Abstract
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to assess, clarify and consolidate the terminology around the co-creation of services, establish its forms and identify its outcomes, to resolve the conceptual pluralism in service co-creation literature.Design/methodology/approachA focused literature review screened the articles published in five major service research journals to determine relevant contributions on the concept of co-creation of services. Then, a thematic analysis identifies the forms, themes and outcomes of co-creating services in the set of 80 qualifying articles.FindingsThe study reduces conceptual pluralism by establishing different forms of co-creating services and developing an explicit definition of co-creation in services. The authors develop an integrative framework that recognizes involvement, engagement and participation as prerequisites for co-creation. Relating to the different phases of the service process, the specific co-creation forms of co-ideation, co-valuation, co-design, co-testing and co-launching are classified as regenerative co-creation, while the specific co-creation forms of co-production and co-consumption are recognized as operative co-creation. Both beneficial and counterproductive outcomes of co-creation are identified and arranged into a typology.Research limitations/implicationsThe integrative framework illustrates that service providers and customers are involved, engaged and participate in co-creating services, which manifests in specific forms of co-creation; they attain beneficial and counterproductive outcomes (personal, social, hedonic, cognitive, economic and pragmatic); and are influenced by a contextual multi-actor network.Practical implicationsCo-creation in services is actionable; the typology of outcomes suggests service managers ways to motivate customers and employees to participate in co-creating services.Originality/valueThis paper defines and establishes the conceptual forms of co-creating services and the identified outcomes, and develops an integrative framework of co-creation in services.
Highlights
Organizations are increasingly adopting strategies to co-create with their customers: to improve the service experience, DHL hosts co-design workshops with customers; LEGO develops new offerings with lead users; and Netflix launched a competition to improve its services with its online community (Chesbrough, 2011; DHL Solutions & Innovations, 2017; Prpić et al, 2015)
In line with MacInnis’ (2011) notion of different types of conceptual advancement, the present study offers four contributions to service management literature: first, it reduces conceptual pluralism around co-creating services by delineating its relationship to related terminology, such as involvement, engagement, participation, co-design, co-production and co-consumption; second, it identifies an explicit definition of the co-creation of services; third, it provides a differentiated terminology on the outcomes from co-creating services; and it develops an integrative framework that offers a holistic explanation of the co-creation of services
Further systematic analyses of the articles investigated the conceptualizations of the terminology; identified themes that illustrate how different aspects of co-creation are emphasized across the service literature set; developed a typology of co-creation outcomes; and synthesized an integrative conceptual framework for co-creating services to support the research streams investigating co-creation and the customer–provider interface in services
Summary
Organizations are increasingly adopting strategies to co-create with their customers: to improve the service experience, DHL hosts co-design workshops with customers; LEGO develops new offerings with lead users; and Netflix launched a competition to improve its services with its online community (Chesbrough, 2011; DHL Solutions & Innovations, 2017; Prpić et al, 2015). Other reviews on related terms have included “co-creation” as a search term, for example, Dong and Sivakumar (2017) searched for “participation,” “co-production” and “co-creation” in their customer participation review and Chang and Taylor (2016) used “participation,” “involvement,” “co-production,” “crowdsourcing” and “co-creation” in their meta-analysis on customer participation Both the diversity of the pre-set search terms used for systematic analyses and the increasing number of conceptual contributions on the interrelations between co-creation and related terms highlight the existing debate on the forms of co-creation (Etgar, 2008; Galvagno and Dalli, 2014; Grönroos and Voima, 2013; Payne et al, 2008; Saarijärvi et al, 2013; Voorberg et al, 2015).
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