Consumer Engagement in Value Co-Creation: what Kind of Value it creates for Company?

Abstract

Introduction of the concept value co-creation (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2000) called for a new wave of research, emphasizing the need for creation, development and consolidation of mutually beneficial relationships between the consumer and the company. This in turn raised the interest in consumer engagement, which was described as a psychological state that occurs by virtue of interactive customer experiences with a company or a brand (Brodie at al., 2011). Recent research in marketing highlights the importance of the role of consumer engagement into value co-creation, providing a considerable number of studies, exploring the drivers, types, dimensions of consumer engagement as well as its outcomes, as expressed by consumer perceived value, loyalty, etc. However, as yet there is a lack of understanding how consumer engagement contributes to value co-creation and what benefits it brings to the company as well as to consumer. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to explore the role of consumer engagement in value co-creation from the company’s perspective, identifying the value company gets as an outcome of co-creation process. The focus on the value for company in this article is explained by the fact that it is traditionally analysed mainly through economic perspective, meanwhile consumer perceived value is agreed being multidimensional. The authors of this article suggest that value for company, as generated through co-creation process, should also be viewed as multidimensional and propose three-dimensional structure: economic, social and functional value. The study contributes to the domain of consumer engagement and value co-creation research by revealing the techniques of consumer engagement, with an emphasis on gamification as one of them, and diverse benefits the co-creation processes bring to company through the analysis of focus group discussion with representatives of companies in Lithuania that engage consumers in value co-creation.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ee.26.4.12502