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Co-production is an important process that alters value creation and improves the relationships between service providers and their customers. Such practice allows customers and service employees to access and leverage resources residing in their relationships. Clearly, the marketing-related literature focuses on the bright side of co-production. Nevertheless, the costs and potential negative consequences associated with its dark side must be further investigated. Therefore, this study aims to present a conceptual framework that explores the relationships among co-production, co-production enjoyment, co-production intensity, service effort, and job stress, and their effects on value co-creation, value co-destruction and customer satisfaction.

This study was conducted on the basis of dyadic data; the process incorporates both the customer and the corresponding service employee into a single unit of analysis. The proposed model was tested by using a structural equation model that involves LISREL analyses.

The results of this study indicate that co-production influences co-production enjoyment, co-production intensity, service effort, and job stress. Co-production enjoyment and service effort increase value co-creation, whereas co-production intensity and job stress increase value co-destruction. Value co-creation and value co-destruction have different effects on customer satisfaction.

This study addresses the gap in the extant research and contributes to a better understanding of the double-sided effects of co-production by integrating employees and customers into a single dyadic and comprehensive model.

As other actors in the service ecosystem often have a pivotal role in value creation for actors experiencing vulnerability, this paper aims to explore caregiving customer value co-creation in services for animal companions.

Study 1 follows a two-step procedure, using two different qualitative approaches (interviews and observations) to identify caregiving customer value co-creation activities. Study 2 serves to empirically test a higher-order structure of caregiving customer participation behaviour in value co-creation and test for differences regarding customer and service characteristics (questionnaire survey; n = 680).

The results reveal the existence of various value co-creation activities towards the service provider (e.g. cooperation under consideration of the animal companion’s needs) and animal companion (e.g. emotional support). Significant differences in individual caregiving customers’ activities were found regarding gender, age, type of service and animal companion. Caregiving customer value co-creation is influenced by emotional attachment and has a positive effect on value outcomes for both the caregiving customer and the animal companion.

This study extends and enriches customer value co-creation literature by providing innovative findings on various such caregiving activities and value outcomes in services for (non-human) actors experiencing vulnerability. It also adds knowledge by showing differences in customer value co-creation behaviour regarding specific customer and service characteristics.

In the co-creation process from a network perspective, service is produced, designed, and evaluated entirely by the actors with dynamic roles and with less participation by the firm's employees in the service process. The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical model that represents environmental stimuli and value perceptions that contribute to service co-creation behaviour in an online network.

A total of 36 semi-structured interviews were conducted with members of two online programming communities – GitHub and Stack Overflow co-creators, with the data analysed using thematic analysis. The stimulus-organism-response model guided the development of the final model.

Social influence and trust are influential in actor value perceptions, including primary and network value, the interplay of which leads actors to co-production, supportive, and administrative behaviour. Environmental factors do not directly drive actors; rather it is the value that initiates and drives actors, which, by extension, initiates and drives the co-creation of services.

The service co-creation behaviour model provides a basis for future research in the co-creation and co-destruction context to model behaviours within the online network organisation setting and thereby enable improvement of such systems. This model can be operationalised in a network environment through design features.

This paper provides a rich understanding of environmental stimuli and value perception factors that contribute to the co-creation of services, and identifies different types of behaviours in dynamic online networks. This paper presents a new model of different types of behaviours emerging from actor participation in the co-creation process.

Many changes that call for concerted social action were observed in society and business performance during the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak. The impact of digitization and customer participation was evident in providing medical guidelines, updates on government initiatives, education or the supply of essential services during lockdown in many countries. However, there were aberrations. The purpose of this study is to explore some consumers and firms' being better equipped for service co-creation than others, specifically during a pandemic; the different degrees of service co-creation and the possible outcomes of customer participation in the service context.

Qualitative study with 35 in-depth interviews of supply- and demand-side actors, with coding and analysis of interview transcripts was conducted.

The authors identify two levels of service co-creation: (1) service co-development and (2) service co-evaluation that are affected by customer capabilities and firm/institutional barriers. The outcome of service co-creation lies in the social, economic and experiential values thus created. A pandemic strengthens the effect of antecedents (customer capabilities and firm capabilities) on the co-creation process.

Managers can refer to the findings to manage customer engagements and co-creations effectively, especially during a pandemic.

The impact of the pandemic on the service co-creation process in an emerging market, and the antecedents (firm- and customer-side) and consequences (mutual value outcomes) of service co-creation and actor participation are explored.

Despite increasing interest in offshoring of knowledge-intensive services, it is still undetermined as to whether the sourcing of services truly creates the anticipated value for clients. Moreover, even less is known about whether value is created for service providers in the process beyond the general service trade. This lack of knowledge is due to the challenges of capturing value creation, the unique production process of the services, and the impact of offshoring on both value creation and the production process. The purpose of this paper is to study offshored service production processes of knowledge-intensive services in order to identify direct and indirect value creation for clients as well as service providers in the process.

The paper applies a multiple case study method and studies one conglomerate with three offshored service production processes. The chosen method allows for the investigation of the service production process and indirect/direct value creation within the process.

The study finds that there is direct value creation for the client and the service provider towards the end of the production processes as expected. However, more importantly, it finds additional indirect value creation in various production stages. The indirect value is reflected in enhanced understanding of problems and own operations for the client and increased knowledge about clients and problem-solving approaches for the service provider.

This study contributes to offshoring literature by providing a comprehensive understanding of value creation in service offshoring for clients as well as service providers. It also contributes to the service management literature as a study of direct and indirect value creation in services, particularly within the production process of the services.

The study allows practitioners to gain insights on the value creation logic of offshored services and the value created beyond that logic. More specifically, it allows client firms to gain details of various values and benefits of service offshoring and service provider firms to gain a focused perspective on value creation in their own service production that can lead to competitive advantages.

The paper is novel and original through its approach to study offshoring from a value creation logic perspective, including not only the client but also the service provider perspective. It also applies a service production process perspective that is novel in offshoring literature.

The increasing financial burden and complexity of health-care services, exacerbated by factors such as an ageing population and the rise of chronic conditions, necessitate comprehensive and integrated care approaches. While co-created service design has proven valuable in transforming some service industries, its application to the health-care industry is not well understood. This study aims to examine how health consumers are involved in health-care service co-creation.

The study searched 11 electronic databases for peer-reviewed articles published between 2010 and 2019. Additionally, hand searches of reference lists from included studies, Google^© citation searches and searches for grey literature were conducted. The Whittemore and Knafl integrative framework guided the systematic review, and Callahan’s 6 Ws framework was used to extract data from the included articles, facilitating comparisons.

The authors identified 21 articles, mainly from the UK, North America and Australia. Despite the need for more research, findings reveal limited and geographically narrow empirical studies with restricted theory and method applications. From these findings, the authors constructed a conceptual model to enhance nuanced understanding.

This study offers four contributions. First, it introduces the Health Service Design Transformation Model for Comprehensive Consumer Co-Creation, illustrating health consumers’ multifaceted roles in shaping services. Second, consumer vulnerabilities in co-creating services are identified, linked to diverse consumer groups, power dynamics and decision complexity. Third, this study suggests broadening participant inclusion may enhance consumer-centricity, inclusivity and innovation in service design. Finally, the research agenda explores consumer experiences, organizational dynamics, value outcomes and co-creation theory for health-care service advancement.

This paper aims to develop a model that supports public organisations in making informed strategic decisions as to which public services are most suitable to be improved through co-creation. Thus, it first identifies the features that make public services (un)suitable for co-creation and then applies this knowledge to develop a multi-criteria decision support model for the assessment of their co-creation readiness.

The decision support model is the result of design science research. While its structure is determined by a qualitative multi-criteria decision analysis, its substance builds on a content analysis of Web of Science papers and over a dozen empirical case studies.

The model is comprised of 13 criteria clustered into two groups: service readiness criteria from the perspective of service users and service readiness criteria from the perspective of a public organisation.

The model attributes rely on a limited number of empirical cases and references from the literature review. The model was tested by only one public organisation on four of its services.

The paper shifts the research focus from organisational properties and capacity, as the key co-creation drivers and barriers, to features of public services as additional factors that affect the prospect of co-creation. Thus, it makes a pioneering step towards the conceptualisation of the idea of “service readiness for co-creation” and the development of a practical instrument that supports co-creation in the public sector.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an enhanced conceptual model for the integrated public service (IPS) functionality of the European interoperability framework (EIF). The enhanced model incorporates co-creation within the three stages of the IPS cycle. While co-creation can provide innovative routes to overcome interoperability challenges, how co-creation can be a part of the EIF has not been tackled before (Casiano Flores, et al., 2021).

A preferred Reporting Items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses scoping literature review was used to develop the model and identify decisive aspects of co-creation, service users and service providers. Next, a purposive snowball sampling of grey literature comprising primarily of official documentation produced by the European Union was then undertaken to further inform the central argument. Finally, the subsequent validation of the model and derived conclusions was undertaken both internally and externally by peers and experts.

Relationships between key sets of actors during co-creation are bi-directional. Furthermore, different sets of actors are, in turn, service providers and service users depending on the service provided and the stage in the public service cycle under consideration. Understanding these bi-directional interrelationships can help improve public services provided by governmental actors through collaboration with users.

Most public service delivery models see relationships between key stakeholders as unidirectional and one-dimensional. By contrast, this study proposes a shift in paradigm where IPS users are not passive actors and mere consumers of services but instead are key stakeholders actively participating in IPS provision.

Although customer co-creation has received a significant amount of attention in both practice and academics, most of the previous studies have been conducted from the customer perspective while how service employees are involved in the customer value co-creation process has been rarely examined. To fill in this gap, the purpose of this paper is to develop a scale of employee involvement in customer value co-creation, and test a theoretical model that investigates the antecedents and consequences of employee involvement in customer value co-creation.

Based on a comprehensive literature review and 12 in-depth interviews with service employees, a scale of employee involvement in customer value co-creation was developed in Study 1. The items were purified, and the construct validity and reliability were evaluated via a survey (n = 178). In Study 2, the newly developed scale was cross-validated in a new service context and a conceptual model was tested by estimating a structural equation model with survey data collected from service employees (n = 225).

The newly developed scale of employee involvement in customer value co-creation has demonstrated sufficient construct validity and reliability across different service contexts. Moreover, the results show that both customer orientation and perceived organizational support are positively associated with employee involvement in customer value co-creation, which, in turn, influences employees’ job satisfaction and job stress. In addition, firm cross-functional cooperation strengthens the relationships between perceived organizational support and employee involvement in customer value co-creation.

Future research from other service contexts and countries is needed to confirm the generalizability of the new scale and the findings.

The findings of the study will provide implications to service managers regarding where to focus their organizational resources and how to facilitate employee involvement in customer value co-creation.

This study takes an initial step to develop a scale of employee involvement in customer value co-creation and test the antecedents and consequences of employee involvement in customer value co-creation.

This study aims to identify and classify the types of value stemming from cooperative creation of experience among customers present in various social and interaction-rich service settings, thus leading to customer–customer value co-creation.

This exploratory qualitative study uses phenomenological approach and involves ten semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted in different interaction-rich service settings. The interviews were analysed using soft laddering interview technique to uncover various customer-to-customer (C2C) co-created values.

Based upon the literature available and the interviews conducted, the types of value classified in this study are hedonic value (further classified as relational/social/interactional value, emotional value, epistemic/novelty/learning/information-seeking, personal value and symbolic/expressive value), atmospheric value and economic/utilitarian value (efficiency and quality).

One of the major limitations would be the small number of interviews conducted in a few service setups, which makes it difficult to generalise the results. Also, customer–customer interactions, leading to value co-creation online, were not considered.

By facilitating C2C value co-creation, service firms would be able to obtain increased contributory support among customers and also facilitate its customers in providing superior customer experience indirectly to others present, which is considered to be the ultimate goal of a firm.

This would be among the first studies to classify the types of value taking place when customers interact among themselves and to provide concrete suggestions for the managers fostering C2C value co-creation during a service.