Value co-creation in a sharing economy: The end of price wars?

Abstract

The growing phenomenon of the sharing economy facilitates collaborative production and consumption, which highlights the concept of value co-creation. The current study aims to investigate the role of value co-creation in a sharing economy with an examination of consumers’ willingness to pay a premium price. Three types of functional, social, and emotional co-created values were explored through an online survey that focused on the pre-consumption, mid-consumption, and post-consumption stages. Four hundred and ninety-nine valid surveys were collected. The results showed that activities that involve functional and social values in the pre-consumption stage are stimulators of paying a premium price. In the mid-consumption stage, emotional value is also important for customers. However, in the post-consumption stage, only social-value-based activities are associated with willingness to pay a premium price.