varying value perceptions make these VCPs the object of debate and intervention efforts.
The Challenge of Disrupting Contested VCPs
Prior studies in the service literature maintain that VCPs can be altered by reforming their supporting institutions through institutional work—the purposive efforts by actors to create, maintain, and disrupt the regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive social structures guiding value cocreation (e.g., Koskela-Huotari et al. 2016; Vargo, Wieland, and Akaka 2015; Vink et al. 2021). Consequently, interventions—such as institutional work—can disrupt VCPs when the actors enacting them seek approval in the eyes of the community responsible for the intervention efforts (Godart, Hsu, and Negro 2023).
Institutionalized social structures, though, are difficult to change due to their invisibility, taken-for-grantedness, and endurance (Scott 2014) and, as such, reflexivity is seen as an important prerequisite to triggering such transformational processes (Vink and Koskela-Huotari 2022). Reflexivity here refers both to the actors’ awareness of prevailing institutions (Vink and Koskela-Huotari 2022) and of their own role in reproducing such structures (Vargo et al. 2023). One might reasonably assume then that contestation, which implies both the erosion of consensus around the value of a set of practices and intervention efforts that encourage reflexivity, should trigger the process of deinstitutionalization (e.g., Maguire and Hardy 2009) and result in their discontinuation (Dacin and Dacin 2008; Oliver 1992).
However, empirical observations consistently show that practices can persist even when targeted with institutional work aimed at disrupting them (e.g., cigarette smoking, see Berridge et al. 2023; the use of fur in high-end fashion, see Godart, Hsu, and Negro 2023; elitism in higher education, see Raynard et al. 2021). To better understand contested practices and their persistence in value cocreation, we examine the case of exotic pet-keeping. Exotic pet-keeping VCPs can be considered contested VCPs, as evidenced by numerous changes in international and national legal frameworks to criminalize them and by calls from many stakeholder groups to discontinue them (e.g., Duthie et al. 2017; t’Sas Rolfes et al. 2019). These interventions stem from several perceived negative value outcomes associated with exotic pet-keeping, such as animal cruelty (Baker et al. 2013), species extinction and population declines (Cardoso et al. 2021), disease transmission and spillover to humans (Can, D’Cruze, and MacDonald 2019), and physical injuries to owners and other people (Warwick and Steedman 2012). Despite their contested nature, these VCPs persist (Naito, Chan and Zhao 2024), calling for further exploration of how and why this occurs. Next, we outline the research design of our empirical study conducted to gain a better understanding of the phenomenon of contested VCP persistence.
Methodology
As the research philosophy guiding our empirical study, we embrace a social constructionist approach founded on the premise that subjective realities are made meaningful by actors in their specific social context (Peñaloza and Venkatesh 2006; Zeithaml et al. 2020). Methodologically, we employ an embedded case study design (Yin 2002). This approach allows us to observe the complex phenomenon of contested VCP persistence holistically and systemically (Gummesson 2001), facilitating “oscillating foci” that are ideally suited for studying value cocreation (Chandler and Vargo 2011). In our embedded case study, the overarching case is the persistence of exotic pet-keeping. Within it, we have two layers of embedded sub-units: (1) countries with variation in the contestation of exotic pet-keeping as a set of VCPs and (2) online communities of exotic pet-keepers and other relevant actors (e.g., traders, retailers, and prospective buyers) within these countries. Table 2 provides an overview of the research design for the empirical study and outlines the overall research process.
Overview of the Embedded Case Study’s Research Design and the Overall Research Process.
VCP, value cocreation practice.
Overarching Case: The Persistence of Exotic Pet-Keeping
Exotic pet-keeping is an increasingly contested set of VCPs due to intervention efforts such as purposive institutional work aimed at their restriction and discontinuation. An example of such efforts on a global level is the International Consortium on Combatting Wildlife Crime (ICCWC)—a collaboration between five key agencies: the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES 2 ) Secretariat, INTERPOL, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the World Bank, and the World Customs Organization- to coordinate and support law enforcement of wildlife crime (ICCWC 2023). Additional efforts include the Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online, in which 47 global technology companies—such as Meta (Facebook and Instagram), Tencent (WeChat and Tencent QQ), and TikTok—have committed to making it more difficult to sell live animals on their sites (Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online 2023). Moreover, many countries have implemented legislation restricting exotic pet-keeping either on their own initiative or from the pressure of international legislative frameworks (Euro Group for Animals 2020). Despite these efforts to restrict and discontinue exotic pet-keeping, the set of VCPs persists, and the trade of globally threatened and protected species continues and, in some cases, has increased (Cardoso et al. 2021).
First Sub-Unit Layer: Countries with Variation in the Contestation of Exotic Pet-Keeping
The selection of our first layer of sub-units aimed to ensure a diversity of contexts with a variation in the degree of contestation of the studied VCPs. This design enabled a breadth of data, essential for examining how contested VCPs persist. Given the scarcity of global comparisons of exotic pet-keeping, we used the Online Trade Score (OTS) by Nijman et al. (2023) as a proxy for the contestation of exotic pet-keeping. This score reflects the “ease of finding live primates in online trade by searching relevant local platforms in a single afternoon.” It was measured by experts in the field using a consistent scale across 77 countries, providing one of the only quantitative comparisons of the openness and accessibility of the trade of exotic species at the national level. For our purposes, we assume that more intense and long-term institutional work to restrict and discontinue exotic pet-keeping practices conducted within a country will lower the ease of access and openness of purchasing exotic pets online. We selected three countries representing a range of OTS values from moderate to very high ease and openness—the United Kingdom (4.5 ± 0.5), the United States (6.3 ± 1), and Indonesia (7.0 ± 0)—to ensure variation in contestation while enabling sufficient opportunities for data collection.
We then further explored the institutional work carried out in each country to restrict and discontinue exotic pet-keeping to confirm that our choice of countries would fit the study requirements. Building on archival sources, we mapped the major events illustrating efforts on institutional work over time in the three countries (see Supplemental Appendix A for timelines and details). We found evidence of institutional work in the form of legislative changes, education campaigns by zoos and nongovernmental institutions, and broader public discourse stemming from events such as the escape of pet animals, the spread of zoonoses, and concerns for animal welfare and rights in all three countries, thus indicating contestation (for reviews of current legislation see Eryan 2024 for Indonesia, Stoakes 2014 for the United Kingdom, and Pratt et al. 2024 for the United States).
Conservation literature confirms that, despite this, exotic pet-keeping persists in all three contexts. Although quantifying the illicit trade is challenging due to its clandestine nature (Tlusty et al. 2023), seizure reports and market surveys can be used to indicate the prevalence of these practices. For example, in the United Kingdom (hereafter UK), exotic pet-keeping remains popular (see, e.g., Elwin et al. 2020; Green et al. 2020), with 1,011 seizure reports of CITES-listed wildlife (both live animals and derivatives) in a single year, 2018—the third highest volume in the European Union (TRAFFIC 2018). In the United States (hereafter US), seizure records from 2009 to 2018 show that approximately 9.64 million live animals were imported to fuel the pet trade (Watters et al. 2022). In Indonesia, despite legal protection, threatened species are still widely traded across Java (Adhiasto 2023), with market surveys estimating that between 1.4 and 1.8 million wild-caught birds are sold annually (Nijman et al. 2017), reflecting the scale of the phenomenon.
Second Sub-Unit Layer: Online Communities of Exotic Pet-Keepers
For the second layer of sub-units, we chose to focus on online communities of exotic pet-keepers through a netnography (Kozinets, Scaraboto and Parmentier 2018) as this allows us to gather a unique dataset about a phenomenon that is otherwise both geographically and socially inaccessible (Stringham et al. 2021). Since core exotic pet-keeping VCPs primarily take place privately within each owner’s home, social media communities have become the main venue for resource exchange (such as animal trading and information sharing) and social interaction with other pet-keepers (involving discussions about these practices; see, e.g., Feddema et al. 2020; Siriwat and Nijman 2020). Moreover, for some owners, these online communities represent the only opportunity to negotiate their VCPs collectively. These online communities serve as spaces where exotic pet-keepers establish the legitimacy of their practices and reinforce rules, norms, and beliefs via intra-group interactions. We therefore view them as communities of practice (Angouri 2016). Social media data have also been used previously as a form of “expression of social action,” and netnography offers data on how the community of practice engages with one another (Laakso et al. 2022). Therefore, while our study set-up deviates from traditional practice-based research that typically involves direct observational data on the “doings” of exotic pet-keeping (Korkman et al. 2010), it offers valuable insights into the interactions and collective sense-making processes that contribute to the persistence of these practices.
The online communities were identified by searching a popular social media site using its search function and snowball sampling, giving a total dataset of 59 online communities (NUK = 7; NUS = 16; NIndonesia = 36). For the English-speaking countries, the search terms used were “exotic pets,” “exotic pet owners,” “exotic pet-keepers,” and “exotic pet community,” with each term followed by “UK” and, subsequently, “US” and “USA.” For Indonesia, the research team already had access to an extensive network of online communities on the platform from prior research. To ensure we had the full complement of relevant communities, additional searches were completed using the terms “komunitas peliharaan eksotik” (exotic pet community), “komunitas pecinta eksotics” (exotics lovers’ community), “komunitas pecinta satwa” (fauna lover community), and “komunitas pecinta hewan” (animal lover community).
All 59 online communities were checked to ensure a majority of active members were based in the three target countries. To ensure sufficient, quality data for the analysis while minimizing unnecessary data collection, communities were filtered to include only the three with the highest average number of comments on each post.
Collection of Online Data
To gain access to the selected online communities, the first author conducted covert data collection by creating an alias account with no personal data sections completed. The authors carefully considered the ethical dimensions of the study to protect community members’ privacy. They did not otherwise attempt to mislead users and did not react, comment, share, or otherwise engage with any group members or try to influence behavior in any way. All work was completed with approval from the relevant university’s Human Ethics Research Committee under case number RA/4/20/5008 and in line with best-practice guidelines for online wildlife studies (Morcatty et al. 2024).
The dataset consists of online user-generated content, that is, posts and comments written and uploaded by community members and information on community location, number of members and administrators, and official rules. For each online community, the posts, comments, and reactions from the most recent 6 months were collected (from June 2020 to November 2020). The 30 posts with the most comments were then selected for analysis, giving a final dataset of 270 posts and 15,850 comments. Table 2 illustrates how the data is distributed across the online communities and each of the three countries (NUK = 3395, NUS = 3607, NIndonesia = 7966). As data collection is limited to 6 months of online discussion in each community, we do not consider this a longitudinal study by which we could observe institutional changes over time. Instead, we focus on the events discussed and unfolding within the online communities that have a bearing on the persistence of the focal VCPs.
Data were anonymized, and all posts in Bahasa Indonesia were translated into English by a native speaker, with assistance from the first author, who is familiar with the Indonesian datasets, including species-specific terminology and slang. Data was then imported into NVivo 12 for analysis. All elements within the comments and posts—that is, text, emojis, images, and videos—were used to interpret the data. Some quotes used in the findings section have been grammatically corrected for better clarity, but their original meaning has been retained.
Abductive Data Analysis Process
Our iterative and abductive data analysis process (Dubois and Gadde 2002) consisted of several rounds of systematically combining empirical insights with prior theorization on VCPs from academic literature. The initial round involved a thematic analysis of all posts and comments within NVivo 12 according to the methodology set out by Wiggins (2017). After initially reading and describing the data, we manually coded all text (with their supporting images) to identify aspects of the focal VCPs, their organizing principles, and related meanings using provisional and hypothesis coding methods (Saldaña 2021). This approach was then iteratively extended, and additional nodes and sub-nodes were created to refine themes during an elaborative coding process as patterns emerged.
Throughout this process, we repeatedly oscillated between the theoretical literature and the empirical data (Dubois and Gadde 2002) to reorientate our framing and refine our analyses as additional insights were gained. These further rounds of analysis relied on the pattern coding method (Miles and Huberman 1994; Saldaña 2021). Finally, our analysis zoomed in on the community members’ ongoing negotiations of exotic pet-keeping practices, paying particular attention to events that demonstrate their reflexivity regarding the contested nature of their VCPs. We focused on the material practice reconfigurations that resulted from this reflexivity and their outcomes in relation to the directionality of institutional work to which it responded.
Findings
The findings of our study are divided into three parts. First, we show how members of exotic pet-keeping communities exhibit reflexivity regarding the contested nature of their VCPs, demonstrating their awareness of tensions between themselves and the broader community concerning the symbolic VCP elements. Second, we explain how this reflexivity leads community members to modify material VCP elements in an effort to maintain the overall set of VCPs. Third, we demonstrate how these modifications either accommodate or avoid the contested symbolic VCP elements, resulting in practice reconfigurations that either align or misalign with the broader community’s efforts to discontinue the VCPs. Altogether, we find that this process leads to four types of contested VCP reconfiguration—conforming, confining, converting, and circumventing—resulting in either the dissipation or persistence of contested VCPs.
Reflexivity of Contestations in Symbolic VCP Elements
In all three countries, community members demonstrated reflexivity of the contested nature of exotic pet-keeping. Community members frequently discussed the positively valenced value outcomes that they experienced engaging in exotic-pet keeping, for example, the perceived novelty of keeping uncommon species, the greater choice of pet colors, forms, and behaviors they could observe, a sense of pride and satisfaction from caring for a complex species, and the stronger bonds of affection, which the additional care requirements led to. At the same time, they were aware of interventions to restrict exotic pet-keeping and recognized that the symbolic elements of their VCPs—such as rules, norms, and beliefs—were contested. As was expected based on our selection criteria of the countries, the instances of reflexivity were more frequent in the US and UK online exotic pet-keeping communities than in Indonesia, a country that had a very high OTS score indicating only a limited degree of contestation of exotic pet-keeping VCPs.
Community members demonstrated awareness of rule contestations stemming from both local laws and legislation, as well as the policies of the social media platform hosting their communities. For example, one member of a US community noted that there was increasing pressure on exotic pet keeping, stating, “Exotic pet ownership is under scrutiny and at risk of being banned. If a stranger surprises your pet, it escapes in public or a bite or scratch occurs. . .your animals will be quarantined at your expense, possibly rehomed against your wishes, or euthanized and beheaded to test for rabies. Every time there is an event like this, it is reported which contributes to a list lobbyists use to argue against exotic pet ownership.”
However, actors who demonstrated such reflexivity did not necessarily discontinue the overall set of VCPs, with a member from a different US community arguing that, “Following laws helps protect the animals we love, as well as our continued ability to own them. Illegal ownership gets healthy animals killed and works toward banning exotic animal ownership.” These quotes illustrate that the community members’ reflexivity extends beyond mere awareness of rule-based contestation to an understanding that failing to address contestations may prompt additional institutional work by the broader community to further restrict—even discontinue—exotic pet-keeping VCPs.
In Indonesia, members of a reptile-keeping community demonstrated their reflexivity of a rule contestation between themselves and the broader community that led social media platforms to ban content that demonstrated either the sale of animals or the free-handling (i.e., handling without personal protective equipment) of venomous snakes. In one example, a community member queried whether a fellow member was breeding reticulated pythons after they posted an image of a clutch of eggs. In response, an administrator of the group cautioned that buying, selling, and trading animals was not allowed to be discussed due to the platform’s rules, stating, “Have you read the rules? Do you know what we don’t discuss in the group? . . . I want us to be free like before. But now [the platform] has gotten really bad, all the groups are getting banned.” In a post from 3 months later, the same administrator commented that there is a “free-handle rule on [platform], and our group follows [the platform’s] rule.” after a community member uploaded a video free-handling a king cobra. It was evident though that although the rule was enforced on some posts, not all free-handle videos received such warnings. Further, there was no indication that these activities would have been abandoned or restricted outside of the social media platform because of these rule-based contestations.
Community members also showed reflexivity of norm contestations regarding how they and the broader community viewed the appropriateness of specific pet characteristics. In an Indonesian civet-keeping community, many posts indicated that there was a preference within the community for civets to be over-fed to make them obese. Some members of the community indicated they had become aware that the broader community associated significant health risks with this characteristic and that there was contestation between prioritizing the value of animal welfare against such preferences by the exotic pet owners, saying:
I feel bad to see them obese, bro . . . The obese one is vulnerable to fungus, easily gets tired, and diabetes . . . there are people who consider obesity normal, but there are also those who think that obesity will torture the civet, so they suggest stopping obesity—different people will have different perceptions, but I think “too much of something” isn’t good.
Additionally, community members showed reflexivity of norm contestations regarding the general acceptance of keeping exotic pets. For example, in the US, the owner of a lynx demonstrated reflexivity of the contested nature of their VCPs and, particularly, of the ownership of what was considered by the broader community to be a “dangerous animal.” This reflexivity stemmed from an instance in which they were told by a Homeowner’s Association that they were not allowed to keep “wild” pets in their neighborhood. They wrote, “We placed an offer on a house, everyone was ecstatic to have a police officer and a teacher in their neighborhood. However, the offer got withdrawn because of this ‘wild’ animal.” This also demonstrates the community members’ awareness of contestation in beliefs, discussing discrepancy between what the broader community understood to be an exotic or wild animal and what the focal community viewed those to be. The owner also stated, “We assumed she would fit in, the realtor thought she would also. Cats, dogs and household pets are allowed. No wild animals,” indicating that they disagreed with the members of the broader community with the meaning of a “wild animal,” expressing, “I think I tend to forget she’s an exotic because in our home—she’s just our “cat” . . .. to [us] she isn’t wild—It’s not like we caught her.” Another community member agreed with their statement, contending that “That is totally ludicrous, I think since you can prove that she is captive bred it shouldn’t matter. It’s not like you have a tiger.” These belief-based contestations were echoed in quotes from the UK, where members of a generic exotic pet-keeping online community stated, “Anything that isn’t a dog or cat in England is considered and called exotic so they can make your life difficult about keeping it.”
The above examples demonstrate that members of exotic pet-keeping communities are aware of the tensions within the symbolic VCPs elements between themselves and the surrounding community, as well as the contested nature of their practices. They also recognize that changes may be required to continue practicing exotic pet-keeping VCPs.
Modifications of Material VCP Elements
In this section, we explain how this reflexivity led community members to modify the material elements of their VCPs to continue their exotic pet-keeping, which they still perceived as resulting in positively valenced value outcomes. We provide specific examples of modifications made to the material elements of artifacts, activities, relations, and signs.
Modification of Artifacts
Actors modified the material VCP element of artifacts in response to contestation either by altering their physical resources or revising the spatial setting in which the value cocreation occurred. Community members altered physical resources, such as enclosures, food, or restraints (e.g., leashes, crates, harnesses). In some cases, they also modified the core physical resource of the VCPs—that is, the exotic animal—either by changing the type of animal (e.g., switching their species preference to a less protected one), the number of animals owned (e.g., buying pairs or groups of social species rather than individuals), or by altering the material characteristics of the animal (e.g., removing claws or teeth to comply with safety norms). For example, the US lynx owner described above indicated concern about the potential social consequences if their employer found out their pet had harmed their son. As a result, they removed the canine teeth from their lynx in order to continue the VCPs, stating:
I had my cat’s canine teeth removed, and she functions great! . . . I am a teacher in the same district in which my son goes to school, and I did not want my son going to school saying our cat tore him up . . . she was playing with my son one day and a tooth got him down the edge of his face. At that point—[the teeth] had to go!
In another example, a tortoise breeder in a UK reptile-keeping community demonstrated reflexivity toward the recommendations of a local conservation and welfare nonprofit, the Tortoise Protection Group [TPG], noting that they met the standards set by them for their enclosure size. They also recommended that others follow the same advice:
TPG also recommend that tortoises live in a secure outdoor enclosure by 5 years of age to allow them more space (as they would in the wild) with lights and heating. . .I have 2 11x8 greenhouses and secure outdoor pens for mine, so they have the room they need. If people can’t accommodate the correct environment or space maybe, they should rethink owning a tortoise and get a pet that requires the space they can accommodate.
Our analysis also shows that, as another form of artifact modification, actors revised the spatial setting of their VCPs to avoid complying with the rules of the broader community. One community member from a US-based generic exotic pet community recommended that the others ensure they keep up with legislative changes and check the laws at different regional levels to avoid contestation and successfully maintain their exotic pet-keeping VCPs:
Texas is tricky. You do not need a permit but only 26 counties are legal the rest are banned. Even in the legal counties most towns are banned. You must get the county ordinances and city ordinances to find out the laws before you get one . . . laws are changing so fast. We just had to move again due to our town of less than 1000 changing its ordinances.
As the statement above demonstrates, the community member had repeatedly altered their spatial setting, moving homes in response to contestation, relocating whenever city ordinances regarding their VCPs changed to be too restrictive.
Modification of Activities
Modification of activities included creating new activities, letting go of supplementary activities, and concealing activities to maintain the overall VCP constellation of exotic pet-keeping. We found that new activities, such as “backyard breeding” and re-selling, in which group members bred animals to provide access to rare or restricted animals, as well as to earn income, had developed. In Indonesia, where palm civets are regulated with harvest quotas, group members in the civet-keeping community would frequently message one another to breed their animals together. Some owners in a monkey-keeping group also discussed hoping to domesticate the species over subsequent generations (termed F1 for the first generation and F2 for the second) through specific breeding programs, stating:
If it’s the result of a taming program, then a 3–4-month-old [monkey] can be tamed, but if you adopted it as a baby, then 3–4 months old is still little. . .The minimum of wild instinct in the domestication process is F2—So, assume we buy a baby and we breed it, then the resulting babies are F1. This F1 is then bred and will result in F2. These have a different character. This happens repeatedly, and then they’ll be like cats.
In US and UK communities, veterinary care was an area in which we saw considerable modification of activities as many veterinary practices will not treat exotic species. Some actors ceased taking their animals to the vet altogether and instead sought advice from online community members. Other actors adopted new activities, such as traveling up to 10 hours to visit specialty practices and access care. In one example, a member of a UK reptile community also stated that they retrained as a veterinary nurse to provide care to their animals.
Community members also mentioned stopping the supplementary activity of taking their animals into public spaces, with one member of a US general exotic-pet keeping community stating, “when my monkeys were very young, I used to take them out in public. That was many years ago, laws have changed a lot.” In some cases, they also recommended that others refrain from encouraging these interactions as they went against regulations and put their pet-keeping practices at risk, for example another community member in an exotic pet adoption community stated:
The DNR [Department of Natural Resources] will tell you not to walk your fox on a lead because if people approach you and it so much as licks someone and they complain, it’s automatic euthanasia because it’s a rabies vector. . .foxes draw crowds.
Finally, community members in all three countries also modified their activities by concealing them, for example, avoiding algorithms designed to detect the sale of animals on online platforms. In some cases, community members changed the platform they used to discuss the final sales price of animals (e.g., switching to a phone or a third-party app) or used direct messaging instead of public posts.
Modification of Relations
Community members also modified the material VCP element of relations, for example, with family members and members of the broader community. We particularly noted two patterns of these modifications: the first took the form of ceasing social interactions, and the second introduced deterrents for future social interactions. The first category of modification of relations is exemplified, for instance, by a US exotic pet adoption community member ceasing their employment with a not-for-profit exotic pet adoption service after gaining reflexivity of the contestation between its activities and state regulations, stating, “I learned even more about the federal laws involved with mink, and I am so glad I decided to leave [the rescue center] when I did.” The second category refers to situations in which community members modified relations by placing barriers or deterrents between themselves and the members of the broader community to prevent others from interacting with them or their pets. For example, in a discussion between exotic pet owners about restrictions on exotic pet ownership put in place by their Homeowner’s Associations, a US community member reported, “I just went through the same thing. . .so we bought a place with 23 acres to solve the problem.” This individual sought to deter interactions with neighbors by increasing the physical distance between themselves and the broader community by moving to a larger estate. In another example, an Indonesian primate owner recommended that another community member separate their pet from their family, stating, “For the monkey, keep it away or tie it up. Forbid family members to get close, put it in the cage.”
Modification of Signs
Finally, we saw evidence that exotic pet-keepers altered their use of signs to maintain their practices. In one community, members used emojis such as donuts to mean zeros or the hand emoji to mean the number five so that the algorithm was not able to identify that they were selling animals. One US community member wrote, “I saw this trick in horse groups when [the platform] started to shut things down.” This further demonstrated the importance of shared meanings and understandings of signs to enable members to communicate effectively with one another and cocreate value. A comment on the post stated, “The donuts took me five whole minutes to figure out,” leading the member who had made the original post to reflect, “Guess it only works if everyone else gets it.”
Actors also altered their use of specific terms to appear as though they were accommodating perceived rule-based contestations. For example, in the UK, keeping primates as pets has become increasingly viewed as unacceptable due to increased education campaigns and political positions. This advocacy contends that primates are highly social animals with complex care requirements and, therefore, experience significant psychological and physical trauma when kept as pets, particularly when kept on their own (Garrod 2016; Mason 2019). In response, in a UK primate keepers’ group, an administrator commented on a post that offered a monkey for sale, stating:
These animals are not pets, they aren’t cuddly little fur babies that need you or your hugs and kisses. . . I and other admin will monitor the comments here and any cute cuddly pet ones will be removed, primates are a specialist species.
In this instance, they did not alter their belief that primates could be privately owned and did not restrict members from buying and selling primates. Instead, they selectively refrained from using the word “pet,” shifting to the term “specialist species,” which aligned with the terminology used by institutional work aiming to restrict primate ownership to zoos and rescue centers that could provide appropriate care (Garrod 2016).
Typology of Contested VCP Reconfigurations
As the findings above demonstrate, community members’ reflexivity regarding the contested nature of their VCPs did not necessarily lead to the discontinuation of these practices. On the contrary, we observed patterns where community members responded to contestations in the symbolic elements of their VCPs by modifying their material elements in a manner that enabled the overarching set of VCPs to persist in one form or another. This response followed two main pathways: accommodation and avoidance. Accommodation occurs when the practitioners of the contested VCPs make material modifications to partially adopt the broader community’s differing symbolic practice elements. In contrast, avoidance occurs when practitioners instead reduce their exposure to contestation by modifying one or more material practice elements.
We also find that the consequences of the contested VCP reconfigurations can either align or misalign with the intended outcomes of the institutional work carried out by the broader community to restrict or discontinue the contested VCPs. Aligned consequences reduce the outcomes of the VCPs that are perceived by the broader community as negatively valenced (e.g., species-inappropriate husbandry, species decline). Such reconfigurations lead to the dissipation of the contested VCPs; that is, the overall set of VCPs remains, but its contestation is reduced. Conversely, the reconfiguration of contested VCPs can also lead to consequences that are misaligned with the intended outcomes of the institutional work, resulting in the persistence of the contested VCPs; that is, the overall set of VCPs remains, and its contestation stays the same or may even increase. The typology in Figure 1 illustrates the resulting four types of contested VCP reconfiguration—conforming, confining, converting, and circumventing—which are discussed in more detail in the following sections (see Supplemental Appendix B for additional empirical evidence for the identified reconfiguration types).
Typology of contested VCPs reconfiguration.
Conforming and Confining: Reconfiguration Types Leading to Contested VCP Dissipation
We identified two types of contested VCP reconfiguration that led to the dissipation of contested VCPs: conforming and confining. Conforming refers to a reconfiguration type in which material VCP elements are modified to accommodate the contestation in the symbolic VCP elements in a manner that produces consequences that align with the aims of the institutional work carried out by the broader community. We saw examples of such modifications in all three countries, such as increasing the size of enclosures for tortoises in the UK, ceasing the provision of inappropriate diets and overfeeding for civets in Indonesia, and the adoption of rescue animals, rather than purpose bred animals in the US due to the increasing reflexivity of related rule contestation and norm contestation. The consequences of these modifications were aligned with the intended outcomes of the institutional work by the broader community that brought them forth, as they ensured better welfare outcomes for the animals.
Confining, on the other hand, refers to a reconfiguration type in which material VCP elements are modified to avoid the contestation in the symbolic VCP elements, but in doing so still produce consequences that align with the aims of the institutional work carried out by the broader community. Community members, for example, stated that they no longer went into public with their animals for fear that it would lead to greater restrictions on pet-keeping if anything were to happen that put others at risk. Additionally, some community members reported intentionally not having visitors to their homes or confining themselves to avoid certain places that they knew could result in encounters, for example not taking their pets with them if they needed to drive through certain states or regions, stating, “We do not hardly leave our house. We do not have company over, ever!” While these modifications allowed the VCPs to persist, they produced consequences—such as reduced health and safety risks associated with species kept as exotic pets—that ultimately aligned with the intended outcomes of the institutional work by the broader community.
Converting and Circumventing: Reconfiguration Types Leading to Contested VCP Persistence
We also observed two types of reconfiguration that led to the persistence of the contested VCPs: converting and circumventing. Converting refers to a reconfiguration type in which material VCP elements are modified to accommodate the contestation in the symbolic VCP elements, but in a way that produces consequences misaligned with the aims of the institutional work carried out by the broader community. For example, the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) code of practice for primate licensing in the UK was recently updated with intended outcome of banning the keeping of primates as pets, partly on the basis that they are highly intelligent and social animals (DEFRA 2020; Douglas-Miller 2024). However, rather than ceasing their VCPs, focal community members modified the material elements of their VCPs so that primates would be kept only in troops, purchasing at least two animals at a time to reduce the social isolation perceived as negative for their pets. As these modifications could increase the overall number of primates kept as pets, the consequences were misaligned with the intended outcomes of the DEFRA update.
Another example of converting comes from an Indonesian reptile-keeping community member who reported releasing home-bred reticulated pythons into the wild to align with conservation goals, stating, “I raise 200 clutches, it’s chaotic. . .sometimes some are also released to keep it sustainable.” While the community member added this activity with the purpose of increasing wild populations, the consequences of such material modification are misaligned with broader conservation goals, as releasing pet animals into the wild can cause significant ecological harm (Episcopio-Sturgeon and Pienaar 2020).
The final reconfiguration type—circumventing—refers to reconfiguration in which material VCP elements are modified to avoid the contestation in a way that produces consequences misaligned with the aims of the institutional work to which it responds. For example, while community members in all three countries discussed sales through the online groups, they finalized price and organized handover details either via private messaging or through a third-party platform to avoid detection of activities not complying with the platform rules. Similarly, the highly complex and layered nature of US laws at the city, county, state, and federal levels allowed actors to alter their place of residence to avoid areas where legislation had been changed, and exotic pet-keeping restricted.
In addition to revising the physical or digital location in which the actors enacted their VCPs, circumventing could also take the form of adding new activities, such as backyard breeding. Members of the online communities organized with one another to breed their animals and then either kept or sold the offspring, enabling community members to avoid contestation by bypassing pet stores and importers. The consequences of these modifications ultimately misaligned with the intended outcomes of the institutional work that prompted them. They not only increase the number of pets on the market but also decrease transparency, reducing the ability for law enforcement and conservation practitioners to accurately estimate the scale of the exotic pet trade and monitor animal welfare.
Discussion
In a world facing looming existential threats stemming from human activities (Steffen et al. 2015), it is critical to understand not only how to develop new VCPs (e.g., Skålén and Gummerus 2023), but also how to discontinue the VCPs that contribute to global challenges. However, the mechanisms that lead to the persistence of VCPs remain underexplored. Through our embedded case study on exotic pet-keeping VCPs, we shed light on this knowledge gap and make two contributions to service research. First, we contribute by introducing the concept of contested VCPs. We define contested VCPs as those VCPs perceived to result in positively valenced value outcomes by some actors and negatively valenced value outcomes by others, making them the object of debate and intervention efforts. Second, we develop a typology of contested VCP reconfigurations and a theoretical framework elaborating the mechanisms that lead contested VCPs to dissipate or persist. Figure 2 illustrates this theoretical framework that stems from our abductive analysis process.
Theoretical framework of contested VCP reconfiguration.
At the core of the theoretical framework is a focus on the contested nature of the VCPs, recognizing that the value outcomes of the same set of VCPs can be perceived as both positively and negatively valenced by different actors and actor groups. On the one hand, the focal community of practice perceives the value outcomes of the VCPs as positively valenced, while another actor group—often the broader community—perceives these outcomes as negatively valenced, prompting them to engage in institutional work aimed at disrupting the VCPs. These interventions may then trigger members of the focal community to become reflexive of the contestations in the symbolic VCP elements of their practice (e.g., rules, norms, and beliefs). However, due to the continued perception that the VCPs yield positively valenced value outcomes, this reflexivity does not necessarily lead to the discontinuation of the contested VCPs. Instead, it may result in deliberate modification of the material VCP elements (i.e., artifacts, activities, relations, and signs) to accommodate or avoid the contestation. Finally, these modifications may have consequences that either align or misalign with the broader community’s institutional work aimed at disruption, leading to four reconfiguration types. Two of these types—conforming and confining—result in the dissipation of contested VCPs, that is, the overall practice remains, but its contestation is reduced, while the other two—converting and circumventing—result in the persistence of contested VCPs. In the following section, we discuss the implications of our work for service research and suggest directions for future research.
Theoretical Implications and Future Research Directions
The theorization on the process of value creation in service research is currently split into two separate conversations of value cocreation (e.g., Kelleher et al. 2020; Vargo and Lusch 2016) and value co-destruction (e.g., Lumivalo, Tuunanen, and Salo 2023), with calls to clarify the relationship between the two (Skålén 2024). While value cocreation in S-D logic was introduced as an ontological statement emphasizing the multi-actor nature of processes that contribute to actors’ viability (Vargo and Lusch 2016), it is often empirically used to study positive wellbeing outcomes from value creation (e.g., McColl-Kennedy et al. 2012). In response, the concept of value co-destruction was coined to capture how interactions and practices among actors might negatively impact value formation (e.g., Echeverri and Skålén 2011; Plé and Cáceres 2010). Specifically, value creation is seen as value co-destruction as soon as one of the involved actors perceives the outcomes as negatively valenced (Plé and Cáceres 2010).
While we find the value co-destruction literature’s more critical perspective on value outcomes highly valuable for service research, we see that the current definition tends to over-simplify the highly various and dynamic process of value creation and determination in multi-actor situations. This oversimplification risks masking the reality that actors might differ significantly in their perceptions of value outcomes and their valence (see also Alexander and Vallström 2023). Acknowledging these differences is especially important when the goal is to induce any change in VCPs.
Moreover, while the conceptualization of value cocreation in S-D logic acknowledges that value is “always uniquely and phenomenologically determined by the beneficiary” (Vargo and Lusch 2016, p. 8), the impact of the multiplicity of perceived value outcomes on the process of value creation has not been fully explored. By introducing the concept of contested VCPs to service research, we offer a way to recognize and appreciate the complexity and multiplicity of perceived value outcomes stemming from value creation.
Specifically, the concept of contested VCPs opens a new line of mid-range theoretical research, emphasizing the importance of focusing on a multi-actor process of value formation and embracing institutional plurality and conflicts in value cocreation within multi-actor service ecosystems (see Table 3 for potential research questions). We hope that the concept of contested VCPs can reconcile the two literature streams on value creation in service research, allowing them to inform one another by conceptualizing VCPs not as inherently or objectively positive or negative, but as phenomena with a multitude of emergent interpretations that can lead them to become contested.
Contested VCPs: Future Research Agenda.
VCP, value cocreation practice.
Reflexivity has recently been highlighted as an important prerequisite for service design (Vink and Koskela-Huotari 2022) and shaping of service ecosystems (Fehrer, Kemper, and Baker 2024) as a trigger for change. The theoretical framework of contested VCP reconfiguration provides service research a more nuanced understanding of the consequences of reflexivity amid processes of transformation. As such, we answer the call by Vink and Koskela-Huotari (2022, p. 385) to study “how increased reflexivity among people influences the dynamics of their communities.” Importantly, we show that merely inducing reflexivity does not guarantee a propensity for change, as it does not necessarily lead to a desire to discontinue VCPs within the focal community. Instead, we find that the perception of positively valenced value outcomes from VCPs influences the consequences of reflexivity by leading community members to deliberately modify the material elements of their VCPs to prevent discontinuation. This finding highlights the need for further study into the mechanisms by which the valence of perceived value outcomes—whether positive or negative—influences the consequences of reflexivity and what other factors and processes have a similar impact. Additionally, further research is needed to identify ways to increase the likelihood of specific reflexivity outcomes, such as the willingness to discontinue VCPs (Table 3).
Furthermore, our work points to the limitations of bringing forth change in how value is created by only focusing on reforming the symbolic elements of VCPs through institutional work (e.g., Koskela-Huotari et al. 2016; Vargo, Wieland, and Akaka 2015). Instead, our study suggests that this approach should be complemented by a focus on the material elements of value cocreation and service provision, pointing to a new research area for S-D logic, which usually highlights the primacy of intangible, operant resources (Vargo and Lusch 2016). We also detail these material elements to consist of artifacts, activities, relations, and signs, following the work by Vink and Koskela-Huotari (2021). In doing so, we extend the work by Skålén and Gummerus (2023), who call for more attention to the materiality of VCPs, but do not specify their concrete aspects.
By explicating the material elements of VCPs and clarifying how these elements are modified in the process of contested VCP reconfiguration, we complement the prior S-D logic-informed research on service innovation that, due to its grounding in institutional theory, has mainly focused on the symbolic elements of understanding how VCPs change or can be transformed (e.g., Koskela-Huotari et al. 2016; Vargo, Wieland, and Akaka 2015). The additional knowledge on material VCP elements, their modification, and the resulting types of contested VCP reconfiguration developed in this study is also critical for further developing service (ecosystem) design (e.g., Vink et al. 2021). This information is especially relevant at a time when service ecosystems are being designed to become more sustainable (Field et al. 2021) or circular (Fehrer, Kemper, and Baker 2024), processes that will necessarily require the discontinuation of some of the ongoing VCPs within them. Our research contributes to this line of work by elaborating how contested VCPs, such as those perceived to have unsustainable outcomes, might persist through practice reconfiguration.
Prior literature on practice reconfiguration outside the service research field views it as a process “to develop and establish new links between practice elements” (Gonzalez-Arcos et al. 2021, p. 46). It is often studied as a dynamic process “through which parts or elements of practices are reorganized, replaced, or rearranged into a different form, figure, or combination to change the prevailing practices” and, thus, is seen as a crucial part of sustainability transitions (Laakso et al. 2022, p. 20). By showing how practice reconfiguration, and especially its material types, may also contribute to the persistence of VCPs, we add a critical alternative angle to this line of research. Here, we show that practice reconfiguration is also used to maintain the prevailing practices and actively resist transformational processes. By identifying the four types of contested VCP reconfiguration, this study also adds to the insight in recent research that sometimes things must change in order to stay the same (e.g., Raynard, Kodeih, and Greenwood 2021).
Practical Implications
With the scale and speed of human-induced environmental crises, efforts to change our behavior by discontinuing some of the current VCPs are critical and urgently needed. However, approaching such a task from the traditional, more value co-destruction-aligned narrative assumes a position in which the interventions carried out are perceived to have the moral high ground, positioning the targeted VCPs—and often their practitioners—as inherently problematic. By introducing the concept of contested VCPs to the vocabulary of practitioners and policymakers seeking to discontinue VCPs, we offer a new approach to their work that acknowledges that the perceptions of value outcomes can be complex, multifaceted, and dynamic. This approach encourages policymakers and behavior change practitioners, such as conservationists, to reflect on the symbolic structures guiding their own decision-making, and work collaboratively with the practitioners of contested VCPs, such as exotic pet-keepers, to identify how and why they are fulfilling their fundamental needs through the VCPs that are targeted for discontinuation. Intervention efforts can then be co-designed with the members of the focal community of practice in a way that is sympathetic to their needs and offers genuine alternatives to promote long-lasting behavior change (Bowie et al. 2020).
Additionally, we provide a more nuanced picture of how the practitioners of contested VCPs respond to large-scale interventions, such as regulatory changes, affecting their everyday lives. By understanding the process of contested VCP reconfiguration and its varying outcomes, practitioners and policymakers seeking to drive system-level changes can view the real-world impact of their work on the observable, material VCPs elements at a micro-level. While conservation initiatives have long focused on education and attitudinal change, we demonstrate that even when community members become aware of institutional work against their practices and the resulting contestation, this may not lead them to alter their symbolic practice elements, in other words, to shift their mindset. This echoes findings of recent research that showed that conservation messaging alone is effective at changing attitudes, but did not alter respondents’ actual desire to own exotic pets or take civic action (Naito, Chan and Zhao 2024). In reality, it can lead actors to modify their material practice elements so that they can continue creating value in a manner that is as similar as possible. Thus, we recommend that additional emphasis is placed on further understanding contested VCP reconfiguration as a mechanism of resistance against future conservation and sustainability initiatives. In particular, as we demonstrate that modifications can decrease transparency and increase unwanted activities (e.g., backyard breeding), it is critical that policymakers and law enforcement examine how illegal and illicit wildlife traders adapt to efforts to curtail their practices.
Finally, by developing a more nuanced picture of how community members respond to contestation in connection to their practices, we shed light on why attempts to discontinue practices may “fail” due to actors converting and circumventing institutional efforts. We recommend that campaigns seeking to induce reflexivity and trigger change are followed by research that assesses the resulting practice reconfiguration types and the alignment of their consequences with intended outcomes. An iterative approach can then be taken, and additional institutional work can be conducted to encourage the two types of reconfiguration—conforming and confining—that lead to the dissipation of the contested VCPs to ensure that outcomes continue to shift toward the intended direction. We also recommend closely examining examples of these types of reconfigurations as they may present opportunities for designing interventions in which the focal community is an active change agent. As we work together to solve complex systemic problems, we must acknowledge the need to leverage not only the skills and competencies of researchers, policymakers, and change leaders but also the everyday reconfiguration work enacted by practitioners themselves.
Supplemental Material
sj-docx-1-jsr-10.1177_10946705251316994 – Supplemental material for Persistence of Contested Value Cocreation Practices
Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-jsr-10.1177_10946705251316994 for Persistence of Contested Value Cocreation Practices by Kim Feddema, Kaisa Koskela-Huotari and Paul Harrigan in Journal of Service Research
Supplemental Material
sj-docx-2-jsr-10.1177_10946705251316994 – Supplemental material for Persistence of Contested Value Cocreation Practices
Supplemental material, sj-docx-2-jsr-10.1177_10946705251316994 for Persistence of Contested Value Cocreation Practices by Kim Feddema, Kaisa Koskela-Huotari and Paul Harrigan in Journal of Service Research
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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