Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, Japan's regional Shopping Centers (SC) have been in a severe business environment due to the effects of an excess of stores and commoditization.
In recent years, consumer needs and purchasing behavior have become more diversified, leading researchers to point out the limitations of a goods-dominant logic where businesses unilaterally provide products to consumers. In contrast, they have mentioned the importance of service-dominant logic (S-D logic), value co-creation with consumers (Vargo & Lusch, 2004; 2008). However, existing research on S-D logic focuses mainly on stores and their products, and is therefore not sufficient to comprehensively analyze SCs with approximately 150 to 200 tenants.
The purpose of this paper is to expand the perspective of service-dominant logic, clarifying the current state of provision of traditionally tenant-centered value, and provide suggestions as to how SC can contribute to the community, principally through value co-creation with consumers. First, two studies (2019 and 2021) were conducted into the entry and withdrawal of tenants in 24 AEON MALLs that opened between 2011 and 2017, analyzing the current state of provision of traditionally tenant-centered value by business type (product sales, food and restaurants, services). Secondly, analysis was conducted using SEM (Structural Equation Modeling) based on the results of nationwide Internet research to clarify the value of consumers to SC from the two perspectives of “use-value”, which is the value generated by the use of tenants of SC and “context-value”, the value generated by the entire use of the facilities of SC. Finally, the study considers S-D logic in SC based on the results of two empirical analyses and clarifies the viewpoint of collaborative creation of value by SC developer connects with tenant and consumers for sustainable SC that contribute to the local community. (292words)
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