Digitally Engaged Services: A Multi-Level Perspective on Technology Readiness and Value Co-Creation Behaviour in Higher Education: An Abstract

Abstract

Advances in digital technology and innovation have fundamentally changed the way Higher Education (HE) communities interact, consume and co-create value (Neier and Zayer 2015; Merle and Freberg 2016). In particular, how technology influences the dynamics between the actors (e.g. students and lecturers) involved in HE is of interest to both HE and service managers and researchers (Diaz-Mendez and Gummesson 2012). Taking a value co-creation lens, we develop a model, drawn from our own preliminary qualitative findings with students and staff, as well as the technology adoption literature (e.g. Davis 1989; Parasuraman and Colby 1985, 2015) in order to address the theoretical deficiency of how technology readiness influences value co-creation behaviour in a service setting. The model proposes that an individual’s Technology Readiness (TR) acts as an antecedent to Digital Technology Satisfaction which has a positive and facilitating influence on value co-creation behaviours. In addition, this study addresses concerns regarding ambiguities surrounding the conceptualisation of value co-creation and adopts a multidimensional hierarchical measurement of this construct.