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This chapter looks at how Goal 17 on partnerships can be a lever of change. It discusses the partnership approach to achieving the SDGs and unravels the key functions of networks and partnerships, such as knowledge sharing, coordination, and collaborative governance. It carefully explains why we need to shift the focus of the global debate from collaborative governance to the cocreation of public value outcomes. It then provides a schematic account of the different steps in the process of cocreating outcomes, which include initiation, design, implementation, and evaluation. Finally, the chapter identifies the key merits of cocreation and looks its dark side straight in the eye.

This chapter explains how cocreation can be supported by establishing platforms, which provide knowledge, resources, and opportunities for local actors to come together in cocreation arenas. Platforms make it easy for local actors to connect, interact, and engage in productive joint activity. The chapter provides an overview of different types of platforms and describes their distinctive organizing logic, which includes mediating the relationship between different stakeholders, scaffolding their joint action, and leveraging their capacity for change. The chapter identifies important platform dynamics, such as attractor and amplifier effects, synergy, scaling, and social learning, that enable them to successfully support cocreation. Finally, the chapter discusses how platforms themselves can be designed to enhance these dynamics.

This chapter examines the translation of generic global goals into local action. It first discusses the translation of global goals into national agendas and the challenges of localizing the goals. Localizing the goals is essential for ensuring that the SDGs reflect local needs, norms, and values, thus ensuring that local actors find them relevant and meaningful. The chapter argues that cocreation is a key vehicle for the localization of the SDGs and identifies the key benefits that arise from using cocreation as a localization strategy. Cocreation can foster the will and capacity for local governments and communities to advance the cause of sustainability. Cocreation can help communities integrate the sustainable development goals, identify hidden resources, build support networks, create social accountability, etc.

Purpose – The purpose of this essay is to explore further the concept of value cocreation from a service-ecosystems view, by considering the importance of networks and the configuration of relationships and resources in markets.

Methodology/approach – We use a conceptual approach to extend a service-dominant (S-D) logic, ecosystems view of value cocreation by drawing on the literature regarding networks in marketing and related research.

Findings – A service-ecosystems approach to cocreating value-in-context is proposed, which points toward networks as mediating factors in value cocreation because they influence the ability to access, adapt, and integrate resources by establishing exchange relationships and shaping the social contexts through which value is experienced.

Research implications – This research suggests that value cocreation is a complex and multidimensional process that is best studied in the context of dynamic networks or ecosystems of service exchange.

Practical implications – This research suggests that networks mediate value cocreation, and thus, firms should consider the configurations of relationships and resources to develop more compelling value propositions.

Social implications – This research draws on the idea that exchange relationships are embedded within society and suggests that processes of value cocreation not only draw on but also contribute to the social contexts that frame market exchange.

Originality/value of essay – This research extends the value cocreation and S-D logic literature by exploring the role of networks in service ecosystems. In this framework, networks are mediators of value cocreation because they enable access to resources and help to (re)shape social contexts through which value is derived.

This chapter argues that failure to secure accountability can be costly because it raises doubts about the fairness, salience, and impact of cocreation. Cocreation must establish accountability with respect to four different audiences: sponsors, relevant stakeholders, affected citizens, and the general public. The chapter discusses the challenges of trying to solely hold cocreation networks and partnerships accountable based on formal accountability mechanisms. It argues that these formal mechanisms must be supplemented with social and more informal strategies of accountability. Finally, the chapter considers how changemakers can strengthen social and informal accountability in and around cocreating networks and partnerships.

This chapter argues that despite the horizontal and self-organizing character of cocreation processes, leadership is essential for initiating and facilitating collaboration and securing the production of effective SDG solutions. Leadership is defined as a two-way street between leaders who guide their followers and enable them to reach their goals and followers who provide valuable input to leaders in a bottom-up process. Five crucial leadership functions are identified and the role of power in leadership is discussed. The chapter also considers the particular strategies for leading cocreation networks and partnerships and the skills and competencies necessary for pursuing these strategies. Finally, the chapter describes the importance of building leadership capacity through the recruitment of leadership teams.

The purpose of this chapter is to systematically review and explore the nature of marketing in higher education (HE) and consider the creation of value through the cocreation process. The objectives of the review were: to collect, document, scrutinize, and critically analyze the current research literature on value elements in marketing and how cocreation between the sender (school) and receiver (student) happens; to establish the scope of education marketing; to identify gaps in the research literature; and to make recommendations for further research in this field.

The approach for this study entailed extensive searches of relevant business management and education databases on value-based marketing and cocreation. The intention was to ensure that, as far as possible, all literature in the field was identified – while keeping the focus on literature of greatest importance to the research question.

The potential benefits of applying marketing theories and concepts which have been effective in the commercial world are being adopted by researchers and managers in the field of not-for-profit education marketing. However, the literature on educational marketing is inconsistent, even contradictory, and lacks theoretical models that reflect upon the particular context of educational marketing and the use of value in the marketing of school services.

The research field of educational marketing, value, and cocreation is still at a relatively pioneer stage with much research still to be carried out both from a problem-identification and also from a strategic perspective. Despite the literature on the marketization of schools and higher education and student behavior, research does not provide evidence of the marketing strategies that have been implemented and marketing of schools remains limited, and this is relatively uncharted territory.

This chapter reviews the literature in the field, focusing on marketing strategies of value and cocreation in the competitive school market for students.

The theoretical findings suggest there is a place for value development and the use of cocreation in the marketing of schools by engaging the student in the process and providing complete transparency and a proper feedback loop. From a managerial position, the findings present changes in how schools should be marketed with more focus on objectives, strategies, marketing tools, staff and student engagement, and performance measures.

The overall conclusion drawn is that marketing of schools has relevance; however, the relevance is only useful if value is developed over time, and supports the school brand and the values that are associated with it in a competitive market.

This chapter insists that evaluation of the process and results of cocreation is a precondition for continuous improvement and helps maintain support from external sponsors and funders. The main benefits of systematic evaluation of cocreation are learning and legitimacy rather than control and allocation. The chapter scrutinizes the two most common evaluation tools, formative and summative evaluation, and finds that they both fail to appreciate the emergent character of cocreation processes. The solution to this problem is to supplement formative and summative evaluation with developmental evaluation, which prompts the participating actors to engage in a critical interrogation of what they are doing, the reasons for doing it, and the results they achieve. Finally, the chapter explains how the commitment of developmental evaluation to using real-time data in the evaluation of change theories can be pursued through a collective impact strategy.

This concluding chapter summarizes the critical insights that changemakers ought to consider in their attempt to lead and manage cocreation processes and enhance their impact. The chapter also addresses three crucial challenges to the advent of a sustainable future: the need to rethink the assumptions of mainstream economics, the need to secure political stability in times of rapid societal change; and the demand for the deepening democracy. Finally, the chapter argues that local efforts to build a sustainable future will only succeed if key economic, political, and democratic challenges are effectively dealt with at the global and national levels.