The evolving complexity of contemporary economic and management processes, together with the rapid advancement of technology, is propelling significant changes in management sciences, including marketing – with the emergence of new paradigms and the disappearance of old ones. The Theory of Social Practices (TSP) posits an alternative approach (a “cultural turn”) to how consumption processes are understood and explained by theories based on individualistic assumptions (Reckwitz, 2002a; Warde, 2005; 2014). Schwanen et al. (2012), for instance, advocate in favor of applying cultural explanations in researching and designing new solutions for digital-based service offerings, such as urban transport in urban transport. The objectives of this article are twofold. First, we explore the adoption of the TSP concept in management science, and second, we investigate how digital-based service offerings are changing social practices in mobility.

Previous TSP-based studies on such practices have had certain limitations. First, researchers have studied stakeholders’ interactive value formation (co-creation or co-destruction) in one particular practice (Echeverri & Skålén, 2011) or examined transformations based on the assumption that a new practice should either discourage (Christensen et al., 2019) or replace an older practice (Shove & Pantzar, 2005; Spotswood et al., 2015, Mylan, 2015). Second, prior studies have focused on predefined, intuitively identified practices, which remain unchanging from the study’s inception to its conclusion. More recent critique (Smagacz-Poziemska et al. 2020) has nevertheless challenged this conventional approach of examining practices assumed a priori, and suggest instead that that what the relevant practices are should not be taken as something intuitively understood prior to the study, but rather that identifying those practices should be recognized as a part of the research process itself. However, our review of the literature indicates that such research working to identify non-predefined practices is still scarce. This attests to a significant research gap in terms of the possible application of the Theory of Social Practices to understanding how new digital-based service offerings precipitate changes in existing consumer practices and the emergence of new practices.

Today, digital transformation solutions harness technology to generate new customer experiences, cultural norms, and business practices. This entails utilizing cutting-edge technological advances to modify corporate strategies and offerings for the digital era. For instance, changes in urban mobility, such as new offers of transport services, are based on new digital experiences whereby customers can rent cars online or arrange short-term car rental charged by the minute using their smartphones (known as “short-term car rental,” STCR, or also as “carsharing”).

Consequently, our research questions are as follows: RQ(1) How do new service offers (in our case: short-term car rental) transform current practices (in our case: commuting practices)? RQ(2) What are the resultant practices?

To explore these questions, we conducted an exploratory study analyzing two commuting services: public transport (PT) and the digital-based service of short-term car rental (STCR). Our analysis, , using TSP as the theoretical framework, focused on identifying and understanding the changes in practice elements such as contextual principles, stakeholder actions, and used assets, guided by previous work in TSP (Reckwitz, 2002a, 2002b; Holtz, 2014; Spotswood et al., 2015; Warde, 2005, 2014). Our study was exploratory and qualitative, involved interviews structured around a scenario. The questions in the scenario were constructed using various categories of social practices (policies/institutions, activities, tools, and interactions between stakeholders). The data was collected from February 10 to March 23, 2020, from 33 individual interviewees who make use of PT and/or STCR in three cities in Poland with over 500,000 inhabitants.

We offer three findings contributing to the previous body of TSP research. First, we show that consumers (commuters) form practices independently of providers, by improvising with and combining the assets the latter provide. By proposing a model for analyzing commuters’ practices, we contribute to a way of understanding practices that acknowledges the beneficiaries’ improvisations with assets when they form those practices. Second, our findings challenge the more traditional approach to practice research that assumes that practices are intuitively identifiable, predefined, and unchanging from the inception to the conclusion of research on them. We especially question that modalities are the same as commuters’ practices. We argue instead that practices cut across modalities, that commuters’ practices are not intuitive, and that scholars should seek to identify real practices as part of their research findings. Third, we show that commuters perform particular practices as mediators among other practices with rigid timetables.

2. Liturature review

2.1. Theory of Social Practices – theoretical background

Scientific research analyzing the impact of new service offers in recent years has predominantly employed three conceptual frameworks for examining service processes and value creation: (1) the “service-dominant logic” (Vargo & Lusch, 2004, 2015) and “value in use” (Grönroos et al., 2015) principles applied to the interpretation and implementation of such research, (2) concepts applied to the interpretation and study of innovations (Sinek, 2010; Luckman & Hegene 2013; Norman & Verganti 2014) and (3) the Theory of Social Practices (Reckwitz 2002a; Warde 2005, 2014) – the latter being a framework that has recently been gaining in importance. These three frameworks all concur that the creation of value within service offers should be analyzed in the context of the social practices in which they are embedded. In other words, the broad approach shared by these frameworks argues that examining value purely through individual assessments, supplier-consumer relationships, or solely through supplier actions is inadequate.

The Theory of Social Practices (TSP) (Reckwitz 2002a; Warde 2005, 2014; Shove & Pantzar 2005; Spotswood et al. 2015; Shove & Walker 2005, 2010) conceptualizes social practice as a configuration of meanings that reflects the rules (what is “right” or “inappropriate” for a given practice) and values of activities and resources used in a specific way (i.e., according to the rules, to derive value) for that practice. Practices exist only when they are performed, they are reproduced only in the activities that perform them. The Theory of Social Practices interprets each particular act of consumption or use as a “moment” of a specific collective, routine practice. In these social practices, repeated actions thus embody an understanding of mutually recognized rules and knowledge about the use of resources. However, this understanding of rules and knowledge exists only to the extent that it manifests itself in actions. Resources enable, but simultaneously limit, the performance of practices.

Changes in practices involve reconfigurations of these elements and extend beyond mere shifts in the principles whereby those practices are performed (Reckwitz 2002a; Warde 2005, 2014). Rather, TSP posits that research should focus on the practices themselves and their interconnections to understand value creation processes, and that transformations of these practices are crucial areas of concern in such research. Different practices may influence or inhibit one another and should not be studied in isolation (Spurling et al. 2013; Welch 2017). Table 1 presents a comparison of the individualistic interpretation vs the kind of interpretation posited by the Theory of Social Practice regarding consumer decisions.

Changes in practices involve reconfigurations of these elements and extend beyond mere shifts in the principles whereby those practices are performed (Reckwitz 2002a; Warde 2005, 2014). Rather, TSP posits that research on value creation processes should focus on practices themselves and their interconnections, and that transformations of these practices shold be crucial areas of concern in value creation research. Different practices may influence or inhibit each other and should not be studied in isolation (Spurling et al., 2013; Welch, 2017). Table 1 presents a comparison of the elements of the individualistic interpretation of consumer decisions vs the kind of interpretation posited by the Theory of Social Practice.

The Theory of Social Practices (TSP) proposes a “cultural turn” in understanding consumption processes, providing an alternative to theories grounded in individualistic assumptions (Reckwitz, 2002a; Warde, 2005; 2014). Schwanen et al. (2012) advocate for using cultural explanations in researching and designing new solutions for digital-based service offerings, such as urban transport in urban transport. This perspective encourages a synthesis of insights from various fields of science, fostering more interdisciplinary research and new directions of knowledge development. As noted above, we identified a certain research gap in terms of the possible application of the Theory of Social Practices to understanding how new digital-based service offerings precipitate changes in existing consumer practices and the emergence of new practices. This gap, therefore, is an incentive to look towards the Theory of Social Practices as a new research approach for management sciences.

2.2. New digital-based services offerings as assets of emerging practices

The advancement of technology enables consumers to differentiate their modes of activity on the market and to choose among the alternative services on offer. New digital technologies change the modalities, increasing multimodal options, but also transform consumers’ practices. This transformation occurs as consumers improvise with the technology, integrating it with other assets, and as other stakeholders adapt related practices.

Today, digital transformation solutions harness technology to generate new customer experiences, cultural norms, and business practices. This entails utilizing cutting-edge technological advances to modify corporate strategies and offers for the digital era. For instance, with the rise of 3G, 4G, and now 5G, clients can book by-the-minute car rental services (“carsharing” services) swiftly and easily without any human interaction, making it a seamless process from start to end without even minimal human assistance – the process has become more streamlined, faster, easier, and efficient for customers as well as very productive and efficient for the provider company to handle (Autorent, 2020). Customers are smarter nowadays, investigating and researching even minute decisions as information has become easily accessible. They also – for instance – look for car rental services integrated with a complete service value package (Autorent, 2020).

Researchers also point to limitations in interpreting the role of the Internet as a tool for coordinating urban mobility. Farag and Lyons (2010) empirically confirmed, in a quantitative study, the assumption that the intention to use information services in travel planning is a consequence of users’ consideration of modality options, and not the other way around.

Glenn (2018) argues that the Internet is not only a means of coordinating transport modalities but also an alternative to people and goods physically traveling distances (e.g., delivery of digital products). Therefore, urban mobility challenges and solutions should not be limited to physical transport modalities. In other words, by influencing how we communicate via the Internet, we can reduce the scale of physical transport, not just coordinate its modalities.

Papa and Lauwers (2015) point out that urban mobility research and design, which has so far been based on the recognition that technology is a tool for improving and optimizing transport planning, should also include the social behavior of users as a critical element of the above-mentioned research and projects.

2.3. Studying a single emerging practice, expected to replace the previous one, from a social practice perspective

The achievements of research on urban mobility are based on (1) contextual analysis of values, (2) the category of routine social practices as the subject of research, and (3) the transformation of these practices as a research problem. In this section present the two most critical studies relevant to this topic.

One crucial paper, Echeverri and Skålén (2011) – a qualitative study of value co-creation in public transport journeys in Gothenburg, Sweden – showed that the actions of bus and tram drivers contribute to the joint value creation of public transport journeys when passengers adequately understand the principles of their practice and, consequently, the actions of drivers and passengers converge in creating the value of the trip. The scholars found that (1) informing users about the rules (institutions) for implementing rides inspires a more convergent understanding of procedures and activities between providers and users, (2) helping to address difficulties in implementing the practice increases users’ participation in the practice. The main theoretical contribution of this study is the suggestion that the creation of trip value is a matter of the intersubjective alignment of how suppliers (here: drivers) and users understand the procedures and how they work in a given process, and not just a matter of the suppliers’ intentions and users’ perceptions of value considered separately. In their study, Echeverri and Skålén (2011) applied the framwork of the Theory of Social Practices (or “practice theory” – assessing principles, actions, tools, and the relationships between them) for qualitative analysis of the formation – i.e., co-creation, co-reduction, co-destruction – of the value of public transport trips. One limitation of this study is that the authors recognized one practice of the status quo of urban mobility (public transport trips, i.e., the context of a single practice) and not consider its transformation. Understanding the principles and skillful acting is not achieved automatically; instead, they are attained via repetitive interactions between service providers and users. Positive and negative valuations are based on the practice principles.

Incremental changes improve the practice from the point of view of the principles. Torkkeli et al. (2018) have contributed to the current understanding of practice elements. Despite the insights that can be gleaned from studies of a single practice (alongside Echeverri & Skålén, 2011, these include Heidenstrøm 2021; Medberg & Heinonen, 2014; Torkkeli et al., 2018; Magaudda, 2011), studying a single practice does not demonstrate that the main principle of the practice is challengeable and transformable.

In the second critical study, Spotswood et al. (2015) suggest, based on qualitative research conducted in two British cities, that cycling remains a marginal urban mobility practice (accounting for 2% of urban trips) until users gain access to new resources/tools (separate car and bicycle lanes, facilities for cyclists at destinations) that in turn inspire new practice. Despite the introduction of restrictions on entry, parking, and fees for entering city centers, the dominant practice remains using cars for daily commuting. The current information and motivational activities (information campaigns) about the possibilities of replacing commuting by car with commuting by bicycle are an insufficient mechanism to trigger such a transformation. Other stakeholders need to provide additional infrastructure tools and, as a result, to facilitate their competent use – the competencies needed for driving in separate lanes are lower than those for cycling in car lanes. The authors also suggest that incremental interventions in one practice (introducing car speed limits and increased parking fees) cause changes in other practices. Therefore, actions in the sphere of regulation (speed limits, higher parking fees at workplaces) and infrastructure (separating bicycle traffic from car lanes, providing showers and changing rooms) are the appropriate ones to be taken in seeking to transform the practices of everyday urban commuting.

Taken together, these two key studies show that the TSP framework can be used to represent both the interaction of practices in one urban modality (Echeverri & Skålén, 2011) and the transformation of urban mobility practices, understood as replacing the current practice of urban commuting by car with commuting by bicycle and, as a result, increasing the value of sustainable development (Spotswood et al., 2015).

Summarizing our literature review, we can say that previous studies on practices, such as these, exhibit several limitations. First, TSP-based studies are generally limited in scope to considering value formation in one particular practice. Second, the transformation is conceptualized as a traditional practice coming to be replaced by a newer one, as the achievement of certain predetermined values. Third, the practices being investigated were themselves predetermined in those studies. The researchers studied intuitively identified practices, assumed to be unchanging from the starting point of their research to their results. The call to identify the practices themselves as part of the findings of the studies, rather than assuming them a priori (Smagacz-Poziemska et al., 2020), here remains unfulfilled. Thus, in opposition to the focus on such technology-driven new modalities, practice theory scholars instead recommend exploring the practices (Shove & Walker, 2014; Smagacz-Poziemska et al., 2020) and focusing on how the demand for them is inspired by other practices (Shove et al., 2015).

This is how we arrived at the research questions considered in the present study: RQ(1) How do new service offers (in our case: short-term car rental or “carsharing”) transform current practices (in our case: commuting practice)? RQ(2) What are the resultant practices?

3. Method

3.1. Research design

To address these research questions, we carried out an exploratory study involving a contextual analysis of two services offered in commuting modalities: public transport (PT) and digitally-accessed short-term car rental (STCR). Our analysis focused on identifying the elements of the practices – contextual principles, (in)congruent skilled actions of stakeholders, and assets used – and their changes, as suggested by TSP (Reckwitz, 2002a, 2002b; Holtz, 2014; Spotswood et al., 2015; Warde, 2005, 2014).

We applied TSP as the theoretical framework for our study, selecting two modalities performed by the same informants, commuting by PT (1) and by STCR (2). This choice was driven by our aim to study practices without assuming that newer practices should replace older ones, counter to the assumptions made in previous studies. Our decision was also influenced by emerging trends in mobility, such as sustainability, electric mobility, and shared mobility, all of which harness digital technologies as potential solutions to urban transportation challenges.

3.2. Data collection and analysis

To understand value formation (co-creation or co-destruction) as the output of (in)congruence between the providers’ and beneficiaries’ actions (Echeverri & Skålén, 2011), we focused on how stakeholders interact within these practices. We gathered the data and coded it in line with TSP guidelines.

Our study was exploratory and qualitative, with interviews chosen as the primary data collection method. These interviews were structured around a scenario, with questions constructed to probe various categories of social practices (policies/institutions, activities, tools, and interactions between stakeholders). We followed the guidelines that a typical TSP project requires 15– 25 participants in research on generating new constructs and relations between them, and that participants should be selected for their knowledge about the questions/issues and their willingness to share their knowledge and experiences with the researcher (Zeithaml et al. 2020). The study population consisted of people using publicly accessible transport (PT and/or STCR) in three cities in Poland, who do not have their own cars and who commute to work or school.

Data was collected from 33 individual interviews with users of PT and/or STCR. The interviewees were aged from 19 to 25 (23 men and 10 women), who were either university students or had jobs and who did not use their own cars on city journeys. The interviews were conducted using a mixed-method approach: they partly consisted of in-depth interviews (IDIs) carried out both face-to-face and via teleconference, and were partly supplemented via online surveys (CAWI). Each session lasted approximately 40 minutes. In addition to responses to the interview questions, our respondents provided four self-taken photographs depicting key elements of the two practices they participated in, along with written explanations regarding Social Practice Theory. Data was collected in three cities in Poland with over 500,000 inhabitants (Warsaw, Gdansk and Wroclaw) from February to March, 2020. The interviews were conducted with the participation of the research firm IMAS International Sp. z o.o. Institute for Market and Social Opinion Research from Wroclaw, which has many years of research experience in both domestic and foreign markets. The generated data (respondents’ answers) were organized in an Excel database. Interpretations of the data were made from the standpoint of the categories of social practice theory and the logic of interactive co-creation (or co-destruction) of values within individual consumer practices.

4. Research findings

We analyzed and interpreted the data in four steps. First, we coded the data by skilled actions, assets used, and principles of practices. Second, we identified connections among the described data. Third, we identified the commuter’s practices. Fourth, we connected our theoretical contributions with existing TSP-based literature.

4.1. From using public transport (PT) and short-term car rental (STCR) to new commuter practices

We statistically analyzed the reported travel time using PT and STCR, initially treating them as observable, intuitive commuting practices. The use of STCR accounted for a small proportion of the interviewees’ city trips, with study participants generally having used this service 2–4 times in the previous eight weeks. However, four of them had used the STCR more than five times. The duration of car journeys was shorter (average = 28.2 minutes, median = 20 minutes) than for journeys by public transport (average = 32.3 minutes, median = 25 minutes), though with more significant variability (standard deviation = 18.3) than public transport (standard deviation = 16.88). The time taken to walk to a public transport stop was shorter (average = 4.09 minutes, median = 3 minutes) than that required to walk to a parked rental car (average = 5.34 minutes, median = 5 minutes), and was also less variable (standard deviation = 2.73 for PT, 4.40 for STCR). We interpret these total travel times (walking and journey) as measures of difficulty in getting to the places where our informants performed their target practices (studying, working) and, consequently, as difficulties in accessing these practices.

Initially, we interpreted the data assuming that commuting by PT and STCR are distinct practices. However, further analysis of interviews revealed insights about the use of dedicated bus lanes in both PT and STCR. Based on this, we re-interpreted the data and instead identified two other practices in our findings: first, commuting by fully electric short time-rented cars in bus lanes during rush hours, and second, commuting by short time-rented cars with combustion engines during off-peak hours. Commuters themselves shaped these two practices after a period of improvisation with available short-term rental cars (new assets of a new practice). This illustrates how commuters actively shape and transform their practices, rather than just adopting available offers.

In the following sections, we discuss these empirical findings in more detail, highlighting how they contribute to our understanding of commuter activities and service usage.

A)Passing through traffic jams: commuting by public transport (PT) or fully electric short time-rented cars (STCR) in dedicated bus lanes during rush hours

We find that commuters use both PT and STCR in their practice of minimizing time spent stuck in traffic jams. They use the fully electric STCR as a new asset in this same practice, for which they had before used PT. They also combine PT and the fully electric STCR with access to dedicated bus lanes – another asset in the practice. Selected quotes from respondents regarding this practice are presented in Table 2.

As the quotes illustrate, commuters use a combination of assets to perform the practice. Checking if bus lanes are available on the commuting route is a skillful action on commuters’ part, especially during rush hours. This is congruent with other stakeholders’ actions: (1) providers offering the fully electric cars in STCR, and (2) the city authorities creating bus lanes and allowing the new commuting modalities to access them.

B) Non-urgent commuting by public transport (PT) or short time-rented cars (STCR) with combustion engines, using regular traffic lanes in off-peak hours

We find that commuters use both PT and STCR in their practice of commuting in regular traffic lanes. They use the non-fully electric STCR as a new asset in this same practice, for which they had before used PT. They also combine the PT and non-fully-electric STCR with access to regular traffic lanes – another asset in the practice. Selected quotes from respondents pertaining to this practice are presented in Table 3.

As the table illustrates, the commuters use PT, non-fully electric cars and regular traffic lanes as assets to perform the practice. The commuters’ skillful action is to choose the practice in off peak or non-hurry situations. Otherwise the commuters spend time stuck in traffic jams.

4.2. How the short time-rented cars (STCR) change commuting?

Durng the course of our study, we identified the following commuting practices: (1) commuting by fully electric cars and direct connections of public transport in bus lanes, passing through traffic jams during peak periods, and (2) commuting by non-fully electric cars (without permission to use bus lanes) and non-direct connections of public transport in off-peak periods. Note that these practices are different than merely the use of PT vs. the use of STCR.

Our findings (Fig. 1) indicate that using a new means of transport (STCR) as a digital-based service offer is not the same as mobility practices, in which consumers avail themselves of the offer as an asset.

Users can make use of the same offer in two different practices they perform. Users combine the new offer with other assets (dedicated and regular traffic lanes) to perform their commuting practices. Our findings show that STCR operators have, in fact, provided new assets to existing practices.

4.3. Commuting mediates between consumers’ practices with rigid timetables

Although our study has focused on commuting, we can report an additional finding not visible in Figure 1. The data analysis revealed other practices, where the commuters need to be on time. As a consequence, we can state that the two mobility practices mediate other practices (living in a defined place, working, studying), which also have their own “timetables” (i.e., to perform these practices, commuters must be in a specific place at a certain time). The informants found themselves in a hurry, arrived on time, or were late because study and work schedules are rigid and distant from where users live. Commuters are over-mobile because they have to commute between time and space strict practices. Consequently, the elimination of rigid timetables in working and studying practices reduces the scale of “rushing” and “being late” in the performance of commuting. It also reduces the intensity of performing mobility practices.

It seems evident that other digital-based offers, like online work and studies, reduce mobility. However, a live online lecture every Friday at 8:00 AM is an example of time rigidity. Transferring a traditional oral exam to an online setting exemplifies cultural rigidity. Studies of the rigidities of these relatively new online practices are rare. The traffic jams during rush hours should be reduced by projects pertaining to dwelling, commuting, studying, and working practices, implemented by relevant interdisciplinary teams, rather than by mobility specialists focusing only on mobility-related data. The complexity of transforming mobility practices is not about changing the assets within those practices but about initiating interdisciplinary research and projects of a sort that typically do not emerge due to the siloed organization of city government departments.

4.4. A model for analyzing the transformation of consumer practices

Based on the insights from our research, we developed a model (Table 4) that facilitates a critical analyses of how technological advancements in new consumer offers transform consumer practices. This model embeds practical and policy implications throughout the research agenda, to guide companies and policymakers when making consumer mobility-related decisions.

This model positions consumer practices as units of research, in which consumers improvise and form their own practices independently of the providers, combining the assets the latter provide. It offers a new perspective compared to previous research, which often views consumer practices as predefined. Our approach encourages exploration of how consumers adapt and innovate in response to new offerings, providing insights into the dynamic nature of consumer activities.

5. Conclusion

Our findings make three contributions to the study of consumer practices. First, we have identified practices different than just making use of offered services – demonstrating how customers independently create values by improvising with assets provided by stakeholders. We agree with previous TSP-based research (Spotswood et al., 2015; Mylan et al., 2016) that (1) consumers use the assets supplied by various providers in their practices and (2) consumers should not be imagined as users of particular products or services but as performers of practices. Our key contribution lies in identifying that consumers shape their practices after a period of improvising with the use of new resources provided by both service providers and other stakeholders. This is a new explanation of how providers, other stakeholders, and users actively interact in co-creating value in a specific practice. Users neither just adopt the new offerings nor make individual decisions based on education or information. Instead, as the example of digitally-accessed short-term car retal (STCR or “carsharing”) examined herein shows, consumers actively shape and transform their value creation practices after a period of improvisation with available assets.

Second, our analysis challenges the traditional view that practices are static and predefined. Instead, we reinterpreted the initial, intuitive practices that we began with into new practices formulated through iterative encounters with additional data during our analysis – as Morgan and Nica (2020) suggest. Identifying practices in this way is a dynamic research task recommended by Smagacz-Poziemska et al. (2020). Previous TSP-based studies (Echeverri & Skålén, 2011; Spotswood et al., 2015; Shove & Walker, 2010; Shove & Pantzar, 2005; Mylan, 2015) have examined predefined practices from their points of departure to their findings. Our approach, in turn, highlights how the practices identified evolve from their initial conception to their ultimate realization in the study, revealing the transformative potential of consumer activities analysis.

Third, we have shed some light on how consumers use particular practices as mediators among other practices with rigid timetables. As a consequence, consumers may make excessive use of the former and may be enriched when reducing it. Our findings also suggest a new understanding of beneficiaries’ enrichment, which occurs in the repertoire of practices the beneficiaries perform to deal with the social issue. Social issues should not be reduced to differentiations of modalities in predefined practices. Previous research has focused on how consumers perform predefined practices (Hebrok & Heidenstrøm, 2019; Mylan, 2015) and bundles of practices (Castelo et al., 2021) in predefined relations, like practices performed at the same time or in the same space. Instead, we introduce the concept of mediation within practices, suggesting that studying the interconnections between mediating and destination practices can reveal mutual influences and inspirations. This perspective encourages a broader, more integrative approach to studying and designing consumer practices, moving beyond the limitations imposed by focusing solely on singular, isolated practices (Bezerra et al., 2020).

6. Study limitations

Our study has a number of limitations, which in turn provide some guidance for future research into the transformations of consumer practices. First, our findings are based predominantly on service users’ reports. Future research should strive to include a broader array of data from more differentiated stakeholders of the practices under examination. This would provide a more comprehensive view of the dynamics at play.

Second, we have studied the formation of practices in the field/domain of consumer services. Future research should verify whether our conclusions are generalizable to other fields, such as business-to-business (B2B) or e-commerce.

Third, this paper has initiated exploration into the relationship between destination and mediating practices. This intriguing aspect of consumer behavior likewise warrants further investigation in subsequent studies.

Moreover, our findings indicate that consumers utilize the same offers differently across different practices. Future research should examine how beneficiaries avail themselves of the same service offerings in various practices. Such inquiries could unveil practices that extend beyond mere usage or adoption of offers, providing insights into how offers are integrated and repurposed in everyday life.

Additionally, our research highlights the potential for changing consumer practices through the relaxation of rigid timetables. Investigating how modifications in the timing of practices could spur changes in other practices may offer new directions for understanding consumer adaptability and innovation.

More broadly, in this paper we have advocated for a shift away from studying predefined practices to identifying emerging practices as one aspect of the findings themselves. We propose that our model could serve as a tool for investigating and debating these emerging practices, inspired by new offerings, in future research. We hope our study encourages critical reflection on how consumers creatively combine new offers with existing assets to create and shape new practices.

Acknowledgements

The project was financed by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in Poland under the programme “Regional Initiative of Excellence” 2019–2022, project number 015/RID/2018/19, total funding amount 10,721,040.00 PLN.

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The proposal of the dynamic capabilities (DCs) paradigm as an extension of the resource-based view (RBV) has become a passionate area of academic research in strategic management and, in recent years, in marketing. However, an analysis of the literature shows that research on this concept in the body of marketing knowledge is still fragmented and scattered (Barrales-Molina et al., 2014). Research gaps continue to appear regarding the identification of the role and mechanism of the influence of marketing resources and capabilities on competitive advantage. Hence, it is becoming highly interesting for the development of science to adopt a dynamic perspective in the study of customer relationship management (CRM) as one of the marketing resources. There is an increase in the number of publications on this topic in the literature, but empirical research in the service business sector is very poorly represented.

With increasing competition and technological advances, firms face highly dynamic environments (Teng et al., 2022; Van Vaerenbergh et al., 2014). From the dynamic capabilities view (DCV) perspective, firms with the capabilities that can extend, modify, change and create business capabilities in response to environmental dynamism play a fundamental role on the market.

In terms of assumptions, the concept of DCs is described as a response to the modern, rapidly changing environment. The consequence is the conclusion, but most often at the conceptual level, that the high dynamism of the business environment and market changes justifies enterprises’ use of DCs and dynamic perspectives in scientific research. However, this guideline is not yet supported by sufficient empirical evidence. Thus, there is an exploratory gap. First of all, the impact of the dynamism of the environment on the effect of the company’s DCs remains insufficiently researched empirically (Barrales-Molina et al., 2014; Barreto, 2010; Wang & Ahmed, 2007).

In today’s hyper-competitive environment, companies’ understanding of the dynamics of the environment and its role in creating competitive advantage is crucial. There is a growing body of literature on this topic, but empirical research in the service business sector is very poorly represented. Therefore, the central premise for taking up the topic of this paper is the speed of changes in the market environment observed in recent years and the need to determine these changes in the functioning of enterprises. This is especially true about the service sector, which is very sensitive to changes in competition processes. Still, the concept of turbulence or dynamism is ambiguous. There is a considerable lack of clarity and virtually no agreement on the exact meaning of environmental turbulence. This confusion reflects the diversity of orientations in studying organisational environments and the divergent approaches developed to measure it. There is an emerging need for a new conceptualisation of the environment’s dynamism. Responding to such demand, this work aims to develop a multidimensional conceptualisation of the dynamic environment and propose a theoretical model for analysing the impact of the environment’s dynamism on the relationship between dynamic CRM capabilities and competitive advantage.

To achieve the purpose of the article, the method of critical literature analysis was used. Literature sources written in the last two decades were analysed. This is because during this period, the emergence of significant changes in the global environment and even economic crises could be observed. In addition, earlier publications key to the researched subject were also used. The resources of EBSCO, SCOPUS and Web of Science databases were used for the analysis (keywords relevant to the topic of the article were used, i.e. 'dynamic CRM capabilities’, 'competitive advantage’, 'dynamic environment’ and 'turbulent environment’). About 60 articles were analysed. As a result of the literature review, a conceptualisation of the dynamism of the environment taking into account three of its main dimensions, namely variability, complexity and predictability, was created. The second result is the proposal of constructs and the theoretical model in which the dynamic environment is the moderating variable of the relationship between dynamic CRM capabilities and competitive advantage.

CRM DCs and Competitive Advantage — the Literature Framework

The research perspective related to the resource school trend (resourcebased view) and the DC approach allows today to consider and verify CRM as a set of resources and capabilities also with dynamic characteristics. Literature sources indicate that developing excellent CRM skills-creating close relationships with customers-and managing them-is one of the most important sources of the highest business performance in today’s competitive business environment (Day, 2014; Kale, 2004).

CRM capabilities are much more challenging to understand and emulate than other enterprise capabilities because their development takes time and relies on a complex interplay of resources, tacit knowledge and interpersonal skills (Hooley et al., 2005). In addition, building stronger customer relationships provides a foundation for understanding changing customer requirements and identifying the most appropriate ways to meet customer needs vis-a-vis those used by competitors, which may provide more significant opportunities for better business results (Day, 2014). However, these opinions contained in many articles based on different research perspectives are not always sufficiently confirmed in the empirical layer. In addition, based on the marketing literature, it can be noted that most studies focus on the impact of CRM on customers and the creation of customer value such as customer loyalty or satisfaction (Mithas et al., 2005; Yim et al., 2004), which then lead to increased company profitability (Cao & Gruca, 2005). CRM capabilities are included in the group of enterprise marketing capabilities. Still, their conceptualisation in the literature is very ambiguous, meaning that there is no consistent and generally accepted definition and structure of CRM capabilities (Table 1).

The issues of the complicated and complex conceptualisation of CRM capabilities, taken up in the studies of Day (2000) or Coltman et al. (2009) and other authors, made it possible to attempt to use the concept of DCs in CRM research. High importance, with the character of a breakthrough, can be attributed to the 2009 publication Dynamic capabilities: the missing link in CRM investments by Maklan and Knox, in which the authors point to the dynamic approach as necessary for use in the study of CRM capabilities, as well as in the practical dimensions of using this knowledge. Despite the rise in popularity of the dynamic perspective in the field of management science, including marketing, although perhaps to a lesser extent, the growth in the number of publications on the use of the dynamic perspective (DC) in CRM research over the past decade has not been significant.

Previous literature on CRM research has emphasised such topics as the critical role of organisational culture (Bohling et al., 2006; Kale, 2004), organisational alignment (Boulding et al., 2005; Roberts et al., 2005), the appropriate use of customer lifetime value analysis (Reinartz & Kumar, 2002; Ryals, 2005; Venkatesan & Kumar, 2004) or motivating employees to improve customer management (Bohling et al., 2006; Zablah et al., 2004). On the other hand, a content analysis of the literature identifying the main DCs in marketing indicated that CRM is becoming an integral component of a set of DCs consisting of (Maklan & Knox, 2009):

1. Demand management-generating revenue for goods and services;
2. Marketing knowledge creation-generating and disseminating companywide insights into consumers, markets, competitors, environmental trends, distributors, alliance partners and online communities;
3. Building brands-creating and maintaining brands for products, services and organisations;
4. CRM-developing how the company relates to consumers.

An analysis of the literature also indicated that researchers had identified dimensions characteristic of DCs (e.g. Baretto, 2010; Eisenhardt & Martin, 2000; Jantunen et al., 2012; Teece, 2018; Teece et al., 1997, 2016; Wang & Ahmed, 2007). Teece et al. (2016) interpret these dimensions as interdependent components that constitute DCs. Therefore, 'sensing’ opportunities, 'seizing’, which is the exploitation of emerging opportunities, and 'transforming/reconfiguration’ related to resource configuration and reconfiguration are essential if a company is to sustain itself in the market in the long term. DCs can enable a company to enrich its ordinary capabilities and use them, and those of its partners, to pursue ventures that yield positive results (Teece, 2007). This is due to changes in customers, competition and technology.

Teece (2007, 2016) provided an interpretation of the dimensions of DCs by identifying a four-element structure for each dimension (Table 2).

Bratnicka-Myśliwiec et al. (2019) also described a set of processes, elements and variables of DCs. They identified the following elements of DCs: entrepreneurial orientation (referring to opportunity sensing), value creation (based on opportunity seizing or pursuit, effectuation, bricolage and stakeholder synergy) and resource reconfiguration as the core of DCs.

Referring to CRM DCs, it can be said that the dimensions of these capabilities are embedded in CRM activities and organisational processes and reflect the company’s skills and accumulated knowledge to identify attractive customers and potential customers, initiate and maintain relationships with attractive customers, and intensify profitable relationships at the customer level (Morgan et al., 2009). In Teece (2007, 2018) stated perspective, however, they are scattered and can be found in several of the stated components of an organisation’s DCs. It should be noted that while it is easy to list CRM activities based on such and similar descriptors, it is difficult to determine whether they are dynamic (whether they are DCs), much less what the degree of dynamism is. Lacking in the existing literature is a detailed identification of which CRM activities can be considered, for example, as CRM market opportunity detection capabilities, which are related to CRM capabilities for exploiting emerging CRM opportunities, and which are responsible for reconfiguring CRM resources.

According to Day (2000), strong customer relationship capabilities are the essential marketing capabilities that enable companies to leverage related customer relationship resources to build sustainable competitive advantages. In an attempt to classify all definitions of competitive advantage, Sigalas and Pekka-Economou (2013) identified two definitional streams regarding the conceptual delineation of competitive advantage. The first stream defines competitive advantage in terms of an organisation’s performance/results, such as high relative profitability, above-average profits, the gap between benefits and costs, superior financial performance, and economic profits. The second stream defines competitive advantage by referring to its sources or determinants, for example specific characteristics of particular product markets, cost leadership, differentiation, locations, technologies, product features and a set of specific, idiosyncratic resources and capabilities of the company (Sigalas & Pekka-Economou, 2013).

In the discourse of management science, defining the type of competitive advantage boils down to stating what the superiority of a given enterprise over others is, expressed in market performance (Haffer, 2012). The second important feature to describe the advantage is its size, which can be understood as a difference in parameters describing various activities, processes and behaviours in the enterprise and competitors. In the literature, you can also find a statement that the measure of the advantage’s size is the organisation’s competitive position. The third important dimension of competitive advantage is durability, which is not directly related to its duration, but concerns the possibility of copying it (Barney, 1991).

Considering the theoretical basis and the analysis of empirical studies, it can be concluded that competitive advantage is a multidimensional concept. The multifactorial of this construct should be considered both as the quantitative dimension in the form of financial performance and the qualitative measurement in the form of strategic effects (Hemmati et al., 2016). In conclusion, following Teece (2007), the DC research paradigm, particularly in the field of CRM, is still relatively new. At the same time, it should be recognised that the dynamic approach is a very expansive and valuable research direction, providing many opportunities for researchers and business practitioners to fully understand the links between managerial actions in the organisation, CRM capabilities, and the long or short-term competitive advantage of the company. Therefore, there is a need for further research in this area of both conceptual and empirical nature.

The Dynamism of Environment — Conceptualisation for the Service Industry

The concept of DCs, according to its authors Teece, Pisano and Shuen, assumes that the competitive advantage of an organisation results from DCs, which are understood as the ability to adjust, integrate and reconfigure internal and external resources and competencies in reaction to the rapidly changing environment. However, other researchers believe DCs may be less effective in highly dynamic environments. According to Eisenhardt and Martin (2000), DCs cannot constitute a source of competitive advantage in a high-speed environment, that is to say precisely in the conditions in which Teece et al. (1997) see the need for dynamic abilities as the best.

With increasing competition and technological advances, firms face highly dynamic environments (Van Vaerenbergh et al., 2014). From the DCV perspective, firms with the capabilities that can extend, modify, change and create business capabilities in response to environmental dynamism play a fundamental role in changing operational routines and in ensuring that the firm can change its overall operations and have new sets of decision options (Keiningham et al., 2014).

The service sector is growing rapidly around the world, contributing significantly to the growth of the global economy (Menguc et al., 2017). Therefore, the importance of identifying sources and ways of achieving a competitive advantage in this sector is increasing. Today, organisations depend on delivering exceptional service quality to attract and retain loyal customers (Kasiri et al., 2017; Malhotra et al., 2020). The changing external environment and increasing conditions of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (Petricevic & Teece, 2019) raise the question: How do service companies develop resilience to such dynamic changes? The answer can be to use the DCs approach.

The time of COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected many sectors of the global economy, including the process of providing services, especially such as hospitality, transportation, tourism and cultural services. However, this time of change also fostered new opportunities and patterns in business management transforming, for example, corporate culture into a 'home culture’ (Couch et al., 2021). On the other hand, the Industry 4.0 revolution has influenced the implementation of new business practices, shifting them towards digitisation. To survive and thrive in dynamically changing crisis conditions such as a pandemic or warfare, it is necessary to move away from traditional management approaches.

Research on changes in the business environment has been conducted for years. As early as 1983 Miller and Friesen wrote that 'the dynamism of the environment refers to the amount and unpredictability of changes in customer tastes, production or service technology, and modes of competition in a company’s major industries’ (Miller & Friesen, 1983, p. 233).

Emerging research in the past conceptualised the term 'turbulent environment’ as describing changes in it (Baburoglu, 1988; Khandwalla, 1977; Volberda & van Bruggen, 1997). However, in recent years, researchers have more often used the term 'dynamic environment’ (Agyapong et al., 2020; Tajeddini & Mueller, 2019; Teng et al., 2022; Visser & Sheepers, 2020; Wang et al., 2021), or even environmental velocity (McCarthy et al., 2010). Contemporary authors even use these terms interchangeably.

Changes in the organisation’s environment have been defined in various ways and concern several potentially important dimensions (Table 3). The environment’s dynamism can be described in terms of the frequency, magnitude and irregularity of changes in factors such as competition, customer preferences, and technology (McCarthy et al., 2010; Miller & Friesen, 1983).

Still, the concept of turbulence or dynamism is ambiguous. There is a considerable lack of clarity and virtually no agreement on the exact meaning of environmental turbulence. This confusion reflects the diversity of orientations in studying organisational environments and the divergent approaches developed to measure it. There is an emerging need for a new conceptualisation of the environment’s dynamism. Responding to such demand, the present author developed a multidimensional conceptualisation of the dynamic environment and proposed a theoretical model for analysing the impact of the environment’s dynamism on the relationship between dynamic CRM capabilities and competitive advantage.

Based on the influential concept of Miller and Friesen (1983), it is possible to identify the essential characteristics of the dynamism of the environment, which the authors see as volatility (speed and amount of change) and unpredictability (uncertainty) (Schilke, 2014). For example, industry structure changes, market demand instability and the likelihood of rapid changes in the environment are essential elements of these dynamics (e.g. Jansen et al., 2006; Wilhelm et al., 2015). Accordingly, an environment characterised by low dynamics exhibits infrequent changes, and market participants usually anticipate these changes. In contrast, a highly dynamic environment is one in which rapid and discontinuous changes are expected. Regular changes occur along predictable and linear paths in a moderately dynamic environment.

According to other authors, a turbulent/dynamic environment is an unpredictable, expanding, changing environment; it is an environment in which components are marked by change, an environment with a high degree of interconnectedness with the organisation (Baum & Wally, 2003; Emery & Trist, 1965; Khandwalla, 1977; Volberda & van Brugen, 1997). Baburoglu (1988) supports this view of increased complexity, significant uncertainty, and dynamic and unexpected directionality of events but particularly emphasises the transitional state of turbulent environments. This discussion of environmental dynamism clearly shows that turbulence is a complex aggregate of different dimensions related to change and that some dimensions are more independent than others. Using the existing body of work to achieve the purpose of this article, the author proposed his own set of three most valuable dimensions for assessing the dynamism of the environment of service companies. These are variability, complexity and predictability. These three sub-dimensions seem crucial at this stage of the theory’s development.

In this new conceptualisation of environmental dynamism, variability as a sub-dimension describes the degree to which the components of an organisational unit’s environment remain essentially the same over time or are constantly changing. For example, in the environment, we can observe changes in technology, customer preferences, fluctuations in demand for products and services, or competitors’ constant withdrawal or emergence. Hence, in this dimension, it is crucial to determine the rate of environmental change (frequency) and the intensity of changes. In addition to the variability in the environment’s dynamism, it is crucial to determine the complexity of the domain. Based on previous studies that consider the number of elements involved in a given environmental component, it can be concluded that the greater the number of factors involved, the more complex the environment. However, other theorists study the number of elements and, perhaps even more importantly, the interdependence of these elements, contributing to a complete analysis of environmental complexity. Such a combination should be considered a target for a new conceptualisation for the services industry. Another third dimension of environmental dynamism is predictability. It has definitely received the most attention in research on organisational environments (eg. Duncan, 1972; Eppink, 1978; Krijnen, 1979; Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967; Volberda & van Brugen, 1997). When the transformations within the elements of the environment are linear, cyclical, or both linear and cyclical, management can extrapolate future changes and prepare for future developments. As an example, consider seasonality in demand patterns in tourism or hospitality. It is also extremely important to determine the availability of information about environmental changes. Some organisations operate in environments where such data are not available. In such fundamentally unpredictable environments, management must be highly flexible.

Thus, in new conceptualisation of environmental dynamism, the predictability of change is a sub-dimension that the availability of information about the change has supplemented.

The Moderating Role of the Environmental Dynamism
in CRM DCs and Competitive Advantage Relation
— the Theoretical Model for Services Company

The specificity of a classic service as a market offer and its process nature, largely related to the physical presence of the service provider and dependent on the client’s involvement, makes this sector of the economy very sensitive to changes in the market environment. At the same time, the currently observed development of IT technology and the global problems resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the need to provide many services virtually or even gave an impulse to the emergence of completely new service offers, which allowed many companies in this industry to maintain or strengthen their competitive advantage.

The response of the scientific world to today’s rapidly changing environment seems to be precisely the concept of DCs, since its assumptions allow to perceive and use DCs as creating favourable conditions for companies to respond to opportunities and threats in the business environment. This seems particularly relevant in the context of building long-term customer relationships as a competitive potential for service sector companies as well. This is because, as the considerations in the earlier subsections indicated, it is important for empirical research to pay more attention to the structure and role of the dynamism of the environment, as a potentially important moderating variable in the relationship between dynamic CRM capabilities and competitive advantage. This will enhance the value and relevance of future research. Companies operating in a highly dynamic environment face the challenge of adapting, renewing and reconfiguring their resources to adequately respond to changing conditions (Drnevich & Kriauciunas, 2011; Teece et al., 1997). This is also the assumption underlying the concept of DCs. A few studies suggest that DCs cause different effects on the results of companies operating in conditions of high and low dynamics of the environment (Wilhelm et al., 2015). Thus, the relationship is not as linear as theoretical concepts assumed.

In the literature, there are two competing views on the influence of the environment’s dynamism on the relationship between the DCs and the competitive advantage of the company, with little integration of both perspectives (Schilke, 2014). The first view suggests that there must be an extremely important (critical) situation in the company to obtain significant value from the introduced changes in the organisation’s capabilities (Drnevich & Kriauciunas, 2011; Helfat et al., 2007; Winter, 2003; Zahra et al., 2006; Zollo & Winter, 2002). This is because building and using DCs is expensive. These costs typically result from various activities related to developing new resources, reconfiguring existing resources and combinations thereof. In addition, costs may increase if the continuous reconfiguration of resources unnecessarily disrupts existing activities (Schilke, 2014).

The second group of researchers emphasises that DCs based on routines are not always sufficient to effect change, even when there is a significant need for resource configuration (Eisenhardt & Martin, 2000; Schreyögg & Kliesch-Eberl, 2007). History-based organisational change is usually very effective in limiting the company’s adjustment. Experiential learning research shows that this type of organisational change can be problematic when previously unknown factors alter the basis of a competitive company’s success, as is the case in highly dynamic environmental conditions (Levinthal & Rerup, 2006; March & Levinthal, 1993; Schilke, 2014).

Based on the literature review and its critical analysis, the author identified the theoretical foundations that form the conceptual framework of the theoretical model. The decomposition (conceptualisation) of constructs in the proposed model was based on the assumptions of the resource-based school (RBV) and the dynamic approach (DC) and the evolutionary theory of competitive advantage. Figure 1 illustrates the conceptual model of the relationships between dynamic CRM capabilities and competitive advantage and shows the moderating role of environmental dynamism.

Conclusions

In today’s market environment, global competition is emerging alongside the local competition. Changes in the organisation’s environment are progressing at an ever-increasing pace. In some industries, changes occur by leaps and bounds, while in others, they occur smoothly. This means that maintaining a sustainable, long-term competitive advantage sometimes becomes impossible. According to researchers today, an organisation’s sustainable competitive advantage comes from creating short-term competitive advantages. This implies the possibility, and even the necessity, of adopting a dynamic approach.

In this regard, researchers continue the discussion on the problems of the impact of DCs on the economic and market effects of the company. However, to a small extent, they still focus their empirical research on identifying the characteristics, level of dynamism, and variability of elements of the environment that can be considered definite for optimising the use of the capabilities possessed by the company also in the field of CRM.

The primary goal of the present study was to develop a multidimensional conceptualisation of the dynamic environment. The result of the literature research undertaken in this study became the development of new dimensions of the dynamic environment. In this approach, variability, complexity and predictability, as the sub-dimensions, seem crucial at this stage of the theory’s development.

The second goal of this paper was the proposal of constructs in the theoretical model, where the dynamism of the environment plays a moderating role in the relationship between dynamic CRM capabilities and competitive advantage. It has been argued that more research on dynamic company environment is needed to find the source of long competitive advantage. As implications for further research, empirical verification of the created model and verification of the relationship between the constructs should be indicated.

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