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This paper aims to investigate the ways in which “non-collaborative co-creation” can affect brand equity as perceived by independent observers. It reports a study of the different effects on that perception attributable to non-collaborative co-creation that takes the form of either “brand play” or “brand attack” and is executed either by established artists or mainstream consumers.

A 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment (brand play versus brand attack; consumer versus artist) measured observers’ perception of brand equity before and after exposure to purpose-designed co-created treatments.

Non-collaborative co-creation has a negative effect on observers’ perceptions of brand equity and brand attack, causing a stronger dilution of brand equity than brand play. Artists either mitigate the dilution or have a positive effect on those perceptions.

Future research could usefully investigate the relative susceptibility of brands to non-collaborative co-creation, the effects on brands of higher complexity than those in our experiment, exposed in higher-involvement media, and the effects of more diverse forms of co-creation.

Brand managers must recognise that co-creation carries considerable risks for brand equity. They should closely monitor and track the first signs of non-collaborative co-creation in progress. It could be beneficial to recruit artists as co-creators of controlled brand play.

This study offers a more complete insight into the effect of non-collaborative co-creation on observers’ perceptions of brand equity than so far offered by the existing literature. It connects the fields of brand management and the arts by investigating the role and impact of artists as collaborative or non-collaborative co-creators of brand equity.

This paper investigates factors that determine users’ behaviours during services co-creation, as well as those that influence their engagement in such efforts.

Study 1 relies on partial least squares structural equation modelling and between-subjects, scenario-based experiments with 633 participants to examine users’ co-creation behaviours. Study 2 uses interactive research workshops with 38 design professionals to analyse the drivers and inhibitors of users’ co-creation engagement and the likelihood of different user types to engage in it.

Dispositional and demographic factors can predict users’ behaviours during services co-creation. A proposed framework details drivers and inhibitors of users’ engagement in co-creation, and a typology predicts the likelihood of different users to engage in co-creation, based on their traits and demographics. This likelihood to co-create, according to traits, then can be predicted according to elemental, compound and situational traits.

Service providers and service designers can use these findings to design better co-creation activities for various users, build a conducive working environment and select suitable participants for co-creation activities.

The current study addresses the dearth of research pertaining to how to encourage users to co-create services and drive their engagement in such efforts.

This paper aims to present historical examples of collaborations between brand strategists and artists; provide an extensive, structured overview of existing published research on such collaborations and their effects; present seven papers comprising this special issue; and discuss ideas for further research into brand–art collaboration.

This is an editorial based mainly on an extensive and broad literature review.

First, this editorial underpins the relevance of brand–art collaboration in the past and present by reference to real examples. Second, it structures the diverse literature into four key aspects of the topic: inspiration, insights, identity and image. Third, it provides a glimpse of the seven papers selected for this special issue. Fourth and finally, it identifies a total of 16 avenues for further research, on four levels (artist, brand owner, consumer and cooperation process).

This editorial and the entire special issue together represent the first anthology on the topic of the interface between brand management and arts. The collection and classification of the existing literature, the formulation of ideas for future research and the content of the seven papers are collectively excellent starting springboards for new and fresh brand research projects.

The purpose of this study is to elaborate theory regarding the reasons why collaboration strategies fail. The relational view posits that supply chain integration can be a source of competitive advantage. Few firms, however, successfully co-create value to attain supernormal relational rents.

This study uses a quasi-longitudinal, multi-case interview methodology to explore the reasons why collaboration strategies fail to deliver intended results. The authors interviewed managers at 49 companies in Period 1 and managers at 57 companies in Period 2. In all, 15 companies participated in both rounds of interviews.

This study builds and describes a taxonomy of relational resistors. The authors then explore how sociological and structural resistors reinforce each other to undermine collaborative behavior. Specifically, the interplay among resistors: obscures the true sources of resistance; exacerbates a sense of vulnerability to non-collaborative behavior that reduces the willingness to invest in relational architecture; and inhibits the development of essential relational skills and organizational routines.

This research identifies and describes the behaviors and processes that impede successful supply chain alliances. By delving into the interplay among relational resistors, the research explains the detail and nuance of inter-firm rivalry and supply chain complexity. Ultimately, it is the re-enforcing nature of various resistors that make it so difficult for firms to realize relational rents.

This research focuses on the role of customer behavior in service outsourcing relationships that are governed by outcome-oriented contracts. The purpose of this paper is to explain how non-collaborative customer behavior impedes the effectiveness of outcome-oriented contracts to align the goals and incentives of the customer and service provider, and leads to service provider opportunism.

Nine hypotheses are developed regarding customer behavior and the reaction of the service provider to this. These are tested using structural equation modeling with data from 213 service outsourcing relationships.

Outcome-orientated contracts in service outsourcing may have unintended consequences because they create value attribution ambiguity. This ambiguity induces non-collaborative customer behavior, which, in turn, results in service provider opportunism. This reveals a paradox, where customer behavior aimed at curbing service provider opportunism instead induces such opportunism. This chain of effects can be counteracted by increased outcome attributability, which reduces the ambiguity and, thus, the motivation for non-collaborative customer behavior.

This research extends the existing literature by stressing that non-collaborative customer behavior is a key reason why outcome-oriented contracts fail in effectively governing outsourcing relationships, and that this can be counteracted by increased outcome attributability.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework for brand meaning co-creation between brands and fans on Facebook.

A case study methodology was applied. Brand posts in the form of text, pictures, videos and fan comments of three brand pages – Nike Run, Mizuno and Jack Daniel’s – were collected and analyzed in a netnographic manner. Seven influential fans of the Nike Run brand page, who were identified in the data, and one marketing manager of each brand were interviewed.

This paper shows how brand meanings are orchestrated by brand managers and co-created through a process in which the brand leads the dialog through several types of brand actions. It also shows how fans engage in this dialog through multiple forms of reactions. A brand page’s content should be curated by its manager based on the role of the content on fans’ lives and their potential reactions and not merely on the meanings that the brand desires to communicate.

This paper proposes a conceptual framework for understanding brand meaning co-creation at the micro-level of brand-fans daily interactions. Nevertheless, this study analyzed only three brand pages in two product categories – alcoholic beverages and running. Therefore, the authors do not claim that one can extrapolate from their findings.

The brand meaning co-creation process that is identified here provides a useful frame of reference for brand managers who seek to understand how they can best influence fans to co-create brand meanings in directions that benefit their companies.

This paper evolves with the co-creation of brand meanings literature by proposing a framework of brand meaning co-creation on Facebook. This framework can help brand managers to fine tune their content strategy in social media.

This paper aims to outline the role of brands as relationship builders and to offer a better understanding of the recent developments and key literature in the area of consumer–brand relationships.

This paper is an editorial based mainly on a literature review on consumer–brand relationships. It uses the sentiment range and passion intensity to position various brand relationship constructs. This work follows the same bibliometric-analysis approach used by Fetscherin and Heinrich (2014) and looked for publications in the Web of Science on brand relationships, with reference to Fournier’s (1998) seminal work and data collected for the period between January 2010 and November 2018.

First, this work presents the key consumer–brand relationship terms and positions the work on brand love, brand like, brand hate, brand dislike and brand indifference. In addition, the bibliometric analysis offers a number of insights into the current state of the academic research in the area of consumer–brand relationships, including a clear indication that the research on consumer–brand relationships is increasing.

This work and the whole special issue together help in the understanding of brands as relationship builders, clearly explaining the continuum from strong positive or negative relationships with brands to no relationship with brands and the current state of research in the area.

This study aims to examine the development of service ecosystems literature and its four premises as follows: the characterization of service ecosystems as loosely coupled systems, the existence of shared institutional arrangements among actors, the occurrence of resource-integrating interactions among actors and value co-creation as the stated purpose of service ecosystems.

With a systematic literature review, the paper identifies and analyzes 98 articles on service ecosystems. An examination and a cross-check of the central elements of the articles reveal gaps and limitations in the analysis of service ecosystems. These results lead to the formulation of four propositions and suggestions for further research.

The four premises of service ecosystems are constrained by overly optimistic perceptions that prevent theoretical advancements. These premises overlook possible tight coupling; power asymmetries; divergent interpretations of institutions and institutional arrangements; divergent interpretations of actors’ resource-integrating actions, intentions and abilities; and the co-destruction of value. Four propositions are formulated to address these challenges.

The shortcomings reflect the systematic literature review, which only covers a specific area of the extant knowledge base, namely, English-language articles published in peer-reviewed international journals.

This study extensively and critically investigates the premises of service ecosystems for the first time, proposing a more holistic, dynamic and realistic understanding of them. In so doing, it paves the way for renewed conceptualizations of service ecosystems.

This paper aims to contribute to the augmenting literature on consumer brand engagement (CBE) in social media brand communities (SMBCs) by offering the model of the depth of brand engagement funnel (DOBEF). The model is intended to complement the multi-dimensional conceptualization of CBE in the extant consumer behaviour literature and to critically address some of its foundational tenets.

A computer-mediated discourse analytic (CMDA) approach is adopted while using a mixed methods research design whereby qualitative data are quantified with a view to enhancing the robustness of the interpretive procedure. The data comprise 170 UGC posts stemming from three fast-moving consumer goods brands’ SMBC threads. Additionally, a netnographic approach is adopted in data collection, while data analysis/synthesis proceeds with the application of the laddering technique with the aid of the computer-aided qualitative discourse analytic CAQDAS software atlas.ti.

The bulk of user-generated content (UGC) in the scrutinized brand initiated thematic threads were found to be relevant, albeit negatively valenced or lacking in relevance altogether. This behavioural response pattern to brand initiated themes poses significant constraints to the level and quality of CBE. Multi-dimensional engagement across the DOBEF’s strata was found to be scarce, while engagement diminishes gravely as the upper layers of the model are reached.

By conducting analyses on coded data alongside DOBEF’s strata, rather than treating consumer comments as raw data, the narrowing down of the semantic focus of posted comments in a thread-specific fashion is enabled, thus meeting the narrow contextualization criterion that is lacking from various studies in the extant literature.

By shifting focus in identifying CBE levels in SMBCs from attitudinal/behavioural antecedents/outcomes towards the content of the interaction, a nuanced perspective is offered as regards the depth of interaction, while addressing posted comments not only in terms of valencing, but even more importantly of valorization.

By attending closely to incidents of negative brand engagement, and by dimensionalizing engagement along the funnel’s strata, a more nuanced understanding of territories where brand communities contribute to the dilution, rather than the enhancement of brand equity was obtained.

This is the first paper that discusses engagement on the grounds of deeply-laden consumer axiologies and the degree to which these are congruent with specific brand initiated thematic threads in SMBCs. It is anticipated that the discourse analytic (DA) approach that is adopted here will instigate further research that attends to UGC in a small-data, highly context-specific, rather than a big-data vein.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the main models of innovation intermediaries as determined by the matching mechanisms they offer as a service to organizations, and to reveal underlying limitations of each mechanism to have a better understanding of their appropriateness for organizational requests.

This paper reports an exploratory study of 51 online innovation intermediaries using semi-structured interviews, supported with direct observation, scientific papers and official documentary sources.

The overall findings suggest that innovation intermediaries are not homogeneous, are evolving and that the underlying mechanisms with which they support their operations vary substantially, depending on the size of the community, platform design (collaboration vs non-collaboration) and reward conditions. The study identifies five mechanisms on which the models are based: broadcast search (directed and undirected), brainstorming with ranking (directed and undirected), networking/connecting, expert group and licensing out. Some of the underlying tensions and limitations of these mechanisms are also explored as are the managerial implications for the choice and use of innovation intermediaries.

This paper identifies distinct models of online innovation intermediaries in significantly more depth than what has been presented so far. In addition, it discusses their limitations as a mechanism and their use to achieve a better match between innovation intermediaries and needs of solution-seeker companies.