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In this study, an open innovation (OI) model was designed in which the organization’s human resource systems comprise the main core. To identify the various dimensions of the model, this study aims to investigate how and under what conditions the organizations update and upgrade their knowledge and experiences in the human capital (HC) systems domain within the OI framework and in line with sharing them with other organizations.

In this qualitative study, the data were collected by means of semi-structured interviews and analyzed through grounded theory, which led to the extraction of the final model.

The implementation of the HC-based OI helps upgrade knowledge in the organization and industry knowledge, create win-win relationships and increase the interaction capital, power and credit of the organization.

In this study, HC systems have been regarded as the core of the OI model (rather than an intervening factor in OI). This is the main innovative aspect of the current study. In addition, the special attention paid to the inside-out approach to OI and the examination of the human and social aspects of inter-organizational knowledge sharing – particularly in the light of the fact that the study was carried out in a developing country – are the other innovative aspects of this study.

Customer co‐creation is becoming increasingly popular among companies, and intensive communication with customers is generally seen as a determinant of the success of a new service or product. The purpose of this study is to analyze customer co‐creation based on four dimensions of communication – frequency, direction, modality, and content – in order to understand the value of customer co‐creation in service innovation. One of the key aims of the study is to investigate whether all dimensions of customer co‐creation have an effect on product and market success, and if the effect depends on the degree of innovativeness of a development project.

The authors conducted a study including 334 managers with experience in new service and product development to examine how development projects applied customer co‐creation in terms of communication in order to address future customer needs. Data were analyzed using partial least squares (PLS). The first analysis was performed with a sub‐sample of 207 development projects regarding incremental innovations. A subsequent analysis was performed with a sub‐sample of 77 development projects on radical innovations.

A total of three of the four dimensions of customer co‐creation (frequency, direction, and content) have a positive and equally significant effect on product success when developing incremental innovations. For radical innovations, frequency has a positive effect and content has a negative significant effect on product success. These findings suggest that co‐creation and innovation can be combined, but that the choice of methods for co‐creation differs depending on whether incremental or radical innovations are developed.

Despite a general consensus that co‐creation with customers is beneficial, there is a lack of agreement regarding how and why. The present article addresses this shortcoming and shows that co‐creation is largely about communicating with customers in order to understand their future needs. On the other hand, a company working on radical innovations may wish to limit customer input that is too concrete or solution based.

Over the last five decades, business to business (B2B) marketing has evolved from a transactional model to a behavioral model. This evolution is a consequence of the rise in thoughts of managing customer journeys, services marketing and acknowledging value co-creation amongst stakeholders. The contemporary B2B marketing strategies of relationship, innovation, sustainability and digital marketing that emerge through the literature review are discussed to demonstrate how they add value to the competitive advantage of firms and facilitate co-creation between business partners to help design the customer journey. The purpose of the paper is to discuss how the apparel industry could implement the B2B marketing strategies highlighted and further suggests a framework of value co-creation. The framework shows the journey between business partners followed by the value propositions as service exchange through resource integration within the service ecosystem.

Through a review of the literature, the evolution of B2B marketing unveils the importance of services marketing and how the marketing strategies discussed add value to the services marketing, this is further explored with propositions of value co-creation between business partners. The propositions are based on the theory of service dominant logic, whereby, the partners in the service ecosystem co-create value from value propositions offered by the business partners in collaboration with supply chain innovation.

A framework is suggested in the context of the apparel industry that demonstrates the value propositions as a part of the B2B marketing strategy. Through resource integration and collaboration between the business partners, the value propositions in the form of services, are exchanged resulting in value co-creation that leads to the ultimate offering to the end customer.

The service dominant logic theory and the supply chain innovation model are the basis of the framework, showing the value propositions made, are in collaboration between the firm and the supply chain partners. The value propositions in the form of services are exchanged as an outcome of resource integration amongst the business partners resulting in value co-creation which will aid apparel manufacturers differentiate their services and manage customer journeys better. The framework will be further researched through primary research to determine its rationality in the real-world context. The nature of the industry being fast paced, the literature will be outdated in a short span of time and with the vast growth, new strategies will need to be executed eventually.

The paper discusses how the apparel industry can move forward with the B2B marketing strategies highlighted through the literature review and further suggests a framework of value co-creation. This will aid apparel manufacturers to focus their marketing efforts in an era of services marketing and compete better globally with service offerings.

The competitive advantage strategies and other key emerging themes of co-creation, value co-creation and customer journeys are highlighted and shows increasing importance to the survival of businesses in an era of service orientation and relationship marketing.

Through a critical literature review of B2B marketing strategies and with the use of theoretical models of service dominant logic and supply chain innovation, the conceptual paper proposes a framework by the authors that allows future research to analyse value co-creation in B2B marketing strategies for the apparel industry.

Many firms use customer co-creation practices with the aim of benefiting from their customers’ knowledge, skills and resources. This paper aims to explore co-creation processes which involve users with different background characteristics and motivational drivers.

The study builds on an analysis of data from six teams in which users collaborated with in-house professionals for the development of new service concepts. Observations and open-ended questionnaires provided insights into the teams’ development processes. Independent experts rated the generated concepts. The data were analysed using cross-comparison matrices.

The findings suggest that the co-creation process and outcomes can be influenced by numerous intra-team factors, including relationship and task conflicts, participation style, team bonding, team identity and cohesiveness and intra-team collaboration. Their occurrence and influence seem to be linked with a specific team composition. A conceptual co-creation process model and six propositions are used to describe the complex relationships between team composition, intra-team factors and key innovation outcomes.

Research that investigates user involvement in teams needs to consider the complexity of intra-team factors affecting the development process and outcomes. The findings are limited to a specific setting, design task and user sample. Future research should replicate this study in different sectors.

Key to customer co-creation is the systematic recruitment of users based on their background characteristics and motivational drivers. For instance, the involvement of users with very specific innovation-related benefit expectations can cause conflict, leading to narrowly focused outcomes. This, however, can be mitigated by the form of facilitation and roles adopted by in-house professionals. Understanding intra-team dynamics can allow the firm to assemble and facilitate customer co-creation so that generated outcomes can align with set innovation targets.

This paper provides original insights into the “black box” of the customer co-creation process and the complex relationship between team composition, intra-team factors and key innovation outcomes.

Online information research on hotels is gradually emerging as a key area of research with the increasing use of social media as a platform for co-creative service innovation (CCSI). The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between the key drivers of co-creation intention in the social media context. Understanding relationships between key drivers of customers’ co-creation intention will prove valuable in advancing current knowledge about service innovation using social media. The key drivers examined in this study are – customer innovativeness, attitude toward CCSI on social media, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control. This knowledge will be of considerable value for its practical application in the hotel industry.

Data were collected from 346 hotel guests using survey method. Structural equation modeling with a bootstrapping estimation was used to analyze the data.

The results show that customer innovativeness, attitude toward CCSI on social media, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control positively influence both co-creation and adoption intention. Further, it was also found that co-creation intention mediates the relationship between its two driving factors, namely, customer innovativeness, attitude toward CCSI in social media and adoption intention.

The findings provide theoretical implications for hospitality discipline. The findings also provide various strategies hospitality firms can use to co-create service innovation through the effective use of social media.

The relationships examined in the present study have not been tested previously; this is the first attempt of the kind. Thus, the associations established in this study form an important contribution to the existing body of knowledge in co-creation, service innovation and social media literature.

The purpose of this article is to present the outcome of a co‐creation service innovation project, both to understand the possible outcome when using a process model and to achieve a better understanding of how customers experience participation in co‐creation in an open service innovation project. The article also discusses the outcome of co‐creation in terms of new knowledge concerning customers' needs, both expressed and latent needs compared to the knowledge gained through a regular guest survey.

The study is based on 29 in‐depth interviews that were conducted subsequent to participation as visitors in a service innovation project which involved testing a model for user involved service innovation. In the process model users were asked to be attentive and produce real time documentations. The co‐creation in this case thus occurred when obtaining input for service innovation ideation.

Participants (visitors to a Swedish zoo), had mixed opinions about their participation in the project. Favourable experiences, such as benevolence and deepened relationships, were balanced by unfavourable experiences such as incapability and intrusion. Also a user involved service innovation approach as the one studied provides valuable knowledge about customers suggested to be useful for service innovation. Users presented a wide range of real time documentations; from brief comments about certain aspects of their experience to more detailed suggestions for future services.

The study provides empirical evidence regarding the importance of adopting a user's perspective towards service innovation. This is unlike previous research, which has been limited to the study of how companies perceive and can manage co‐creation in a manner that is beneficial for them. The study also connects to this perspective by suggesting that co‐creation both enhances opportunities for successful service innovation and provides a deeper understanding of customers' needs.

This paper aims to identify and analyze factors that determine firms’ commitment to co-create new services with business customers.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to deliver a summary of the influential work regarding value co-creation in the context of social media. Although, research on the role of social media in co-creation and new product development is growing field; the extant literature is still in developing stage, which needs systematization and categorization to comprehend its current stage and previous research.

For this purpose, existing literature on social media and co-creation was studied. Initially, a citation analysis was conducted of influential papers correlated with the topic to identify three streams of research. Later, thematic analysis was carried out to explore specific themes within these categories.

Through citation analysis three research streams namely customer’s co-creation on new product development, firm specific capabilities for knowledge sharing, absorption and processing and new opportunities were identified. Later, total four categories were identified through thematic analysis which contains different sub-themes such as test of theories, proposed theoretical frameworks, lead users characteristics, customer’s motivation and experience regarding co-creation, online communities of customers and open innovation.

This study also categorizes and systemizes the extant literature exploring role of social media in value co-creation. Such systematic review of the extant literature will help the academicians to understand the previous stream of work and pursue a particular line of enquiry in furthering the understanding of interaction between social media and co-innovation.

This work is particularly useful for practitioners as more firms are moving the business online. These firms are actively using social media and user-generated content to gain insight into customer’s preferences. By increasing the participation of customers and lead users through online communities, firms can also increase customer’s commitment.

The paper adds to the extant literature by identifying research streams and themes in the extant literature on the role of social media in value co-creation. Later, these themes are abductively linked to develop a theoretical framework.

Although value co-creation has been widely analyzed in digital contexts and various types of services (tourism, healthcare, etc.), it has received less study in the area of retail distribution. This study proposes that trust in the retailer and perceived support can encourage co-creation behavior on various levels: a basic level related to communication of service errors and a moderate-high level related to participation in service innovation. This study also proposes modeling for two different segments according to the participation in a loyalty program and according to the relationship duration.

A survey (N = 644) was used to test the model in the context of the consumer goods retail industry. Confirmatory factor analysis and multigroup structural equation modeling techniques were used to assess the proposed model.

The results show differences in the formation of co-creation behaviors depending on the customers analyzed. To encourage communication of service errors, customers affiliated to the program and customers with the longest customer-firm relationships must trust the distributor. Perceived support is crucial in encouraging feedback on service errors among non-affiliated and new customers. For promoting service innovation, the most significant antecedent is perceived support, followed by trust, independently of whether or not the customer belongs to the loyalty program. Customers with the longest relationship participate in co-innovation motivated equally by trust and perceived support. Customers with shorter relationship duration only participate in co-innovation if they perceived support.

This study contributes to deepening knowledge of co-creation behavior in the field of retail distribution. To date, research in this context has not considered the existence of various levels of co-creation: the basic level related to feedback on service errors and the moderate/high level related to participation in service co-innovation. Nor have studies tested the influence of trust and perceived support on these co-creation behaviors. Further, this study is the first study to integrate two significant variables that moderate retailers' strategy in the same model: membership in a loyalty program and duration of customer-firm relationship.