The “Knowledge Marketing”: a New Trend in a Management Science World
This communication reports on the progress of a research based on a conceptual analysis of consumer’s competencies, as defined in Knowledge Marketing research and aims at proposing a new model of competencies for a better understanding of the value created by the consumer and the firm. The conceptua...
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Інститут економіки промисловості НАН України
2013
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| Цитувати: | The “Knowledge Marketing”: a New Trend in a Management Science World / O.Yu. Curbatov // Економічний вісник Донбасу. — 2013. — № 4 (34). — С. 117–125. — Бібліогр.: 43 назв. — англ. |
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irk-123456789-1233962017-09-04T03:02:59Z The “Knowledge Marketing”: a New Trend in a Management Science World Curbatov, O.Yu. Marketing This communication reports on the progress of a research based on a conceptual analysis of consumer’s competencies, as defined in Knowledge Marketing research and aims at proposing a new model of competencies for a better understanding of the value created by the consumer and the firm. The conceptual framework is illustrated by the use of the Smell Web (Exhalia Project). This illustration is elaborated from a secondary exploitation of a qualitative research. This communication takes into account the polysemy of the notion of competency and tries to contribute to the enrichment of current theoretical and managerial works on value co-creation. Цю статтю присвячено прогресу в дослідженні основ концептуального аналізу споживчої компетентності, визначенню маркетингового дослідження знання. Вона має на меті пропозицію нової моделі компетентності для кращого розуміння значення, створено- го споживачем і фірмою. Концептуальну структуру ілюструє використання Павутини Запаху (Проект Exhalia). Ця ілюстрація детально розглянута в другій частині дослідження. Ця стаття бере до уваги множинність поняття компетентності та сприяє збагаченню теоретичних і управлінських робіт із створення вартості. Эта статья посвящена прогрессу в исследовании основ концептуального анализа потребительской компетентности, определению маркетингового исследования знания и имеет целью предложение новой модели компетентности для лучшего понимания значения, созданного потребителем и фирмой. Концептуальную структуру иллюстрирует использование Паутины Запаха (Проект Exhalia). Эта иллюстрация детально рассмотрена во второй части исследования. Эта статья принимает во внимание множественность понятия компетентности и содействует обогащению теоретических и управленческих работ по созданию стоимости. 2013 Article The “Knowledge Marketing”: a New Trend in a Management Science World / O.Yu. Curbatov // Економічний вісник Донбасу. — 2013. — № 4 (34). — С. 117–125. — Бібліогр.: 43 назв. — англ. 1817-3772 http://dspace.nbuv.gov.ua/handle/123456789/123396 366.6:338.5 en Економічний вісник Донбасу Інститут економіки промисловості НАН України |
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Marketing Marketing |
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Marketing Marketing Curbatov, O.Yu. The “Knowledge Marketing”: a New Trend in a Management Science World Економічний вісник Донбасу |
| description |
This communication reports on the progress of a research based on a conceptual analysis of consumer’s competencies, as defined in Knowledge Marketing research and aims at proposing a new model of competencies for a better understanding of the value created by the consumer and the firm. The conceptual framework is illustrated by the use of the Smell Web (Exhalia Project). This illustration is elaborated from a secondary exploitation of a qualitative research. This communication takes into account the polysemy of the notion of competency and tries to contribute to the enrichment of current theoretical and managerial works on value co-creation. |
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Article |
| author |
Curbatov, O.Yu. |
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Curbatov, O.Yu. |
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Curbatov, O.Yu. |
| title |
The “Knowledge Marketing”: a New Trend in a Management Science World |
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The “Knowledge Marketing”: a New Trend in a Management Science World |
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The “Knowledge Marketing”: a New Trend in a Management Science World |
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The “Knowledge Marketing”: a New Trend in a Management Science World |
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The “Knowledge Marketing”: a New Trend in a Management Science World |
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“knowledge marketing”: a new trend in a management science world |
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Інститут економіки промисловості НАН України |
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2013 |
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Marketing |
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http://dspace.nbuv.gov.ua/handle/123456789/123396 |
| citation_txt |
The “Knowledge Marketing”: a New Trend in a Management Science World / O.Yu. Curbatov // Економічний вісник Донбасу. — 2013. — № 4 (34). — С. 117–125. — Бібліогр.: 43 назв. — англ. |
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Економічний вісник Донбасу |
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| fulltext |
117
Економічний вісник Донбасу № 4 (34), 2013
Introduction.
Marketing, as it was theorised beginning in the
1950s, and summarised in 1960s, entered turbulent times
beginning in the late 1970s. Its universality and very
relevance were challenged by the emergence of a multitude
of different marketing movements and innovations which
Cova and al. (2006) organise around various perspectives
either upstream (the environment) or downstream
(the customer, the customer relation) of markets:
environment, niche, customer loyalty, customer’s life
experiences and customer’s competence. The Delphi
prospective study on the ‘future of relational marketing
by 2015’ has shown the relevance of marketing based
on ‘customer competence’.
First, we will review the literature on the evolution
of the links between marketing and the concepts of
information, knowledge, and competence. Knowledge
Marketing seems to be a fruitful outcome bringing together
a series of creation processes for customer competence
and that of members of the company. From an academic
point of view, this raises the question of which conditions
are necessary to switch to ‘customer/company competences
and customer/company intelligence’ perspectives, which
appear to be the common denominators of new emerging
theoretical approaches. Creating and studying a “Scented
Web” project will help us understand how these perspectives
are structured around Knowledge Marketing.
Links between marketing and the concepts of
information, knowledge, competence.
First, we will identify the links between marketing
and the concepts of information, knowledge, competence.
Each of these links is part of the evolution of marketing
research: from “market information use” to “marketing
knowledge management”. In the new approaches based
on the co-creation of value in marketing, the concept of
collective competence (customer competences and
company competences) overrides the concepts of
information and knowledge specific to the company. This
leads us to introduce a new perspective, that of customer/
company intelligence, as yet little explored in the value
co-creation process.
– Marketing based on information
Until the early 1980s, marketing research used only
the concept of “information” serving the activities of the
company and its actions on the market. Beginning in the
1980s, research that dealt with the use of market
information, as well as the dominant movements of
marketing management and of market orientation, paid
great theoretical attention to this concept. This research
helped to establish a bridge between marketing and
information: they take into consideration the principle of
collecting information on the market and analytically
processing it in order to satisfy the needs of consumers
and to improve company performance. The market,
consumer, company, and its various departments are in
closed worlds. Marketing's job is to transfer information
between these distinct entities. However, this dominant
informational approach does not work for marketing
services characterised by the relational aspect of
interactions between the market and the company, and
the co-production of services.
– Marketing based on knowledge
The marketing practices of departments and of
dyadic and relational models have provoked changes in
how information generated through co-production and
interactions between players is interpreted. It is interpreted
in different ways by customers involved in co-producing
services and by the individuals who are involved in intra-
organisational processes and the various company
functions. These information interpretation processes
translate information into knowledge held by those
individuals in the intra- and extra-organisational levels.
The new current dominant logic of services is characterised
by “the application of specialized competences (knowledge
and skills), through deeds, process, and performances
for the benefit of another entity or the entity itself” (Lusch
and Vargo, 2006, p.283). In this logic, the company should
learn from the market, in interaction with its players.
Achrol and Kotler (1999) propose “know-how marketing”
that is, using knowledge about customers (their preferences
in terms of products, distribution channels, etc.) in order
to create new products. In order to deal with the market
in an increasingly complex environment, the company
should thus focus its strategy on better managing the
organisation’s explicit knowledge (Day, 1994; Morgan,
2004). But we find ourselves once again faced with the
problem of the separation between the customer and the
company: knowledge is produced only by the company.
UDC 366.6:338.5
O. Yu. Curbatov,
PhD (Management),
University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne, France
THE “KNOWLEDGE MARKETING”: A NEW TREND IN A MANAGEMENT
SCIENCE WORLD
O. Yu. Curbatov
(through the application of the Smell Web by the City of Grasse)
118
Економічний вісник Донбасу № 4 (34), 2013
The appearance of information and communication
technologies can broaden the scope of relations between
the company and the customer. The CRM approach,
Customer Relationship Management, automates the
collection and interpretation of data, and their
transformation in customer knowledge, serving the
company’s relational strategy.
Much of the literature focuses on sources of
research and access to external knowledge. Still, studies
in Knowledge Management let us discover other sources
of knowledge creation on two levels: epistemological
(tacit or explicit) and ontological (individual or collective).
More attention is paid to tacit knowledge, which is
contextual and non-formalised by speech, and which is
also difficult to separate from its context of production
experiences. Thus, contributions to marketing in the
1990s were marked more by modes creating new
knowledge at the group/network organisational level and
by studies on organisational learning which consider the
internal marketing department as being cross-disciplinary.
Initial works in marketing knowledge management is
oriented more toward creating internal knowledge and
especially toward the multiple ways of interpreting,
creating and assigning meaning to the knowledge which
is generated. Nevertheless, these models are not interested
in how customers learn or in collective learning based on
the knowledge from customers.
– Marketing based on competence
The acceptance of a multiple meaning assigned to
the generated organisational knowledge as well as the
influence of the post-modern interpretive movement of
marketing, contributed to fragmenting marketing. Cova
and al. (2006) identify 15 marketing innovations (stakeholder
marketing, ethical marketing, geomarketing, CRM,
experiential marketing, sensory marketing, authentic
marketing, tribal marketing, etc.) which involve different
ways of creating knowledge in the company and from
customers. In the tradition of the work of Prahalad
(2004), we learn FROM customers, based on THEIR
knowledge and competences, and THEIR expertise. In
the European Journal of Marketing, (vol. 40 number 9 /
10), the authors designated ‘Customer Empowerment’
as being a marketing approach which can give power to
customers in their relationship with the company in terms
of controlling marketing variables and consumption
experiences. However, according to the Foucauldian
interpretation of Customer Empowerment : “Knowledge
is Power”. Organisational processes aiming to integrate
the customer in the organisational process of knowledge
creation have created “Knowledge Marketing” which is
defined as the set of processes creating the competences
of the customer and of members of the company
(Curbatov, 2001, 2003); company competences are
created simultaneously with those of customers, and
become collective knowledge.
The concept of Knowledge Marketing encompasses
various value co-creation processes: co-imagination,
co-production, co-promotion and co-innovation. The
co-creation of products/services and of knowledge/
competences flexibly combines different situations in
which the customers and the companies find themselves
in order to reach an innovative solution. The first vision
of Knowledge Marketing is based on the “customer/
company competence” perspective, by physically
involving the customer in the company’s activities or
through specific tools, such as the semantic web.
The “Knowledge Marketing” as service logic on
co-creation
The Service Dominant Logic (S-D Logic) introduced
by Vargo and Lusch (Vargo and Lusch, 2004; Lusch and
Vargo, 2006; Vargo and Lusch, 2008), by contrast with
a product dominant logic (G-D Logic) centred on the
maximization of the profit and the efficiency of the
functions of production and marketing, offers a theoretical
anchoring to current phenomena like co-conception, co-
production, co-determination or co-innovation of services.
Indeed, for these authors, the consumer is always
a co-creator of value (Vargo and Lusch, 2008a). Their
opinions stand in contrast to views of conventional
marketing, which targets and captures consumers. More
exactly, the dominant logic of service suggests that
the value creation is the result of a combined effect of
“operant resources”, defined as a set of knowledge, skills,
expertise, activated both by the company and the
consumer (Vargo and Lusch, 2008b) in Knowledge
Marketing process (Curbatov, 2003, 2009). However,
for Brown (2007), S-D Logic suffers from the absence
of empirical evidence which would permit to enrich the
knowledge on the way the consumers engage themselves
in a co-creation process.
Hilton and Hughes (2008) suggest that value co-
creation is the output of a series of tasks realized partially
by the consumer. Thus, an intermediate stage has to be
considered by companies which try to manage better
the process of value co-creation: the consumer task
performance. The analysis of this preliminary stage is all
the more crucial, in a context where the coproduction of
service, component of value co-creation (Vargo and
Lusch, 2008a) widespread via self-service technologies
(eg. Forbes, Lukas, 2008; Cunningham et al., 2008;
Reinders et al., 2008; Curran and Meuter, 2007). Indeed,
consumers are playing such an increasingly active part
in the production and delivery of goods and services that
they sometimes, at least partly, stand in for distributors,
booking and printing their plane tickets on Internet,
choosing and creating fragrances on the web, etc, all
O. Yu. Curbatov
119
Економічний вісник Донбасу № 4 (34), 2013
those activities requiring some “operant resources”. These
new elements involve for companies the necessity to build
frameworks to understand which knowledge, know-how
or abilities their consumers require and how these latter
acquire them in order to build associated learning curves
(Hilton and Hughes, 2008). However, the concept of
“operant resources” does not seem relevant enough to
report completely the dynamics of realization of these
tasks from the point of view of the consumer. Indeed, it
consists of some number of heterogeneous elements
(skills, knowledge, know-how, expertise) among which
the structure, the contents, the links which they maintain
remain relatively vague. The notion of competency seems
to be more relevant to re-articulate the diverse elements
composing the concept of “operant resources”.
What does mean the fact that consumers bring into
play competencies in general way and, more specifically,
in the context of sensorial marketing? In this framework,
how can one understand a consumer experience or the
activity that consists in choosing and consuming a product
or service? This paper aims at clarifying the idea of
consumer competencies and enhancing current theories
on the topic.
First, the focus will be on marketing research
integrating the idea of competencies and research in the
management and education sciences in order to propose
a lens through which the consumers’ competencies use
can be read. Then, we propose to illustrate the analysis
through the use of “Exhalia smell Web” which requires
special competencies.
Consumer competencies: a poor conceptualisation
in marketing research
Eight theoretical currents (lead users, meet of
service, resistance of the consumer, experience of
consumption, consumers’ communities, consumer
empowerment, consumer agency, working consumers)
shaped the face of the consumer co-worker (Cova and
Dalli, 2009). If these currents - and each of these currents
- take a different epistemological otherwise ontological
point of view and are distinguished themselves by the
aspects of the consumer's activity (generation of ideas,
coproduction of the service, immaterial work, production
of narrative, etc.), they form, however, a rather complete
and composite reading framework. Furthermore, beyond
the heterogeneousness of these theories, the notion of
competency seems to be the tacit common denominator.
The consumer empowerment movement (Denegri-
Knott, Zwick and Schroeder, 2006) advocates rebalancing
power in the relationship and urging consumers to take
responsibility. In this scenario they have more control
over their choices and the relationship by taking part in
defining its terms. In the consumer agency current
(Arnould and Thomson, 2005), consumers restructure
the narrative of the theatre performance in which they
participate. That performance requires them to create
meaning for their consumption activity and for its
movement in a given market world based on narrative
resources they explain. The working consumer current
(Zwick, Bonsu and Darmody, 2008) met underscores
the deviant form of co-creation viewed as a two-pronged
approach enticing consumers to implement their ability
to re-appropriate the capital and means of production
traditionally held by the company. The idea of the
company and customers orchestrating competencies
and resources lies at the core of those theories, but no
sound conceptualisation of them exists yet (MacDonald
and Uncles, 2007). After developing conceptual thoughts
about competencies brought into play in consumption
activities by consumers, we will describe which
competencies are required when firms implement
sensorial marketing tools.
A proposed conceptual framework of consumption
activities through the lens of competencies consumers
bring into play
– A dynamic view of competencies or the
“process-competencies”
In the framework of consumption, we propose
viewing process-competencies as a set of known facts,
know-how, practices and behaviours mobilized in a given
situation that involves two sets of equipment (Le Boterf,
1994) consumers draw upon in order to collaborate. First
comes the equipment incorporated in their person, defined
in marketing mainly as their cultural, physiological or
individual resources (Arnould, Price and Malshe, 2006;
Baron and Harris, 2008), but also social resources defined
as family relationships, consumer communities, commercial
relationships (Mac Donald and Uncles, 2007). Works in
the education sciences focusing in particular on technology
training (Courtois, Thomas, 2003; Mottet, 2007) enable
us to add notional and communicational resources to this
classification. It underscores the idea of “notions” – ideas
or thought patterns – helping to open up questioning, to
orientate observation or understanding, to direct analysis,
to organize space and time or to guide action choices.
The communicational resources incorporated into
consumer competencies might include the ability to speak
the same language as the supplier, seller or after-sales
service department, make appropriate complaints, warn
about dangerous products or consumer situations, give
opinions, and vote or communicate on the product by
relying on various media. Communicational resources can
take the form of collaborative resources involving bilateral,
interactive communication on, for example, the creation
of personalised products. Finally, we can add, the
financial & material resources (money and loans available
for consumption).
O. Yu. Curbatov
120
Економічний вісник Донбасу № 4 (34), 2013
Consumers also draw upon their environment,
including family relationships, friendships and consumer
communities (Arnould et al., 2006), in addition to the
commercial resources (like communication channels,
physical and technical materials, product and service
offers), which they integrate into their own resources in
order to co-create their experience.
– A static vision or the “end competencies”
Competency lies in consumers’ ability to tap different
resources, taking the form of various competent
behaviours relating in particular to the consumption
situation they are faced with, whether they are interacting
with the company or not.
Those competent behaviours or “end competencies”
include:
– Cognitive competencies involving, in marketing,
the ability to decode companies’ messages and advertisements
(Macdonald and Uncles, 2007) as well as the cognitive
efforts made (Alba and Hutchinson, 1987; Passebois and
Aurier, 2004) in the act of purchasing (search for
information, creation of meaning, knowledge of rights
and responsibilities). This type of competency can be
found in the education sciences under the term cognitive
or informational competencies1, which are defined as the
ability to identify the possible nature, scope and sources
of information required; find the information effectively
and efficiently; read, understand and memorize it; assess
its usefulness, relevance and quality; effectively and
efficiently organise it; and monitor it. The customer’s
cognitive competencies are the ability to read, interpret,
memorise and organise product information.
– Competencies that could be termed instrumental.
It involves the consumer’s ability to handle “physical”
products before, during and after consumption; tools
belonging to consumers (computers, peripherals, cables)
available in their environment (Tricot, 2006); online
computer tools; company-provided social media such as
YouTube, Facebook or Twitter; interactive terminals;
websites; tools letting people create their own personal
products; and representation tools (labels, invoices,
estimates, schedules of specifications, instructions,
electronic meters, etc.). This definition is proposed by
some marketing researchers who prefer taking a broader
approach. To them, consumers’ instrumental competencies
echo the coordinated, masterful use of a technique,
technology or know-how to perform another task, such
as verbalising expectations understandable by the
company (Lüthje, 2004). Bringing instrumental skills into
play might also involve relying on a certain number of
social resources, such as friendships, professional
relationships or online networks (Macdonald and Uncles,
2007) in order to reach a given goal: the use of the terms
relational competencies seems appropriate here.
– Competencies more directly connected to the use
of a product, service or media (Internet), which helps to
open up access to a legitimate message about the product,
service or media in question or even to propose other
uses and functions. Von Hippel (1978, 1986, 1999, 2005;
Béji-Bécheur and Gollety, 2007) and, more recently,
Berthon et al. (2007), in particular, have done marketing
research on those competencies. They are similar to the
idea of metacognitive competencies (Mottet, 2006), which
involves implementing creative abilities: creating new
representations, fresh knowledge and heuristic solutions
to practical issues dealing with consumption and shifting
meanings or creating new ones.
We have sought to classify customers’ competencies
for a better understanding of consumer activities generated
by purchasing, subscribing, using and experiencing a
product or service, but they are not implemented in
isolation from one another. They are interdependent. For
example, instrumental competencies or skills depend on
prior knowledge of the technical tools’ functions (notional
resources) and the ability to mobilise them (in other words
accumulated cognitive competencies) depending on the
market situations consumers live.
– A conceptual framework
The resources mobilized must be identified in order
to distinguish those competencies. They consist of
knowledge, know-how, practices and behaviour patterns
used in a given situation, whereas competencies lie in
individuals’ ability to tap various resources in each of
those areas. With regard to the dynamic and static visions
of the competence and as we try to describe it in Fig. 1,
consumption-related activities can be understood as
bringing into play a certain number of instrumental,
relational, cognitive, use or metacognitive “end competencies”
stemming from the consumer’s own notional, cultural,
communicational, collaborative and physiological resources
available in his or her environment whether it is commercial
(communication channels, technical tools for interacting
with the company) or not (social resources, including
online) and from which individuals draw in order to
consume.
One illustration of our conceptual framework :
a Smell Web project
We present in this paper the illustration associated
with the resources integrated and the competencies
1 By information we mean any form of explicit and tacit knowledge (oral, written, visual, sound, video, smell, etc.) from any source
(human or media) transmitted by any means (print, electronic, local, networks, etc.).
O. Yu. Curbatov
121
Економічний вісник Донбасу № 4 (34), 2013
activated by the customer in the framework of the Exhalia
project implementation.
– Research method for Smell Web project
We choose to elaborate the illustration in order to
show the multiple integrated resources mobilized by the
consumer and competent behaviours he could activate
in some situations of consumption and in particularly to
create value-in use around sensorial marketing tools.
The illustration was built from the project “Exhalia”
launched by France Telecom Research and Development
in 2003 in which we participated, which is re-analysed
through our conceptual framework of the consumer
competence. Thus, we proceeded to a secondary analysis
of qualitative materials (Dargentas et al. 2009). Indeed,
this type of analysis presents some interest to improve
the qualitative research by allowing the accumulation of
knowledge thanks to a new questioning of the set of
data.
The Exhalia “Smell Web” project was elaborated
with the researcher as both the designer of this project
and producer of marketing knowledge. In this way, the
researcher contributes to the emergence of new scientific
representations and knowledge which are procedural and
non-substantive, and which aim to provide a guide to
“organisational engineers” and which can subsequently
be used by other companies to solve complex problems.
Thus, our experience in designing marketing and R&D
projects, allows us to propose methodological reference
in the framework of projects co-built with a firm
(Curbatov, 2009). More precisely, two types of study
were conducted:
– qualitative tests for the of uses and perceptions,
people's behaviour towards this innovation at the french
telecom company R&D department;
– an empirical study, conducted in Paris 13
University to validate the conceptual aspects of Knowledge
Marketing.
This research was carried out thanks to the scientific
partnership between the City of Grasse and that R&D
department, based on research work.
Using the “Exhalia Smell Web”: project Exhalia
The Exhalia concept aims:
– To diffuse fragrances in synch with data, images
and/or sound, transmitted by a telecommunications
network;
– To perfume the content of television, web, DVD
in real time, but more generally, all telecommunication
and multimedia forms.
The www.exhalia.com portal, created and managed
by France Telecom R&D in 2003 and transferred to
Exhalia Corporate in 2004, federates olfactory sites and
multimedia forms. Several professionals from different
worlds, such as city of Grasse wish to try it out on their
respective sites by including a “scented” dimension. In
order to promote the image of the world capital of perfume
and its touristic “services”, the city of Grasse perfumed
six web pages of www.ville-grasse.fr with the specific
city fragrances (rose, jasmine, lavender, thyme-rosemary,
etc.) associated to places of interest (fields of roses
and lavenders, culinary recipes) or to the main events
(the Jasminade Party or the “Exporose” trade shows).
Instrumental competencies are required on behalf of the
consumer to use relevantly the equipment which diffuses
fragrances and to be able to navigate through scented
websites. The use of the site also implies the involvement
of cognitive competencies (to read, to memorize
information, to recognize perfumes, to create a knowledge
on “usages” of the city) which beforehand require the
mobilization of notional and social resources (main notions
about perfumes, knowledge about the main tourist places
and about the actors of the tourism in Grasse) and
commercial ones (images, texts presented on the perfumed
web site). The creation, the “composition” of his personal
touristic road trip from the city of Grasse’s smell website
means finally the activation of metacognitive or use
competencies (see table 1).
Theoretical and managerial implication
The implications for skills and resources prompt
companies to read the consumer’s collaboration on three
levels.
Fig. 1.
O. Yu. Curbatov
122
Економічний вісник Донбасу № 4 (34), 2013
– Being attentive to the consumer’s integration
of resources
The first reading involves identifying the skills
consumers activate by integrating the resources the
company offers in their consumption experience.
To be attentive the company can revise its explicit
or implicit analysis based on customer profiles and not
just on organisation diagrams: the customer possesses
cognitive, instrumental, metacognitive or usage skills in
many areas that the organisation does not necessarily
take into account.
– Being attentive to the skills required
If the company modifies its sometimes-partial
consumer representations, the idea of skills and resources
Table 1
Examples of resources and competencies brought into play by the Exhalia consumer
O. Yu. Curbatov
Smell
Web
Integrated resources Competencies brought into play
City of
Grasse
Notional resources: notions about
perfumes and about specific
associated touristic web sites
(about areas, food, festivities…)
Social resources: knowledge about
the main tourist places and about
the main actors of the tourism in
Grasse.
Cultural resources: specific
knowledge about the city of
Grasse’s perfumes.
Physiological, sensorial resources:
physical conditions linked with
fragrances perception and sensorial
emotions.
Commercial resources (channels
of communication): website and
tourism offices, events created by
the city.
Financial and material resources:
equipment to diffuse perfumes,
driver, computer, Internet
connection.
Instrumental competencies
Capacity to navigate through the website of
the city (6 smell websites) using the
required equipment.
Relational competencies
Capacity to contact tourism offices or the
website administrator.
Cognitive competencies
• Informational competencies:
Capacity to process information
provided by the website simultaneously
with fragrances diffusion.
• Use competencies or skills:
Capacity to download from the city
website and from perfumed pages
documents and to use them.
Capacity to create its own road trip in
Grasse.
• Metacognitive competencies:
Capacity to make the link between
fragrances and websites to be able to
create its own road trip.
123
Економічний вісник Донбасу № 4 (34), 2013
can lead marketers to ask themselves questions about
the skilled behaviour required (ex.: digital skills) in their
activity’s framework, consequently excluding customers
who do not possess them. The various forms of co-
production are based on messages emphasizing consumers
as “king”, “player” or “partner”, but in actual practice
asking customers to collaborate sometimes requires them
to use skills they do not possess, excluding a considerable
number of individuals.
– Conditions for activating the customer’s skills
This analysis examines the mainsprings activating
the consumer’s skills. The illustrations are based on the
premise that the customer skills benchmark the company
defines matches the actual skills customers activate, but
a basic question remains that must be the focus of future
research: what are the conditions in which consumers
bring their skills into play in order to collaborate with the
company, producing a gratifying solution or experience
(Carùand Cova, 2007). Customer and company skills refer
to a dynamic reality, a process. Studying skill dynamics
(Lachance and Legault, 2007) and formation processes
offers some clues. Identifying resources, areas of
economic, social or cultural knowledge and learning
“curves” (membership groups, family, media, socio-
professional category, gender, etc.) helping customers
acquire incorporated resources in activated skills are key
steps. More generally, activating skills raises questions
on how the company can emphasize them and in what
conditions.
That approach requires gathering accounts about
their interactions with the brand in order to clearly identify
the type of incorporated resources. More specifically,
on a methodological level, several kinds of data must be
collected in order to analyse the skills consumers
implement and to identify those that can benefit the
company, those the consumer does not possess due to a
lack of resources or those that are in a latent state,
including general information about the company,
consumers and the relationships between them;
information on the internal and external resources tapped
in all the relational episodes; and the meaning consumers
give the mobilisation of those resources.
Conclusion
Following Vargo and Lush (2004), we argue that
value resides in consumer actions, interactions, projects
(Schau et al., 2009) that acquired resources and brought
into play competencies make possible or support.
However, these resources and competencies have not
been clearly linked and overall classified to highlight the
different forms of value created. A theoretical model of
consumption activities, based on the concept of
competency and the typology of resources and
competencies which it implies, enables to enrich the
current marketing works in Knowledge Marketing. Thus,
the main contribution of this conceptual analysis lies in
proposing a detailed and dynamic model of consumer
competencies going beyond the cognitive expertise
concept. This conceptual framework shows that
competency is a dynamic process rather than a static
state. It stems from the mobilization of consumers’ own
various resources (notional, physiological, sensorial,
individual or social, communicational, cultural, and
financial) and of those the company provides and their
mobilization results in three main types of competencies:
instrumental, cognitive, and use or metacognitive.
The specific case of using the smell web shows
that consumers have to mobilize more than in other
consumption situations, intangible resources (physiological
and sensorial ones) in order to be able to use it advisedly.
It highlights the importance for marketers to involve
consumers very early in the process of smell web
conception and to develop new methodologies to benefit
from this customer tacit knowledge. Thus, in our opinion,
this conception of competency enable to understand more
what the consumer “makes” in the activities bound to
the consumption of a product or a service. This conceptual
and operational framework of analysis could help
organizations to combine better consumers’ resources
with their own resources to design multisensory
applications like smell web or more generally, products,
services, self-services technologies, etc.
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Курбатов О. Ю. “Маркетинг знання”: нова
тенденція в світі науки управління
Цю статтю присвячено прогресу в дослідженні
основ концептуального аналізу споживчої компетент-
ності, визначенню маркетингового дослідження знан-
ня. Вона має на меті пропозицію нової моделі компе-
тентності для кращого розуміння значення, створено-
го споживачем і фірмою. Концептуальну структуру
ілюструє використання Павутини Запаху (Проект
Exhalia). Ця ілюстрація детально розглянута в другій
частині дослідження. Ця стаття бере до уваги мно-
жинність поняття компетентності та сприяє збагачен-
ню теоретичних і управлінських робіт із створення вар-
тості.
Ключові слова: компетентність, споживач, мар-
кетинг, управління, запах павутини.
Курбатов О. Ю. “Маркетинг знания”: новая
тенденция в мире науки управления
Эта статья посвящена прогрессу в исследовании
основ концептуального анализа потребительской ком-
петентности, определению маркетингового исследо-
вания знания и имеет целью предложение новой мо-
дели компетентности для лучшего понимания значе-
ния, созданного потребителем и фирмой. Концепту-
альную структуру иллюстрирует использование Пау-
тины Запаха (Проект Exhalia). Эта иллюстрация деталь-
но рассмотрена во второй части исследования. Эта
статья принимает во внимание множественность по-
нятия компетентности и содействует обогащению тео-
ретических и управленческих работ по созданию сто-
имости.
Ключевые слова: компетентность, потребитель,
маркетинг, управление, запах паутины.
Curbatov O. Yu. The “Knowledge Marketing”:
a New Trend in a Management Science World
This communication reports on the progress of a
research based on a conceptual analysis of consumer’s
competencies, as defined in Knowledge Marketing
research and aims at proposing a new model of
competencies for a better understanding of the value
created by the consumer and the firm. The conceptual
framework is illustrated by the use of the Smell Web
(Exhalia Project). This illustration is elaborated from a
secondary exploitation of a qualitative research. This
communication takes into account the polysemy of the
notion of competency and tries to contribute to the
enrichment of current theoretical and managerial works
on value co-creation.
Key words: Competency, consumer, marketing,
management, smell web.
Received by the editors: 21.10.2013
and final form 04.12.2013
O. Yu. Curbatov
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