Value Co-destruction Research: Origin, Present and Prospect

Abstract

Value co-destruction refers to the fact that at least one party’s welfare decreases due to resource misuse in the process of value formation, which means that not only positive output but also negative or less-than-expected output will be co-produced during the interaction between actors. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out systematic research on this phenomenon of value co-destruction, which will contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the interaction process of the value formation, and can be regarded as an important complement to the value co-creation research; from the perspective of practice, to explore the reasons and the process of value co-destruction will contribute to the prevention, identification, analysis and save of the value co-destruction of various forms, and be conducive to achieve value co-creation by pertinently motivating participants.　　The study of value co-destruction originates from the study of value co-creation because some scholars have discovered the phenomenon of value co-destruction while studying the value co-creation. But they have not paid much attention to this phenomenon. It is not until 2010 that some scholars formally put forward the concept and the definition of value co-destruction, which indicates the formal birth of this research field. Subsequently, a number of related studies emerge. The topics concerned include empirically testing of value co-destruction, discussing the definition and the classification of value co-destruction, and identifying the causes and the process of value co-destruction. In general, the value co-destruction study is in its infancy and thus research is mainly conceptual in nature. There are still some disputes about the definition of value co-destruction. Some scholars believe that the co-destruction only means negative output, but some others believe that it should also mean neutral and less-than-expected output. The concepts related to value co-destruction include value destruction, value diminution, and so on. The value destruction means that the welfare reduction only occurs on the person who is informed. In other words, it means that only one party’s value creation process is negatively affected. The meaning of value diminution is more extensive than value co-destruction, and it refers to a suboptimal output below the most ideal situation. We can classify the value co-destruction from multiple perspectives, such as the structure of participants, the output level caused by co-destruction, and the time sequence in interaction process. The causes of the value co-destruction are diverse, and different kinds of literature hold different views. In general, these causes can be summarized as lack of trust, unequal status, lack of resources and inadequate communication/coordination or incongruent practice elements, misuse of resources, unequal value perception and so on. The logical relationship between these causes constitutes the flow chart of the value co-destruction.　　There are many research opportunities in the field of value co-destruction, and the related research in the future can be carried out from the following aspects. Firstly, strengthening the empirical study on the value co-destruction, especially in Chinese context; secondly, studying the problem of value co-destruction from a more general perspective; thirdly, carrying out the exploratory study on the value co-destruction involving three or more participants; fourthly, continuing to study the result of value co-destruction because the meaning of welfare reduction is still not clear; fifthly, studying how to overcome the main causes of value co-destruction. The contributions of this paper are to build a comprehensive theoretical framework of value co-destruction process, and to use the science revolution theory to divide the development process of this field into three stages and to predict the possible characteristics of future research.