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1 – 10 of 944Fernando Antonio Monteiro Christoph D’Andrea, Filipe Rigon, Ana Carolina Lopes de Almeida, Bertran da Silveira Filomena and Luiz Antonio Slongo
The purpose of this paper is to qualitatively analyze and compare people’s objectives when participating in two sets of co-creation initiatives – business-to-consumer (B2C) and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to qualitatively analyze and compare people’s objectives when participating in two sets of co-creation initiatives – business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) – to what the theory in the field states about that participation.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative approach has been adopted; it uses laddering, a qualitative technique, in a novel manner through the analysis of an abstract product: the co-creation process.
Findings
Results in B2C point to a disconnection between the motivation of participants and what the theory suggests that should be expected from a co-creation agenda. In the B2B setting, the disconnections are much smaller.
Research limitations/implications
The research used small and narrow samples. Additionally, the research considers only the consumers’ perspective.
Practical implications
Considering the context in which they compete (industrial or consumer market), companies must come up with better selection criteria for co-creators and must be more specific in setting and pursuing the goals of the co-creation projects. By doing so, organizations can achieve more fruitful results in those innovation initiatives.
Originality/value
The present study is innovative in the use of laddering to understand not a product nor a service, but a process: co-creation. The study reveals that, despite the buzz about co-creation, practical examples suggest that this process may not be as fruitful or satisfying as the theories suggest.
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Elodie Jouny-Rivier, Javier Reynoso and Bo Edvardsson
This paper aims to identify and analyze factors that determine firms’ commitment to co-create new services with business customers.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to identify and analyze factors that determine firms’ commitment to co-create new services with business customers.
Design/methodology/approach
A quantitative study based on a scenario method, involving an online survey of French service companies, reveals the determinants of commitment to service co-creation.
Findings
Customer benefits and organizational sacrifices, as well as firm-related factors (specialization, partners’ involvement and innovativeness) correlate with firms’ commitment to co-create new services. The proposed, empirically grounded model details factors that determine firms’ commitment to co-create new services with business customers, including innovative culture as a key determinant.
Practical implications
The identified factors that affect firms’ commitment to co-create services can guide managers’ efforts to improve customer relationships and thus their service innovation processes.
Originality/value
This study identifies and analyzes characteristics of committed firms, as well as the benefits and sacrifices they face in co-creating new services, in a novel way. Thus, it helps define the fit between a service offering and business customers’ participation in new service development contexts.
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Kirsten Cowan, Teea Palo, Duncan Chapple and Yiwei Zhang
The purpose of this study is to address these questions. Word-of-mouth (WOM) is increasingly important in business-to-business (B2B) decision-making. Yet, research on this topic…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to address these questions. Word-of-mouth (WOM) is increasingly important in business-to-business (B2B) decision-making. Yet, research on this topic is rather limited, and often borrows from business-to-consumer (B2C) WOM literature. The question remains as to whether these assumptions realistically occur in B2B WOM. Specifically, this study explores the following questions: What value does B2B WOM have? Why do social media influencers in B2B engage in WOM? What type(s) of social media influencers spread WOM in B2B?
Design/methodology/approach
To address these questions, this study adopts a qualitative research strategy. This study focuses on industry analysts in information technology markets who often influence the buying decisions of customers through their expertise and recommendations of technology solutions. Based on interviews with these influencers, this study explicates B2B WOM, an area the authors know much less of in comparison to B2C WOM.
Findings
This study reveals differences in who spreads WOM within B2B, their roles, key features of their content and how they spread WOM. Second, this study demonstrates the types of actors spreading WOM in B2B in relation to the type of WOM and how it actually influences B2B markets.
Originality/value
This study broadens the current definition of WOM and, specifically, showcases WOM not only as amplifying messages but as a means to co-create the market itself with vendors and clients. This research offers several contributions to the B2B WOM literature and influencer practice.
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Judith Partouche-Sebban, Saeedeh Rezaee Vessal and Fabian Bernhard
This study aims to explore the effect of value co-creation among health-care professionals and in a business-to-business (B2B) context on the involved individuals and the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the effect of value co-creation among health-care professionals and in a business-to-business (B2B) context on the involved individuals and the organization. More precisely, the effect of co-creation behaviors on the well-being of individuals, their work performance and team resilience are investigated.
Design/methodology/approach
A quantitative research design was adopted. The data collection was performed through a mail survey of a sample of 96 professionals at a cancer health-care institution in France in which several medical and paramedical providers work together to maximize service options. Linear regressions were conducted using SPSS to analyze the data.
Findings
The results highlight the positive outcomes of an active co-creation process on individual well-being, work performance and team resilience and emphasize its limits.
Originality/value
The originality of this study lies in studying co-creation in the context of the health-care service sector, among health-care professionals and from a B2B perspective. Adopting an inter-organizational frame, this study clarifies the positive and negative effects of co-creation from both personal and organizational aspects.
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Victor Saha, Praveen Goyal and Charles Jebarajakirthy
The purpose of this paper is to present a systematic review of the available literature on value co-creation (VCC) and provide insightful future directions for research in this…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a systematic review of the available literature on value co-creation (VCC) and provide insightful future directions for research in this domain.
Design/methodology/approach
The extant literature on VCC has been reviewed by collecting relevant research papers based on certain specified delimiting criteria. A total of 110 research papers have been analysed to gain useful insights into VCC literature.
Findings
The study analyses the literature on VCC and provides a clear distinction between VCC and its closely related constructs in the literature. The study also draws significant insights from the VCC literature based on some specific parameters. Some frequently used theoretical perspectives have been discussed in the study, thus pointing towards a few alternative theories that can be used for future research. Finally, specific trends emerging from the literature have been discussed that provide a comprehensive understanding of the research inclinations of this concept, along with future scopes of research in the VCC domain.
Research limitations/implications
The papers were selected for this study based on some delimiting criteria. Thus, the findings cannot be generalised for the entire research on VCC.
Originality/value
This paper fulfils the need for a systematic review of the extant literature on VCC. The study synthesises literature and bibliography on VCC from 2004 to 2019 to benefit both academics and practitioners and gives some directions to advance this domain of literature.
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Candice L. Marti, Huimin Liu, Gurpreet Kour, Anil Bilgihan and Yu Xu
In an era where complex technological advances increasingly govern service delivery, it is incumbent on service firms to pioneer innovative strategies to sustain customer…
Abstract
Purpose
In an era where complex technological advances increasingly govern service delivery, it is incumbent on service firms to pioneer innovative strategies to sustain customer engagement and cultivate loyalty. This conceptual paper examines the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in the realm of online customer communities, with a particular focus on its creation, management and enhancement facets. The authors explore how AI can revolutionize the dynamics of customer interaction, feedback mechanisms and overall engagement within the service industry.
Design/methodology/approach
This conceptual paper draws from marketing and management literature focusing on customer communities and AI in service and customer engagement contexts with a robust future research agenda.
Findings
A classification of online customer community engagement is provided along with a conceptual framework to guide our understanding of the integration of AI into online customer communities.
Originality/value
This exploration underscores the imperative for service firms to embrace AI-driven approaches to online customer community management, not only as a means to optimize their operations but as a vital strategy to stay competitive in the ever-evolving digital landscape. This paper examines the novel combination of AI with online customer communities and provides the framework in the form of an input-process-output (IPO) model for future research into this integration.
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Diah Priharsari, Babak Abedin and Emmanuel Mastio
The purpose of this paper is to explore enablers and constraints in value co-creation in sponsored online communities, and to identify firm roles in shaping value co-creation. The…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore enablers and constraints in value co-creation in sponsored online communities, and to identify firm roles in shaping value co-creation. The structured analysis is translated into strategies for practitioners and for guiding future research.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors systematically review and synthesise the literature to develop a comprehensive model of value co-creation.
Findings
The literature review findings have led to the identification of four actors in sponsored online communities, revealed enablers and constraints for value co-creation in online communities, and provided insight into the simultaneous roles of sponsoring firm (co-creator and facilitator) and the interrelationship between them.
Research limitations/implications
Like other systematic literature review studies, the findings are limited by what was reported in the papers selected for the review. The authors contribute to service-dominant logic (SDL) by bridging the macro level to the empirical level, and add to our understanding of the sociomateriality theory by capturing constraints and enablers coming from various actors.
Practical implications
The extracted enablers and constraints guide decision makers to better design, asses, monitor and support sponsored online communities. The findings also inform how to orchestrate the two sponsoring firm roles so that the online community is still attractive for the members and creates value for the sponsoring firm.
Originality/value
Given the variety of disciplines dealing with value co-creation, and given the plenitude of definitions and related concepts, this study consolidates the existing knowledge and models how value is co-created in online communities.
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Mevludiye Guzel, Bülent Sezen and Umit Alniacik
This paper aims to analyze value co-creation (VCC) in new product development from consumer’s perspective. It offers a holistic approach to consumers’ VCC behavior with its before…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to analyze value co-creation (VCC) in new product development from consumer’s perspective. It offers a holistic approach to consumers’ VCC behavior with its before (drivers) and after (consequences) stages.
Design/methodology/approach
Three consecutive studies are carried out to test the hypotheses examining the antecedents and results of co-creation behavior, as well as the behavior itself in a new headphones design context. The experimental data have been collected from 934 university students within a period of six months.
Findings
Findings suggest that extraversion and openness to experience increase consumers’ willingness to participate in VCC. Celebrity endorsers and product category involvement also affect this tendency. When consumers display co-creation behavior, they intend to purchase the product to be co-created. However, they are especially keen to buy this co-created product when their contributions are embodied in it.
Originality/value
Previous studies focus on intentions, lacking a detailed analysis of actual VCC behavior. By shedding light on co-creation behavior with its before and after stages, this paper contributes to co-creation literature with a field experiment. Consumers’ co-creation behavior has been observed in the context of new product development, which is mostly occupied by business to business research. Therefore, the results also add to research on new product development in business to consumer contexts.
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Thorsten Roser, Robert DeFillippi and Alain Samson
The purpose of this paper is to make a contribution to co‐creation theory by integrating conceptual insights from the management and marketing literatures that are both concerned…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to make a contribution to co‐creation theory by integrating conceptual insights from the management and marketing literatures that are both concerned with co‐creation phenomena. It aims to develop a reference model for comparing how different organizations organize and manage their co‐creation ventures. It also aims to apply the authors' framework to four distinct cases that illustrate the differences in co‐creation practice within different co‐creation environments.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors compare four different companies based on case profiles. Each company is employing its own distinct approach to co‐creating. The authors employ a method mix including literature analysis, structured interviews, document and web site analysis, as well as participation.
Findings
The reference model offers a set of useful dimensions for case‐based inquiry. The case comparisons show how firms may decide to systematise and manage a mix of co‐creation activities within B2B versus B2C contexts, utilising either crowd‐sourced or non‐crowd‐sourced approaches. Further, the case comparisons suggest that there are less differences in B2B versus B2C co‐creation as compared with crowd‐sourced versus non‐crowd‐sourced approaches. Ultimately, implementation decisions in one dimension of co‐creation design (e.g. whom to involve in co‐creation) will affect other dimensions of implementation and governance (e.g. how much intimacy) and thus how co‐creation needs to be managed.
Originality/value
The paper presents case comparisons utilising B2B versus B2C, as well as crowd versus non‐crowd‐sourcing examples of co‐creation and an original decision support framework for assessing and comparing co‐creation choices.
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Currently, many firms have established brand fan pages on various social network sites. The purpose of this paper is to extend the conventional trust theory, which involves only…
Abstract
Purpose
Currently, many firms have established brand fan pages on various social network sites. The purpose of this paper is to extend the conventional trust theory, which involves only perspective of trust.
Design/methodology/approach
This study targeted community members who have purchased tourist packages from travel agencies and have joined the official brand fan pages of the agencies for at least one year. A total of 646 valid samples were collected.
Findings
Structural equation modeling was employed to conduct path analyses, and the results show that the seven hypothetical paths proposed in this study are supported by the theoretical model, which exhibited desirable goodness-of-fit.
Practical implications
Finally, practical suggestions are offered for community managers.
Originality/value
This study was conducted by integrating the models of consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer interactions.
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