Value creation and sustainability : Lessons from leading sustainability firms

The aim of this paper is to chart the value creation process of firms excelling in sustainability. To accomplish this goal, we devise an analytical framework based on a review of the literature combining value creation in service-dominant logic (SDL) and sustainability. We then use the framework to analyze the practices of 100 firms excelling in sustainability, so as to offer a contribution in the form of a combination of insights from practice and theoretical analysis portraying the service ecosystem incorporating sustainability. The double-step analysis highlighted the relevance of a multi-actor perspective as a driver for the incorporation of sustainability in the value creation process, as well as the relevance of actors' participation in firms' processes, such as in resource integration and in line with the aim of sustainable service provision. The results advance the understanding of the elements of SDL as well as how the interplay among them occurs from a sustainability-based perspective. © 2020 by the authors