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Social media has significantly impacted the value creation processes within the consumer–brand relationship. This study aims to examine value formation processes within a cosmetics social media brand community and to establish the types of value formation associated with different categories of interactions within a social media brand community.

The research adopted a netnographic approach and followed the operational protocols of netnography. Conversations in one large cosmetics social media brand community were observed and downloaded for analysis over a two-month period. Examples of value-creation and formation processes were identified using netnographic interpretative procedures to develop higher-order themes.

The findings supported the creation of a “Consumer and brand value creation and co-creation framework” highlighting disparate value types within the following interactions: consumer-to-consumer; brand-to-consumer; and consumer-to-brand. The identified value types were specific to the actors (i.e. consumers and brands) involved in value formation processes. The analysis also revealed consumers’ ability to independently generate value through direct interaction with a social media brand community and the brands’ role in supporting consumers in value formation through value facilitation.

The pivotal role of disparate actors’ interactions in value formation processes is highlighted, alongside the autonomous ability to form value with the aid of resources stored and shared within the social media brand community. The network of interactions and value-creation processes contribute to a holistic understanding of the interactions in a social media brand community. Furthermore, the research explores and highlights the emerging role of social media brand communities as “value vestiges”.

Scholars have affirmed that a conceptualization of value co-creation in business relationships should reflect the nature and characteristics of interactional processes that occur in use. The advent of sales and marketing technologies, however, is changing the nature and dynamics of interactions. New trends in digitalization have played a significant role in emphasizing and facilitating the occurrence of business-to- business (B2B) collaborative or sharing economy. The B2B sharing economy and value co-creation are closely intertwined, as businesses harness the power of shared resources and collaboration to generate value in diverse ways. This study highlights the importance of going beyond value co-creation in studying B2B collaborative economy, unpacking the interconnected value processes that influence value co-creation. It also aims at showing the activities that characterize multiple joint value spheres among actors.

The study consists of 49 qualitative interviews with managers operating in different industries.

The paper shows that when considering digital B2B contexts, five joint value spheres in business relationships should be considered: a value co-creation, a value appropriation, a value communication, a value measurement and a value representation sphere. Each one is characterized by specific activities that are relevant from a managerial point of view.

This study highlights that value co-creation has often been over stressed when discussing business interactions, also with the advent of new technologies. Rather, this study offers a more comprehensive view of value co-creation that includes different value processes occurring in joint value spheres. These further processes are relevant because failure and success in business relationships within the B2B sharing economy are often dependent from activities outside the value co-creation process, which strongly affect it. Such knowledge will also open up new research venues and opportunities to better contribute to the practice of value management in business relationships.

This study investigates how role overload in the sharing economy leads to emotional exhaustion, which restricts value co-creation activity, and also investigates the moderating effect of perceived platform support.

Two experimental investigations and field research questionnaires were given to respondents with shared mobility industry expertise.

First, role overload detrimentally affects service providers' value co-creation behavior; second, emotional exhaustion acts as a mediator between role overload and value co-creation behavior; and finally, perceived platform support moderates the adverse effect of role overload on emotional exhaustion.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first to explore the antecedents of value co-creation behavior from the service provider's perspective, extending the application of COR theory in a sharing economy context.

First, alternative mediators between role overload and emotional exhaustion were not identified. Second, other dimensions of role overload and their impacts were not examined. Lastly, this study did not explore broader perspectives beyond algorithms.

This study recommends that managers reduce role overload ex ante in terms of clarifying responsibilities and obligations, providing substantive resource support and rationalizing order allocation, respectively.

In response to the rise of socially conscious consumers, brands have been taking a strategic approach to corporate social responsibility (CSR) to drive brand equity. Nevertheless, merely engaging in CSR is not enough to have a positive impact on the value consumers give to a brand. The success of a CSR program depends on its consumers’ perceived authenticity. Therefore, this study aims to investigate how the perception of CSR authenticity, and consequently brand equity, can be enhanced by leveraging brand value co-creation.

The study uses a mixed-method approach to test its hypotheses. Study 1 collects survey data from a national representative sample in the USA, which is analyzed using structural equation modeling. Study 2 collects experimental data from a public university’s research pool, also in the USA, which is analyzed using ANOVA and mediation analysis.

This study demonstrates that when consumers believe that a brand is co-creative – i.e. consumers are allowed to participate in the creation of value – they will likely perceive the brand’s CSR program as more authentic, which in turn will positively affect brand equity.

The findings of this study offer implications for academics and brand managers interested on how to effectively leverage CSR for brand building. Specifically, it demonstrates that embracing CSR alone may not be sufficient to enhance brand equity and that brand managers should consider leveraging co-creation to strengthen perceptions of CSR authenticity.

This study aims to investigate whether higher value creation leads to higher value appropriation and to identify the boundary conditions in a buyer–supplier relationship that can explain why a particular supplier can appropriate higher value than others.

The study uses questionnaire surveys. The sample of the survey has 150 publicly-listed supplier firms in Taiwan. The unit of analysis is the buyer–supplier relationship.

In the buyer–supplier relationship, suppliers’ bargaining power, partnership and a supplier’s original brand manufacturing (OBM) business can strengthen the positive relationship between value creation and value appropriation.

This study adopts the unilateral viewpoint of suppliers; however, some constructs might require dyadic evaluation. This study only explores the spillover effect of OBM business on the relationship between value creation and appropriation.

The spillover effect of a supplier’s OBM business in a buyer–supplier relationship allows the buyer to share more common benefits and the supplier to capture more private benefits as compensation. By broadening its customer base, a supplier can increase its bargaining power. A supplier can also maintain a strategic partnership with each essential buyer.

To avoid the dark-side effect of partnership, the model provides the contingency that a supplier can capture more value from a buyer–supplier relationship.

This article aims to examine how users' involvement in value co-creation influences the development and orchestration of well-being ecosystems to help tackle complex societal challenges. This research contributes to the public management literature and answers recent calls to investigate novel public service governances by discussing users' involvement and value co-creation for novel well-being solutions.

The authors empirically explore this phenomenon through a case study of a complex ecosystem addressing increased well-being, focussing on the formative evaluation stage of a longitudinal evaluation of Sweden's first support centre for people affected by cancer. Following an abductive reasoning and action research approach, the authors critically discuss the potential of user involvement for the development of well-being ecosystems and outline preconditions for the success of such approaches.

The empirical results indicate that resource reconfiguration of multi-actor collaborations provides a platform for value co-creation, innovative health services and availability of resources. Common themes include the need for multi-actor collaborations to reconfigure heterogeneous resources; actors' adaptive change capabilities; the role of governance mechanisms to align the diverse well-being ecosystem components, and the engagement of essential actors.

Although using a longitudinal case study approach has revealed stimulating insights, additional data collection, multiple cases and quantitative studies are prompted. Also, the authors focus on one country but the characteristics of users' involvement for value co-creation in innovative well-being ecosystems might vary between countries.

The findings of this study demonstrate the value of cancer-affected individuals, with “lived experiences”, acting as sources for social innovation, and drivers of well-being ecosystem development. The findings also suggest that participating actors in the ecosystem should utilise wider knowledge and experience to tackle complex societal challenges associated with well-being.

Policymakers should encourage the formation of well-being ecosystems with diverse actors and resources that can help patients navigate health challenges. The findings especially show the potential of starting from the user's needs and life situation when the ambition is to integrate and innovate in fragmented systems.

The proposed model proposes that having a user-led focus on innovating new solutions can play an important role in the development of well-being ecosystems.

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.

Customers' participation in the online health community to create value with the brand is growing research interest. In addition, customers are using social media platforms to create value in the food sector. This rises points to the need to study consumers' interactions with online communities and the role of social media content and customer satisfaction in such an environment.

This research collects data using a survey approach. The data were analysed using a partial least square-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).

The findings indicated the impact of social media content and satisfaction on value co-creation in healthy food online communities. The study’s results provide significant new insights into the food sector during the pandemic.

This research enhances the knowledge of satisfaction and value co-creation in the social media context. The findings build on the previous literature on value co-creation, add to the food sector and explain the mediating role of satisfaction between social media content and value co-creation.

This paper aims to investigate how value drivers of internet medical business model affect value creation through a configurational approach. The internet medical business model (IMBM) is such a business model that integrates online and offline medical services with the driving force of internet technologies covering prediagnosis, in-diagnosis and postdiagnosis. The outbreak of COVID-19 and the support of national policies have boosted the development of internet health care. However, there are still many challenges in practice, such as the unclear innovation path, as well as difficulties in landing and profiting. Academic research has not yet provided sufficient theoretical insights. Therefore, to better explain and guide practice, it is urgent to clarify the innovation path and mechanism of value creation for IMBM.

Based on the sample of 58 internet medical firms in China, this paper adopts fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to explore the configurational effects of IMBM’s value drivers on value creation.

Building on the business model canvas and the characteristics of internet health care, five value drivers of IMBM are identified, namely, functional value proposition, emotional value proposition, user involvement, resource capabilities and connection properties. And the five value drivers form three configurations, which are, respectively, labeled as resource-driven configuration, user-operated configuration and product-combined configuration. From the perspective of the integration of traditional and emerging theories, such as resource-based view, internet economics and value cocreation, each configuration leads to value creation and improves value results with different mechanisms behind it.

First, combined with the business model canvas and the characteristics of internet health care, this paper identifies five value drivers of IMBM, thus improving the relevant research on internet health care. Second, based on the configurational effects, this paper discusses the mechanism behind the configurational effects of IMBM’s value drivers on value creation, thus expanding relevant research on the value creation of business models. Third, applying fsQCA and combining the advantages of qualitative research and quantitative research, this paper adds to the configurations of IMBM’s value drivers that achieve high-value results.

Digital transformations are altering service models and care delivery methods in healthcare. Artificial Intelligence (AI) represents the next wave of transformation in healthcare. This study aims to understand patient perceptions of AI and its impact on value co-creation.

A conceptual model was developed to investigate how value co-creation operant resources (digital self-efficacy and relational service quality) impact value co-creation engagement (shared decision-making) and value co-creation outcomes (anticipatory AI value co-creation and intention to adopt AI). Data were collected from 332 respondents and analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The results indicate that the value co-creation process for AI technologies is a function of inputs, experiences and AI outputs. Operant resources were found to be positively associated with shared decision-making. However, not all operant resources directly and positively impacted AI outcomes. The indirect and positive mediated relationships through shared decision-making to AI outcomes suggest an interactive AI value co-creation process.

AI technologies are still in early stages of consumer adoption in healthcare. Future research is warranted that investigates the validity of the model through maturing service life cycles.

Customer perceptions of new digital innovations are formed in the context of previous digital experiences. Marketers need to understand how customers view their current non-AI technologies. Strong engagement and perceived value of current technologies will help ease customers into the usage of AI technologies.

This study investigates the unique stages of the value co-creation process for AI technologies in healthcare. The results demonstrate that the value co-creation process is a function of inputs, tech-enabled experiences and AI outputs.