Value Co-Creation and Engagement Platforms: Facilitating Business in Service Management

Abstract

In recent marketing and service management literature, social interaction is regarded as the key for business and leisure activities. The shift from production and consumption of value towards collaborative co-creation of value through resource integration serves as a fundamental theoretic domain for this thesis. The logic of value co-creation emphasises contributions by all actors detached from their respective role. Accordingly, all actors share the same role as resource integrators because they provide and use other actors’ resources. Actors’ resource integration is facilitated by engagement platforms. Focal platform operating actors grant access to the engagement platform, mediate interaction, and provide the platform enabling infrastructure. Hence, those focal actors create touchpoints for social interaction, and all actors provide their own resources and use others’ resources in value creating relationships. This thesis aims to contribute to a general conceptual understanding of value co-creation as well as the business-facilitating nature of engagement platforms in both marketing and service management academia as well as practice. The thesis refers to the sport context as a service industry featuring special characteristics. To address the research aim with its whole complexity, conceptual and empirical work is needed to gather an understanding of interaction between dyads and triads of actors, sets of actors on engagement platforms, and actors’ resource integration on networks of engagement platforms within ecosystems. On the one hand, actor-centric approaches cover the role of actors in the sport context and their resource integration. On the other hand, systemic approaches try to unravel the interconnectedness of actors and engagement platforms to provide a more holistic view on value co-creation. This thesis takes multiple perspectives in sport management and addresses the following research questions: how can actors make use of engagement on platforms on various levels, how do actors’ roles influence decision-making, what kind of resources are exchanged, and how are those engagement platforms interconnected with each other within ecosystems? Engagement platforms are points of contact where actors are connected, integrate resources and ultimately co-create value. As such, they are crucial in all kinds of business relationships in service management and beyond.%%%%In recent marketing and service management literature, social interaction is regarded as the key for business and leisure activities. The shift from production and consumption of value towards collaborative co-creation of value through resource integration serves as a fundamental theoretic domain for this thesis. The logic of value co-creation emphasises contributions by all actors detached from their respective role. Accordingly, all actors share the same role as resource integrators because they provide and use other actors’ resources. Actors’ resource integration is facilitated by engagement platforms. Focal platform operating actors…