Understanding Mechanisms of Value Co-Creation in Collaborative Consumption Services

Abstract

Peer-to-peer collaborative consumption services (CCS) or “sharing economy” has emerged as an innovative way to exchange resources between service providers and consumers where the transactions are mediated by digital platforms. The phenomenon advocates for the sustainable usage of resources by making use of underutilized resources. Several new platforms are emerging in this domain enabling sharing of diverse products and services. This new technology enabled phenomenon is essentially redefining the traditional service models. Moreover, the service innovation enabled by these novel service models is a highly collaborative process which is radically different from the traditional service models encompassing suppliers / service providers and consumers. Furthermore, the CCS phenomenon is also changing the notion of ownership of resources. In this dissertation, we adopt a service innovation perspective to uncover the value co-creation mechanisms in the novel peer-to-peer sharing context. In doing so we uncover the unique roles of the digital platforms and the role of social aspects like social capital, critical for value co-creation in CCS. The spotlight of this research is on accommodation sharing platforms. First, we conduct a literature review and outline the critical factors for user participation in CCS. Secondly, by adopting a qualitative approach, we identify the factors leading to value co-creation and uncover the role of service platform, service ecosystems and resource integration by using the social capital theory and service-dominant logic. Lastly, we focus on the unique aspect of psychological ownership and explore its implications for consumer’s value co-creation behaviors via a quantitative study. Overall, this dissertation develops an elaborate picture of the value co-creation process in CCS and our findings also suggests that mechanisms like psychological ownership are unique attributes which lead consumers to exhibit value co-creation behaviors. This dissertation contributes to literature on technology enabled value co-creation in the innovative peer-to-peer context.