Customer disposition to social exchange in Co-innovation

Abstract

Hospitality research lacks an understanding of customer-driven innovation and the effects of customers’ psychological characteristics on the success of co-innovation. This paper aimed to examine the role of social exchange ideology in customers’ disposition to social exchange in hospitality co-innovation. The research employed a 2 (co-innovation initiation: customer vs. company) x 2 (disposition to social exchange: strong vs. weak) between-subjects design. Bridging relational aspects of service-dominant logic and social exchange theory, co-innovation contributed to relationship development between a hospitality company and customers through mutually beneficial relational outcomes, operationalized as satisfaction, loyalty and trust. As one of the first studies to examine customers’ disposition to social exchange, it established two dimensions: tangible and intangible. Disposition to exchange moderated the effects of co-innovation initiation on satisfaction and partially moderated paths to loyalty and trust. Hospitality providers should focus on customers with strong intangible social exchange disposition and, in most cases, initiate co-innovation to achieve strong relational outcomes of loyalty and trust.