London, N., Pogue, G., & Spinuzzi, C. (2015, July). Understanding the value proposition as a co-created claim. In 2015 IEEE International Professional Communication Conference (IPCC) (pp. 1-8). IEEE.

London, N., Pogue, G., & Spinuzzi, C. (2015, July). Understanding the value proposition as a co-created claim. In 2015 IEEE International Professional Communication Conference (IPCC) (pp. 1-8). IEEE. 

This is a conference paper. In it, London et al "examine five cases of technology commercialization in terms of how entrepreneurs advance a specific kind of claim: the value proposition."

In the context of the VP, "iterate" means develop or pivot.

First instance of the VP in the literature. "[5] M. J. Lanning and E. G. Michaels, “A business is a value delivery system,” McKinsey Staff Paper, vol. 41, pp. 1-16, 1988."

It looks like these are the sources for entrepreneurial communication so far ("Surprisingly few studies exist that examine entrepreneurship communication from a professional communication standpoint (e.g. [2], [6]-[11])."):

The [2] is "making the pitch," which you know. 

The distinction between goods dominated logic (GDL) and service dominated logic (SDL) comes from Lusch and Vargo.  

"Neither kind of claim is “right” or “wrong.” They are useful for different applications: GDL value propositions are oriented to yielding broad, diffuse opportunities in existing and well understood markets, while SDL value propositions are oriented to yielding deep, specific opportunities in newly defined markets. However, the business developers believe, and we agree, that SDL (proposal) claims are more highly developed, oriented to more potentially transformative opportunities, and more difficult to make. The firms studied here were able to transform their value propositions to address such transformative opportunities. They were able to productively pivot (that is, iterate their claims, moving from one logic to another) even in the execution phase of the customer development lifecycle." This last part goes back to the Steve Blank. For Blank, then, "in rhetorical terms, the essential claim is established in the first two steps, then serves as the foundation for the last two steps." Yet, using Latour, London et al argue that the shift from GDL to SDL can occur during even the last two stages: "the value proposition can also be iterated and developed during the “execute” phase. That is, the claim is still fluid, and in some cases (such as Firm A’s), it must be: for the technology to be taken up by stakeholders, it must be not just diffused (transported) but translated (adapted to local conditions and concerns)" The four steps to customer development are

• (1) customer discovery, 
• (2) customer validation, 
• (3) customer creation, and 
• (4) company building.  

Ok, let's do this thing altogether now. 

This is a conference paper. Using retrospective interviews with four mentors in a Korean accelerator program, London et al study five technology startups as they take their technology to market. Whereas four of the startups iterate (i.e., develop, pivot) their value proposition, one fails to and is included for contrast. Not only is this a conference paper; it's an idea or theory paper. That being said, the whole study of the Korean accelerator gets short shrift. It seems like the technology first are included only for the sake of illustrating a theoretical distinction between GDL and SDL. The GDL is product focused and associated with exchange value, whereas the SDL is customer focused and associated with use value. I mean, it's not exactly a theory paper. Look at the abstract:

In this paper, we examine five cases of technology commercialization in terms of how entrepreneurs advance a specific kind of claim: the value proposition. The value proposition can describe the characteristics of the innovation itself (Goods- Dominant Logic) or propose how the innovation will co- create value with stakeholders (Service-Dominant Logic); in the examined cases, the value proposition transitions between these two “logics,” addressing different needs in the ongoing argument.

So they find that the startups do transition between the two logics, and that SDL is associated with more success. 

Based on this insight [which occurred as a result of dialogue with customers], Firm D was able to create a dialogue that helped them to better understand the needs of the industry and cocreate a new value proposition: not an incremental savings in battery life, but long-term cumulative savings in company and consumer time as well as reduced frustration and a better consumer experience. The new value proposition, cocreated with the customers, provided far more significant value. 

They don't measure the link between SDL and success, but it's implied. The only thing that they can claim I think is that there is a shift, and that the language of GDL versus SDL fits that shift--kind of like when Spinuzzi was like, remarkably, these interviewees used OOW. 

I guess maybe the point is to develop the distinction while at the same time initiating the field of entrepreneurial communication. In any case, it's a double transformation. See fig 3. Table 3, sorry. 

Oh, this was interesting, esp since you are interested in and effectively studying the proposal. "SDL claims are primarily proposal claims, cocreated by innovators and customers; they emerge when innovators decide to discover customers’ problems rather than assuming generic problems. That is, these claims result from dialogue and inquiry in which the innovators have discussed unique challenges with specific customers, then shaped their arguments to demonstrate how those unique challenges (and the unique criteria attached to them) are addressed by the innovation. Consequently, these claims tend to be about qualitative changes rather than incremental improvements; they address so-called “blue ocean” markets that have been newly defined and thus have no other competitors [25], [26]."

You hadn't seen the distinction between blue and red ocean before. 

Yea, see. Notice how limited the claims are. 

"Through our investigation, we found that, for Firms A-D

• Value propositions were iterated during the execution phase.
• Iterating value propositions involved transitioning from GDL to SDL arguments."

https://utexas.box.com/s/bxpj2menj75fon6x3g1hxoro3bih087p