Value is at the heart of the definition of marketing, yet to date, neither researchers nor practitioners (1) have a precise definition of value, (2) possess a consistent way to measure it, and because of this (3) lack a consistent understanding of the fundamental drivers of the value that they research, create, manage and grow. At the same time, blockchain technology has been touted as “The Internet of Value” (Tapscott & Tapscott, 2017) providing researchers and practitioners with a non-refutable, distributed ledger of value creation or destruction across every transaction. The purpose of this paper is to create and test a theoretical model for the application of blockchain technology to marketing practice with the aim of deepening our scholarly and practical knowledge of how value is created, measured and managed for customers, firms, employees, partners, society and the planet.
There is a strong and growing global interest in expanded theoretical approaches to conceptualising the value that firms create through their products and services, and the activities that they perform in order to design, create, sell, service, reclaim and recycle these (c.f. Porter & Kramer (2011) and their Creating Shared Value model, and Eccles & Viviers, (2011) who explore Environmental, Social, Government (ESG) investing practices). However, these models lack a practical, objective approach to measuring and managing the value that firms create for customers, firms, employees, partners, society and the planet that can be consistently adopted by organisations that wish to implement these ideas, and track the actual value that is generated from their activities. This presentation provides the first assessment of the literature as it applies to value measurement across these six value actors, and outlines how this foundation can be operationalised through a blockchain-based universal value standard.
