Contextualizing value propositions: Examining how consumers experience value propositions in their practices

• Focus on the socio-cultural and situational character of value propositions.
• Showing what the essence of the value propositions is in the customers’ lives.
• Offerings need to help the customers to enact desirable cultural discourses into experience.
• Showing the primacy of cultural discourses and practices in resource integration and exchange.
• They inform consumers which value propositions are desirable and thus guide purchasing decisions.

Chinese abstract将价值主张情景化：研究消费者如何在其行为当中实践价值主张因为价值主张是连接公司和顾客的纽带，所以其已变成市场营销的中心理念之一。然而目前[价值主张]仍未得到情景化体现。在吸取以服务为主导的逻辑、实践理论和消费文化理论的基础上，本研究的目标在于透过在理论上研究消费者如何在其行为中实践并评价价值主张，从而将价值主张情景化。本研究确定顾客生活当中的本质需要是什么；以及是否有能力为客户将理想的文化话语落实到实践当中。 所以本研究提议构建公司的价值主张包括：符号价值(即价值主张应对理想的文化话语)、实践价值(即透过实践将符号价值实体化)、交换价值(即财政或非财政的牺牲)，以及解决和兑现符号价值所需的资源。总体来说，本研究延伸了对社会文化、价值主张的情景特征、价值创造以及价值共创的理解.

As a value proposition connects firms and customers, it becomes one of the central marketing concepts. Currently it has remained de-contextualized. Drawing on service-dominant logic, practice theory and consumer culture theory, this study aims at contextualizing value propositions by investigating theoretically how consumers experience and evaluate value propositions in practices. It pinpoints what their essence is in customers’ lives; the ability of offerings to help customers to enact desirable cultural discourses into experience in practices. Hence the study constructs value propositions as firms’ proposals that integrate sign value (the meanings of value propositions addressing desirable cultural discourses), experience value (sign value materialized into experience in a practice), exchange value (financial and non-financial sacrifices), and resources needed to address and materialize sign value. In general this study extends understanding on the socio-cultural and situational character of value propositions, value creation and value co-creation.