Sustainable value co-creation in business networks

•We explore the role played by sustainability in business-to-business value co-creation.•Sustainability, by reinforcing a service proposition, is either at the core or an incremental element of value co-creation.•We demonstrate the role of sustainability in a value co-creation process that links the supplier and customer networks.•Suppliers lead this value co-creation process by improving the sustainable fit between their customer and the end customer.

Even though the Service Dominant Logic (SDL) paradigm has contributed to the conceptualization of “value co-creation”, no academic study has further investigated the role played by sustainability in business-to-business (BtoB) value co-creation.Using case studies, we examine how BtoB companies embrace the concept of sustainability to co-create value. We determine that such a co-creation of value entails a two-stage process: first, suppliers co-create value with their customer's customers or end users by analyzing or co-creating sustainability awareness. Second, by integrating this behavioral knowledge, suppliers co-create with their direct customers, either a sustainable hybrid offering (a service bundled with a product) or an extended sustainable service. Such a service proposition enables suppliers' direct customers to increase performance (sustainability is at the core of value creation) or to integrate sustainability into their supply chain (sustainability is an incremental element of value creation).Our research enriches the SDL paradigm by demonstrating the role of sustainability in reinforcing or extending the service proposition in a value co-creation process that links the supplier and customer networks.