Co-creation Activities Research Articles

Value co-creation activities in retail ecosystems: well-being consequences

PurposeThis paper aims to analyze the well-being consequences of value co-creation activities at an ecosystem level, focusing specifically on the micro and meso levels. This study is performed in a retail ecosystem, a highly relevant context where individuals spend a considerable amount of time and resources, but where well-being is usually not deemed as a relevant outcome.Design/methodology/approachThe investigation analyzes qualitative data from micro and meso level actors of a retail ecosystem. At the micro-level, in-depth interviews performed with customers, employees and suppliers were assessed. The meso level analysis included most of the actors embedded in the retail ecosystem: employees’ headquarters, suppliers’ headquarters, nearby competitors, family, other retail outlets and external employees.FindingsThis study is one of the first in the transformative service research area to analyze well-being from a retail ecosystem perspective. Hence, this analysis broadens the literature on transformative service by considering supermarket retailing, an everyday service context that is not assumed to generate well-being outcomes. Results reveal that actors who spend more time or have fewer options available for them in the retail ecosystem see their well-being deeply affected. It also extends the conceptualization of value co-creation to a retail ecosystem, a specific ecosystem, which differs from previous studies that focus mostly on health-care ecosystems.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough useful to understand new insights, a limitation of this investigation is that it is based upon a single qualitative study.Practical implicationsThe study portrays how activities happening within a business context have consequences beyond traditional measures such as loyalty or turn-over. It proposes specific value co-creation actions to be performed by employees, suppliers and customers to promote positive well-being consequences for the micro and meso level retail ecosystem.Social implicationsRetail ecosystems are usually not deemed as relevant when trying to understand societal well-being outcomes. This study empirically depicts that all services, even the ones without transformative goals, need to be aware of the impact they have on societal well-being.Originality/valueThis paper provides a novel conceptualization of well-being effects in a retail ecosystem. Specifically, this is the first study in the transformative service research literature to identify the micro and meso level well-being consequences of value co-creation activities within a retail ecosystem.

Participatory Process for Regenerating Rural Areas through Heritage-Led Plans: The RURITAGE Community-Based Methodology

Rural areas in Europe host more than 55% of the overall population and embed a unique and peculiar cultural and natural heritage. Nevertheless, they are facing common issues of disengagement, depopulation and economic and social crises. Rural communities are increasingly interested in setting up inclusive and participatory regeneration processes, but participatory planning experiences in rural areas are still limited. This paper introduces the Community-based Heritage Management and Planning methodology (CHMP) developed within the RURITAGE project, and analyzes and presents the results of its implementation in six demonstrators around Europe and beyond. The methodology is based on the establishment of Rural Heritage Hubs (RHH), intended as the community of local stakeholders and a physical place to run the co-creation activities. We used four types of feedback—online survey, in-presence survey, consultations and interviews with RHH Coordinators—to analyze the implementation of the CHMP. The research findings show that through built capital (RHH places activated) and through the activation of local social and human capitals (RHH communities engaged in the process), participatory processes can attract local communities and engage them into the development and the implementation of local regeneration plans, fostering heritage ownership and inclusion.

Upstream complex power relationships and firm’s reputation in global value chains

Previous research into the upstream supply chain governance mechanisms that focal firms use with suppliers to improve their ethical performance and reputation is incipient. The original contribution includes the development of empirical model using global value chain and transaction cost perspective by exploring the complex power relationship between upstream supply chain governance mechanisms (Modular, relational and captive), value co-creation efforts, sustainable ethical performance and reputation through an original survey of companies from an emerging economy – India. The results indicate that, supplier modular and relational governance mechanisms have an impact on suppliers' ethical performance, supply chain performance and reputation. Additionally, suppliers' ethical performance plays a mediating role between governance mechanisms in upstream supply chain networks and the supply chain performance and reputation of focal companies. In agreement with the literature, focal firms' sustainability-related value co-creation activities were found to positively influences the ethical performance of both suppliers' and focal firms’ reputation. This provides implications for practitioners which was previously unknown with respect to food supply chains.

Co-creating solutions to local mobility and transport challenges for the enhancement of health and wellbeing in an area of socioeconomic disadvantage

IntroductionThe paper describes and examines a novel methodology to co-define transport and mobility challenges and co-create solutions with residents of a socioeconomically disadvantaged area within Oxford in the UK. The co-creation methodology is examined in relation to the extent of participation, inclusivity, transparency, interactivity, scale, sustainability/continuity, replicability, potential for co-benefits. MethodsA Citizen Mobility Community was established with local residents at the core, and including representatives from the local authority, and other stakeholders. The paper describes the main elements of the co-creation process applied to identify mobility challenges, identify solutions, endorse the mobility solutions, and develop the solutions into practical action. SettingThe setting was the Eastern Arc of Oxford, the most socioeconomically deprived area in Oxford. ResultsA sequence of co-creation activities helped identify and understand the transport challenges in Barton in the Eastern Arc of Oxford. Challenges included the high cost of public transport, traffic congestion, particularly during morning peak times, and the lack of cross-connectivity and direct public transport routes to desirable locations including affordable supermarkets, train stations, workplaces, health services such as hospitals and other neighbourhoods. The co-creation methodology led to the development of three pilot interventions to address these challenges, namely face-to-face transport app training, a transport to supermarkets shuttle service, and an information campaign about concessionary bus passes. Analysis of the co-creation methodology found that the process achieved its aims of empowering citizens in decision making about addressing locally experienced transport challenges, and building social capital. ConclusionsThe co-creation enables communities in areas of socioeconomic disadvantage to identify their transport challenges, and to co-develop and co-design practical solutions. Co-creation to address local transport needs builds community empowerment, creates social capital and may contribute, through plausible causal pathways, to improved health and wellbeing in an area of socioeconomic disadvantage.

Into the Nebula: Embodied perception of scenography in virtual environments

The introduction of three-dimensional digital imagery as performance sites through the increasing application of virtual reality (VR) technology offers a chance to open discussion about the perception of scenography in digital environments. Consisting solely of pixels, computer-generated settings allow the perceivers to step into the weightless state of physical inexistence in VR and leave the tangible world behind, at least to some extent. At first glance, a perceptual focus on sound and vision may give the impression that we have not moved far from the traditional way of experiencing scenography by simply looking at it. However, a more contemporary understanding of matter as doing, rather than as an innate object, provokes reconsideration of perception in this specific type of environment. While the development of media technology continues to focus on better integration of the human body into virtual reality, I think it can be debated whether the body, loaded with embodied memory of real-world encounters, is the medium to get us there and, if so, in which capacity? Besides fooling the body and our experience of embodiment, could our minds play a different role in our becoming digital beings? Using a variety of examples from the field of VR artistic practices—Analog Studios’ Notget, VRTOV’s The Turning Forest and Tom Crago’s Materials—this essay asks whether the expansion of scenographic horizons is grounded in designers’ capacity to rethink the meaning of matter and to mindfully recalibrate embodiment in order to enable the perceiver to see and feel things differently. I look closely into embodied perception of VR that catapults the perceiver into a vast universe of endless spatial possibilities, a place where potentially the physicality of the body may be exchanged for a scenographic body and the opportunity for active co-creation of digital worlds.

Does well-being differ across customer value cocreation practice styles? An empirical study in a chronic health context

PurposeDrawing on an extensive range of activities across different types, including mandatory (customer), mandatory (customer or organisation), voluntary in-role and voluntary extra-role activities, this study aims to identify different health-care customer value cocreation practice styles based on the combinations of value cocreation activities they undertake and empirically examine how customers adopting different styles differ in terms of well-being and satisfaction.Design/methodology/approachThe study was conducted across health customers with a variety of chronic conditions. Data were collected from three focus groups and an online survey.FindingsFive customer practice styles, namely, the highly active, other-oriented, provider-oriented, self-oriented and passive compliant customers, were revealed. While a moderate to a high level of activities is often recommended as it is associated with higher levels of physical, psychological, existential and social well-being and customer satisfaction, the results also suggest there is no single ideal style as different styles may be associated with the same level of outcomes.Research limitations/implicationsAs customers cocreate value differently, it is crucial to understand the underlying heterogeneity and its implications to outcomes.Practical implicationsHighly active and provider-oriented are the two styles that should be particularly encouraged because of their association with positive outcomes. Personalised strategies need to be developed and resources need to be put in place to build productive relationships amongst service providers, customers and peers and to increase the perceived value of such interactions so as to shift customers towards more active styles.Originality/valueThe study advances the understanding of customer value cocreation and its link to well-being by empirically deriving five distinct practice styles and demonstrating how they differ across meaningful well-being and satisfaction dimensions.

Analysis of Social Identity and Co-Creation Activities on the Behavior of Members of Coffee Enhancement Communities in KisahKitaNgopi Café

The existence of a community will have an impact on the community brand being carried. Participation and recommendations of members depend on the identification of community members. Social identification has an impact on co-creation activities by exchanging knowledge among community members. The community targeted in this study was the Komunitas Penikmat kopi who interacted at Café KisahKitaNgopi. The purpose of this study was: 1) to analyze how social identity influences the co-creation activities by coffee connoisseur community members in the KisahKitaNgopi Café; 2) to analyze how co-creation affects the intentions of the coffee connoisseurs in the Story of Coffee Café; and 3) to analyze how social identity influences the intentions of the Komunitas Penikmat kopi at the Story Cafe. Research subjects were members of the Komunitas Penikmat kopi in Surabaya and Sidoarjo who were customers at Café KisahKitaNgopi during the data collection period and could be contacted to fill out the questionnaire and recommend other community members as respondents. There were 170 respondents. Hypothesis testing was carried out using Structural Equation Modelling using AMOS. Results of the study: 1) social identity had a significant positive effect on the co-creation activities of coffee connoisseurs at KisahKitaNgopi Café; 2) co-creation activities had a significant positive effect on the intentions of the Komunitas Penikmat kopi in the Story of Cafe Kopi; 3) social identity had a significant positive effect on intentions in the Komunitas Penikmat kopi at the Story of Cafe Kopi.
 Keywords: social identity, joint creation, intention to behave, community

Social music festival brandscapes: A lexical analysis of music festival social conversations

Social media usage relative to music festivals has given rise to the Social Music Festival Brandscape (SMFB)—an ecosystem of festival experiences and social conversations where music festival brand value is co-created through discussions of festival experiences and attendances, artist performance celebrations, and evaluation of festival purchase exchanges. The present study applied machine learning-based lexical analysis to the ten largest U.S.-based music festivals and their communities across Instagram and Twitter and revealed post theme types of Time, Artists, Media, Location, Purchase Exchanges, Gratitude, Priming, Social Media Inducements, and Genre References to round out value co-creation activity within the Dialogue Zone of the SMFB model. Of particular note is that while these content themes emerged holistically in the SMFB dialogue, content theme misalignment occurred between festivals and communities where Media, Gratitude, and Priming content theme posts lacked the same frequency across community posts. Understanding the content of these dialogues within SMFBs is important for music festivals moving forward as they seek to build, re-establish, or re-trench music communities in the festival experience, and to determine if post theme misalignment is necessary for longer term, successful SMFB dialogue. • Contemporary Music Festival Brands co-created across social conversations. • Social Music Festival Brandscape locus of festival and community co-creation. • Co-creation themes include artists, time, location, purchases, and priming. • Media, gratitude and genre misalignment extant between festivals and communities. • Priming behavior significant in festival data but less so in the communities data.

Smarter Together: Progressing Smart Data Platforms in Lyon, Munich, and Vienna

In a context where digital giants are increasingly influencing the actions decided by public policies, smart data platforms are a tool for collecting a great deal of information on the territory and a means of producing effective public policies to meet contemporary challenges, improve the quality of the city, and create new services. Within the framework of the Smarter Together project, the cities of Lyon (France), Munich (Germany), and Vienna (Austria) have integrated this tool into their city’s metabolism and use it at different scales. Nevertheless, the principle remains the same: the collection (or even dissemination) of internal and external data to the administration will enable the communities, companies, not-for-profit organizations, and civic administrations to “measure” the city and identify areas for improvement in the territory. Furthermore, through open data logics, public authorities can encourage external partners to become actors in territorial action by using findings from the data to produce services that will contribute to the development of the territory and increase the quality of the city and its infrastructure. Nevertheless, based on data that is relatively complex to extract and process, public data platforms raise many legal, technical, economic, and social issues. The cities either avoided collecting personal data or when dealing with sensitive data, use anonymized aggregated data. Cocreation activities with municipal, commercial, civil society stakeholders, and citizens adopted the strategies and tools of the intelligent data platforms to develop new urban mobility and government informational services for both citizens and public authorities. The data platforms are evolving for transparent alignment with 2030 climate-neutrality objectives while municipalities strive for greater agility to respond to disruptive events like the COVID-19 pandemic.

Digital transformation and value-based selling activities: seller and buyer perspectives

PurposeThis study aimed to examine the digital transformation of business-to-business (B2B) sales and its effects on the management of value-based selling.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopted a qualitative interview research design. A total of two participant groups—one consisting of sales management professionals and the other consisting of buyers—were created to conduct abductive data analysis to gain a new understanding of B2B sales management.FindingsAs a result of the digital transformation of sales, companies are shifting B2B sales towards value-based selling using a more proactive, continuous process wherein digital value co-creation activities play a big role. Similarly, their buyers now expect more proactive communication about new value propositions, but social media channels are of little importance to most B2B buyers. The management of digital value co-creation activities should be addressed from the sales ecosystem perspective, where non-sellers tend to have a strong role in communicating new value propositions.Research limitations/implicationsThere needs to be further research on digital value co-creation activities in the sales ecosystem, as value-based selling requires that selling organizations focus more on educational digital content marketing and engagement with non-sellers via both marketing and sales activities.Practical implicationsCompanies rarely exploit experts and project personnel when implementing digital sales strategies; however, they often meet with customers personally and network with them. This requires a broader perspective on sales management.Originality/valueThis is one of the first studies to explore the management of value-based selling from both seller and buyer perspectives.

Sustaining Continuous Engagement in Value Co-creation Among Individuals in Universities Using Online Platforms: Role of Knowledge Self-Efficacy, Commitment and Perceived Benefits.

Value Co-Creation (VCC) plays a major role in engaging knowledgeable individuals in a community via innovation, problem solving, and new service/product development. This study investigates the personal factors that influence individuals’ engagement in value co-creation in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) through the use of online platforms. Some higher education institutions have successfully established or used appropriate online platforms, such as online forums, web applications, and mobile applications to engage their community in ideation or crowdsourcing as a part of the value co-creation process. On the other hand, some HEIs have failed to engage their community in value co-creation activities, and even if they managed to engage some individuals in value co-creation once, they failed to sustain these individuals’ engagement in value co-creation using online platforms. Using the Stimulus Organism Response (S-O-R) framework, this study examines the relationship between relevant personal factors (commitment and knowledge self-efficacy) and other motivational factors that provide perceived benefits with value co-creation engagement. Data was collected from 308 respondents at five Malaysian research universities. The software analysis tool Smart PLS is used for data analysis and validation. The results demonstrate that personal factors and perceived benefits as a motivational factor has a significant effect on individual engagement in value co-creation. However, the significance of these findings varies from one individual to another. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Developing healthy weight maintenance through co-creation: a partnership with Black African migrant community in East Midlands.

Obesity prevalence in the UK varies according to ethnicity, with children from minority ethnic groups experiencing higher levels, and yet, there is a scarcity of projects that involve minority ethnic groups in the design of interventions to promote healthy weight maintenance. This article presents an account of the involvement of the participants in a co-creation activity to design public health resources for the maintenance of healthy weight. The material is drawn from a study that involved Black African parents (n = 30) and Health Visitors (n = 32), residing and working in the East Midlands, UK, respectively. The participants were purposely selected according to an inclusion/exclusion criterion and invited to participate in seven focus groups (FG) conducted for parents (FG-4) and health visitors (FG-3) at a time and place convenient to the participants. Following the focus groups, the Black African parents participated in three co-creation workshops. The co-creation activities involved the participants, the researcher and a nutritionist. The outcome was an African heritage eatwell guide and a framework to promote healthy weight, which was well-received when presented to members of the community and local health and social care practitioners. The co-creation process went beyond giving the participant a voice in shaping the promotion of healthy weight within their community, as they also became active participants in the design and creation of the specific public health service. The approach offered the potential for improved levels of community satisfaction for a public health intervention.

Building brands through internal stakeholder engagement and co-creation

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to better understand the voice of the internal stakeholder in a way that emphasizes the internal stakeholder as an active force and decision maker in brand co-creation, as part of the new emerging paradigm of internal branding. The main aim is to understand the active role of volunteers in internal branding that is in the co-creation of value. A subsidiary aim is to understand why some volunteers engage deeply and seriously in a nonprofit organization while other volunteers seem less connected?Design/methodology/approachA conceptual framework incorporates several motivators to volunteer-led co-creation. A quantitative, co-variance-based structural equation modelling approach is used on survey data of a sample of 357 volunteers from 14 organizations in the Australian nonprofit sector.FindingsThe research findings contribute to the newly emerging internal branding literature focusing on the active co-creation role of internal stakeholders. The main drivers of volunteer co-creation are volunteer engagement, commitment, altruism, values-congruency and brand reputation. Different explanatory mechanisms/motivators apply to each type of volunteer-led co-creation. In a major initiative, the paper demonstrates linkages across the different types of co-creation, with a foundation/pivotal role for one particular type of co-creation, namely, enhanced client-based solutions.Research limitations/implicationsThe research is restricted to the public sector and further research is needed to test applicability to the private sector. Future studies could continue the initiative in the current study to explore the linkages across co-creation types.Practical implicationsImplications depend on which type of co-creation is targeted. Enhancing client-based solutions co-creation requires a very strong role for engaged volunteers. Innovation co-creation requires both engaged volunteers and a propensity to co-create by enhancing client-based solutions. Brand advocacy co-creation is driven by volunteer commitment, altruism and a propensity to co-create innovation.Social implicationsA non-profit context ensures major social implications.Originality/valueThe study operationalizes the Saleem and Iglesias (2016) new internal branding paradigm framework by demonstrating that brands are built organically by interacting and engaging with internal stakeholders (volunteers in this instance), which, in turn, inter alia, motivates co-creation by such internal stakeholders.

From Knowledge Ecosystems to Capabilities Ecosystems: When Open Innovation Digital Platforms Lead to Value Co-creation

The paper investigates which types of capabilities open innovation digital platforms develop for supporting co-creation in open innovation processes, by enabling the shift from knowledge ecosystems to capabilities ecosystems. By examining the literature on the open innovation digital platforms, the paper develops a theoretical framework and advances propositions by underlining the specific required dynamic capabilities—sensing, seizing, scanning, integrating, and transformative—needed to facilitate and support the interactive coupled open innovation processes essential for firm co-creation activities. Research propositions are provided to address scholars toward new research paths on digital platforms, open innovation, and dynamic capabilities. Implications for practitioners involved in open innovation processes by using digital platforms are provided in the conclusion.

Assessing Consumers’ Co‐production and Future Participation On Value Co‐creation and Business Benefit: an F-P-C-B Model Perspective

Co-production and active participation of the consumers are considered to have enhanced the value co-creation activities that would ensure business benefits of a firm. The marketing literature available does not explicitly explain the philosophy that would motivate the consumers to help to increase values for co-creation activities. In this context, attempts have been made to identify the factors that would impact on co-production and consumers’ participation to co-create values. By studying literature and theories such as theory of co-creation, theory of value creation, information processing theory, marketing theory and expectancy value theory, a conceptual model called F-P-C-B (Future Participation (F) - Co-production (P) - Co-creation (C) - Business Benefit (B)) has been developed along with nine hypotheses. The data was from 362 respondents in India and the model was tested using PLS based analysis. The study shows that it is important for the firms to shift from product-oriented activities to customer-related strategies. It is also found that for obtaining more profitability and better business results, customers should be involved in business activities by way of involving in co-design, idea generation, and other relevant activities of the firms. Moreover, the study highlights that knowledge sharing between the customers and the firm authorities ensures better business values.

Implementing a Value Co-creation Network: Some Lessons from Taiwan’s Steel Industry

ABSTRACT This practitioner note is to combine transaction cost theory and the knowledge-based view of the firm to investigate why and how the hub company in a network coordinates its members to co-create value in the steel industry. A theoretical model was proposed. A qualitative case study based on original survey data in the context of Taiwan’s steel industry. The analyses are based on different types of data: (1) direct observations, (2) semi-structured interviews, and (3) archived material. First, participant observation was employed since to analyze the organizational behavior and cooperation patterns among the members of the steel collaborative network. Second, we interviewed several managers, researchers, and scholars and kept records of all our data, and developed a list of codes to analyze the interviews’ transcripts by using the constructs obtained by the primary theoretical framework. After coding, pattern-matching techniques and explanation building techniques were used for analyzing data across informers and matching the information in the theoretical framework. Pattern-matching technique can classify open-ended comments into generalized classifications and evaluate the prompted comments regarding a proposition. We compared the different cases by examining new classifications and responses. The explanation building facilitated a preliminary assessment of the presumed set of causal link to improve the tentative theoretical framework and help develop preliminary propositions. Except one new construct emerging, the findings suggest preliminary evidence that the network’s value co-creation practices in steel collaborative network influenced by transaction cost factors and knowledge-based factors as theory argued. Two propositions are induced from the qualitative data. Proposition 1: The level of transaction cost factors perceived by ERC members is positively related to the degree of implementation of network’s value co-creation practices in Taiwan’s steel industry. Proposition 2: The level of knowledge-based factors perceived by ERC members positively related to the degree of implementation of network’s value co-creation practices in Taiwan’s steel industry. Theoretical implications contribute to strategic technology management research by providing a conceptual model for describing and assessing a steel collaborative network’s implementing process for value co-creation by using a case approach. Researchers have begun exploring inter-organizational knowledge creation in the steel industry and provided significant support to the prominence of new steel product-services knowledge. However, only a few studies focused on why and how the value of new steel product-services knowledge is co-generated within a steel collaborative network, and empirical evidence is lacking. Hence, it is important to develop a value co-creation model for steel collaborative networks to identify the determinants and procedure of value co-creation by integrating the knowledge-based view of the firm and transaction cost theory. This approach may help clarify the motivations of various strategic network value co-creation activities in the steel industry, especially the integration of complementing logics of transaction cost theory and knowledge-based view. Moreover, this practitioner note used qualitative research to contextualize the value co-creation network, and, thus, helps extend value co-creation theories with respect to the steel industry, which have been criticized for their unclear management mechanisms. Results also contribute to the findings of Marcos-Cuevas et al. (2016) and add appropriating as a sub-construct of the network’s value co-creation practices. Regarding business marketing implications, the proposed theoretical framework has several implications for marketing managers in companies operating within steel collaborative networks. Understanding the strategic model of network’s value co-creation practices may assist a hub steel company’s administrators to adopt effective marketing strategies for co-generating innovative value and identifying both knowledge-based factors and transaction cost factors that may impede the co-creation of value in the network context. Hence, this framework contributes to a better understanding of how networks can be managed to improve value co-creation practices and also provides a practical way of managing value co-creating networks. Rather than managing a discrete set of alliances, steel network members need to collaborate to implement linking, materializing, institutionalizing, and appropriating to minimize the unintentional outflow of assets to possible challengers. This approach would also support the effective transfer of knowledge-based resources for value co-creation within their network. Although growing attention in practices of value co-creation, an over-emphasizing on traditional supplier-customer co-operation has limited our thinking of where and how network-level value co-creation can initiate and how it is implemented. In Taiwan’s steel industrial context, the model proposes an implementation process of value-co-creation by Steel Collaborative Network-ERC that comprise of steel suppliers, universities, research institutes, and customers. It demonstrates the impact of the steel collaborative network’s value co-creation determinants on its value co-creation practice and the way steel collaborative networks co-create their value. Steel Collaborative Network’s value co-creation practices are relied on both the transaction cost factors and knowledge-based factors in Taiwan’s steel industry.

Exploring Frontline Employees’ Motivations to Engage in value Cocreation: A Context of Non-Fuel Retailing

In the context of non-fuel retailing, the goal of this study is to find out what motivates frontline employees to participate in value cocreation activities with consumers. According to this study, frontline employees participate in value cocreation activities to attain the expected or perceived value they desire. Through the conduction of six interviews in Malaysia's automotive sector, this study used an exploratory technique to investigate the underlying characteristics of frontline employees' motives. Semi structured interviews were done with the use of a topic guide, but the researchers were not confined in their frame of reference, allowing them to explore for clarification and confirmation. The results of the interviews were examined using an idiographic technique and then compared using cross-case analysis. Professional identity, financial benefits, career progression opportunities, and workplace recognition are all motivators for frontline employees to cocreate value. Due to variances in the employees' past expectations, these reasons may change across different service situations. Managers may begin measuring and managing service interactions between frontline personnel and customers by understanding their motives to cocreate value.

Connecting Environmental Action to E-participation Design for Young People

The paper offers a conceptual analysis and a case study research on the design of e-participation in environmental policy-making for young people. This is achieved by connecting the concept of environmental action with e-participation design. Through a literature review, four core dimensions of environmental action for young people are identified: ownership, participation, stakes in the future and experience. Through a case study of research conducted for an applied project aimed at designing and piloting a novel e-participation solution, the paper shows how young people, implicitly see the connections between these four dimensions of environmental action and the e-participation process. The dimensions of environmental action have, then been used as the basis for co-creation activities and for a subsequent evaluation of e-participation. The results support the position that environmental action can underpin the design and can increase e-participation capacity in environmental policy-making for young people.

Development of a Remote Monitoring Application to Improve Care and Support Patients in the First 30 Days Following Colorectal Cancer Surgery.

To design and develop a digital monitoring application to support and improve the care of patients in the first 30 post-operative days following colorectal cancer surgery. Patient interviews, health professional focus groups, patient co-creation activities, and health professional prioritization discussions. The structured and iterative co-design activities adopted in this study with key stakeholders, including patients and health professionals, lead to the development of a prototype application (app) to support patients at home during the first 30 days following surgery for colorectal cancer. A similar approach could be implemented to develop comparable apps for patients with other cancer diagnoses requiring different surgical procedures. Further research should focus on the continued development and testing of this app in relation to patient care and outcomes as well as the app's affect on nursing and other health services. Clinical implementation of remote monitoring following discharge home after surgery for colorectal cancer gives patients the opportunity to report issues of concern to relevant health professionals. This could facilitate the early identification of concerning signs and symptoms, ensuring appropriate and timely interventions to minimize readmission rates. Patients' experiences during the recovery period could also be improved through the provision of reliable and relevant online information. More specifically, health professionals could easily identify those patients requiring additional support to manage their recovery, for example, those with more severe symptoms or problems, facilitating the direction of appropriate health services to those most in need of their expertise.

Customer effort in mandatory and voluntary value cocreation: a study in a health care context

PurposeThis study aims to examine the impacts various types of resources had on customer effort in mandatory and voluntary value cocreation activities and the contribution of efforts in these different activity types to quality of life.Design/methodology/approachData from customers across five chronic health conditions were collected through an online survey. Rasch analysis helped identify hierarchies of activities representing varying levels of effort across four activity types (mandatory (customer), mandatory (customer or organization), voluntary in-role and voluntary extra-role activities). The conceptual model that was developed to examine the relationships of interest was analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling.FindingsWhile clinical resources helped mandatory activities and personal network resources facilitated voluntary activities, psychological resources had greater impacts on customer effort across the whole range of activities. Effort in each activity type contributed to the quality of life differently, with voluntary activities having the greatest impacts on quality of life.Practical implicationsThis study lends support to a holistic approach to health service that requires the mobilization of networks of resources to encourage customers’ engagement in a broad range of activities. Understanding the resources facilitating effort in distinct activity types provides insights to develop strategies to drive value cocreation efforts that subsequently contribute to improvements in quality of life.Originality/valueDrawing on an extensive and nuanced categorization of activities, this study broadened the understanding of the networks of resources that are integrated in customer value cocreation processes and the link between value cocreation efforts and quality of life.