Scholarly Article Managing Customer Resource Endowments and Deficiencies for Value Cocreation: Complex Relational Services Sylvia C. Ng 1 , Jillian C. Sweeney 2 , and Carolin Plewa 3 Abstract The resources that customers have and are able to contribute or utilize may influence, shape, and determine the support that they receive from service providers. Yet, there is limited knowledge on the types of resources customers bring into the service process, that is, customer resource endowments and deficiencies, and how these relate to the service offered by providers. This study thus investigates the interplay and mobilization of specific resources between the customer and the service provider. Drawing on data from two online surveys in the financial planning and health-care contexts, the results demonstrate the fit between customer competencies measured in terms of sense of ownership, personal commitment, time availability, perceived complexity of situation, service-related skills, education, risk tolerance, and economic resources and the various service provider styles for value cocreation. Specifically, the discriminant maps show that service provider styles can best be differentiated not on the basis of a particular type of resource (i.e., physical, cultural, or economic) but rather according to a constellation of customer resource endowments and deficiencies. The insights provide unique opportunities for organizations to tailor support to cus- tomers’ resources and thus enhance value cocreation efforts. Keywords resource integration, resource endowments, service provider styles, value cocreation, discriminant analysis Customers are changing the face of customer service. Armed with easy access to shared information and digital services, they possess greater capabilities to gather resources and develop skills to find solutions to their problems. As such, customers’ roles and their dependence on service providers have evolved dramatically, highlighting the diversity with which individual customers use resources. Not only are cus- tomers endowed differently with operand and operant resources but they also vary in their preferred allocation of such resources (Baron and Warnaby 2011; Hibbert, Winklhofer, and Temerak 2012; McColl-Kennedy et al. 2012). As customers become more active in service processes, firms must under- stand how to collaborate to achieve pleasurable interactions, effective usage processes, and desired outcomes (Gro ¨nroos 2006; Karpen et al. 2015). Furthermore, resource integration activities and processes executed by customers and organiza- tions may not always be harmonious, considering their distinct self-interests (Edvardsson et al. 2014). Noting that both firms and individual service providers need to understand how to optimize customers’ service experience (McColl-Kennedy et al. 2015) and tailor services to their spe- cific circumstances, this article addresses a central research question: How can service providers best support customers who have variable capacities for and approaches to resource integration in cocreating value? We posit that variations in customer resource endowments and deficiencies shape the support they need from service providers. Yet little is known about which resources customers contribute to the service (McColl-Kennedy et al. 2015), the appropriate combinations of resources for resource integration and value cocreation (Arnould, Price, and Malshe 2006; Edvardsson et al. 2014; Kleinaltenkamp et al. 2012), or the ways actors integrate resources (Ple ´ 2016). Instead, research into the resource inte- gration process itself remains in a nascent stage. In response, with this research, we conceptually frame and empirically analyze service providers’ support for customers who have variable capacities for and approaches to resource integration. Specifically, we seek to: 1 Asia School of Business, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 2 UWA Business School, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia, Australia 3 Entrepreneurship, Commercialisation and Innovation Centre, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia Corresponding Author: Jillian C. Sweeney, UWA Business School, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia. Email: jill.sweeney@uwa.edu.au Journal of Service Research 1-17 ª The Author(s) 2018 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/1094670518812195 journals.sagepub.com/home/jsr