Collaborative Value Creation Research Articles

Connecting practice, research and policy to improve refugee health outcomes

Introduction: Refugee Health-Access Better Care (RH-ABC) is an innovative model of care developed to enhance the delivery of primary health care to people of refugee background. With a robust foundation informed by research, strong engagement with local refugee communities and partnerships across health and social care organisations providing services to people from a refugee background, it has enabled the model to grow in a responsive manner to improve the health outcomes for this population. Methods: A 'co-creation' approach has emphasised an ongoing, collaborative value creation process between multiple stakeholders bringing together researchers and end users - academics, clinicians, consumers, policy makers, service organisations (across public, private and third sectors). Clinical data and qualitative research (health provider focus groups and peer led refugee community research) informed the development of RH-ABC. Evaluation of RH-ABC used mixed methodology and focuses on access, quality of care and care coordination. Data collected (from stakeholders, health providers, and refugees) feeds directly into this dynamic model, led by the multiple stakeholder groups, to strengthen care delivery Results: RH-ABC is an example of translational health service research in action where research and practice intersect and there has been: improved care outcomes, capacity building in primary care, opportunity for policy innovation, and development of a sustainable model based on multiple stakeholder needs. Discussion: Strong inclusive partnerships, at executive, policy, clinical and stakeholder levels, are critical to the success of this model and require an agreed common vision and commitment. Incorporating feedback is essential for the model to be responsive to the dynamics of refugee health and strong communication pathways are essential. Flexibility is a strength of primary health care that affords resilience to this model. Conclusion: Further evaluation of RH-ABC will identify gaps enabling the extension of this model. The understandings from the experience with RH-ABC will help inform the development of refugee health and well-being policy within Queensland giving hope for broader opportunities for health promotion and health service development. This model is supporting translational research capacity building in primary care.

Linking and leveraging resources for innovation and growth through collaborative value creation: A study of Indian OSPs

How do knowledge-intensive and technology-based service providers from emerging economies sustain their innovation to grow rapidly and become dominant global players in their fields? We explain this recent phenomenon for a sample of offshore service providers (OSPs) from India by drawing from the collaborative value creation theoretical perspective and Mathews’ (Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 23(1):5–27, 2006a) resource “linking and leveraging” concepts. This paper shows that OSPs from India develop high quality relationships to enable them access and exploit network resources in delivering customized and innovative services to clients globally. The findings of this research provide further evidence that Mathews’ (Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 23(1):5–27, 2006a) internationalization framework of emerging economy multinational enterprises can be generalized to service providers.

Introduction to the Special Issue on Multiactor Value Creation in Service Innovation: Collaborative Value Creation in Service

Introduction to the Special Issue on Multiactor Value Creation in Service Innovation: Collaborative Value Creation in Service

Understanding Collaborative Value Creation by Environmental Nonprofit and Renewable Energy Business Partnerships

Many environmental nonprofit organizations (ENPOs) seek to create sustainability value by promoting environmental principles and influencing policymakers to support pro-environmental legislation. One strategy used by ENPOs to enhance the value creation process is the development of partnerships with businesses. Semi-structured interviews with leaders of six national ENPOs in the United States were conducted to examine the sources and types of value created by collaborations with renewable energy businesses, and the partnership processes and outcomes that are most desirable. The goal was to understand how and why ENPOs seek partnerships, what the potential benefits are, and whether or not ENPO leadership orientation, as characterized by their perceptions of the political opportunity structure, political ideology, and environmental philosophy, led to different views of partnerships for sustainability value creation. The finding that differences in the partnership perspectives of the ENPO leadership did not directly link to differences in the leadership orientations suggests that none of the orientations precluded partnering in general and may even have been enablers in some cases.

The importance of relationship learning in private-non-profit partnerships: precursors and outcomes

In recent years, there has been growing awareness that the solution of social problems requires the joint action of different actors. In this sense, cross sector social partnerships (CSSPs), particularly, partnerships between businesses and NPO, have become widely adopted by both sectors as mechanisms for working together in order to address complex social issues by combining different rationales but creating value in the collaboration. As a result of it, the majority of the extant literature on private-non-profit partnerships has focused its attention on the discussion of the main determinants that favour collaborative value creation. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is a lack of research analysing some key determinants, as for example, a relationship learning process between the partners. Due to this fact, based on the business-to-business literature, the present study is an attempt to contribute to current knowledge about private-non-profit partnerships by conducting an in-depth analysis of relationship learning.

Crowds and value. Italian Directioners on Twitter

This paper addresses crowd-based dynamics of value creation in participatory culture. Based on a corpus of 114,931 tweets associated with One Direction and similar boy bands, we draw on recent theories of crowd-based organization in digital media as well as classical crowd theory to build a theoretical model of collective value creation. In our model, the achievement of value in the form of trending and individual microcelebrity is based on affectively driven processes of imitation, rather than on rational evaluation and deliberation. We contrast this model with established accounts of microcelebrity and draw out implications for theories of crowd-based organization in digital media and for theories of participatory culture and collaborative value creation in general.

Organizational and institutional barriers to value-based pricing in industrial relationships

In their effort to differentiate themselves from cost-driven rivals, many industrial companies are beginning to serve their customers through value-based offerings. Such companies often engage actively in collaborative value creation with their customers. To capture a fair share of the value created, they need to adopt a value-based pricing approach. Therefore, value-driven competition necessitates value-based pricing (VBP). The present study explores the barriers to exercising value-based pricing and suggests ways to overcome those obstacles in putting value-based pricing into action in B2B sales. The study is implemented as an exploratory multi-case study applying an abductive research methodology. Our cases show that industrial sellers try to understand and influence their customers' desired value perception, influence customer-perceived value (CPV), and improve their bargaining position as means to overcome these barriers to improved value capture. Hence, our findings deepen the current understanding of value-based pricing in industrial buyer–seller relationships. In doing so, it contributes to the literature on customer value, organizational capabilities, business models, and sales management in previously unexplored areas. Moreover, the study provides guidance to business practitioners willing to develop value-based pricing as part of their business model.

Call for Papers—Service Science Special Issue: Multi-actor Value Creation in Service Innovation

Collaborative value creation builds on orchestrated social action among the different stakeholders involved. In service innovation, joint value creation calls for specific network leadership and resource integration capabilities, because advanced service entails complex configurations of people, technologies, organizations, and shared information. Hence, mutually beneficial outcomes may be difficult to achieve within such configurations through traditional approaches to innovation. Previous research in service has emphasized the cocreation of value. It has improved our understanding of the constituents of value in both business and consumer settings. However, the cocreation of value becomes more complex as the number of participants in the cocreation activity increases. Therefore, we would like to encourage you to submit research articles on collaborative value creation in service to this special issue, focusing especially on the questions of multi-actor value creation associated with innovation in service. This special issue explores the perspectives on joint value creation in both consumer business and business-to-business contexts, placing special emphasis on multi-actor service systems. In particular, we encourage attention to the processes, practices, means, and challenges of value creation in service innovation. This special issue calls for both conceptual and empirical research investigating the topic using multiple methodological approaches.

Logistics Service Providers and Value Creation Through Collaboration: A Case Study

Logistics service provider (LSP) strategy and value creation is a cooperative endeavor. The study focuses on how LSPs create value by taking advantage of being connected and exploring the presence of various forms of interdependence. Using a single case study and a framework addressing network externalities and the concept of value logic interaction, we identify three types of collaborative value creation; distributive, functional and systemic. Whereas the fundamental logic of the LSP is mediation in terms of performing a distributive service, it is also subject to externalities in its functional and systemic value creation initiatives. LSPs are thereby portrayed as strategic entities dealing with a set of interdependencies in order to facilitate value creation in their networks. These firms need a rather advanced understanding of different types of economies and forms of collaboration to succeed. The study also associates different types of LSPs with the identified types of collaborative value creation.

Uncovering Collaborative Value Creation Patterns and Establishing Corresponding Customer Roles

Research on value creation traditionally has focused on value created by the company, though customers increasingly serve as active partners, able to create value with firms in a collaborative manner. Despite interest by both scholars and managers, existing research has not yet clarified the interdependencies of service offerings and customer role patterns. This article explores value creation rooted in three generic offerings (configuration, solution, and network) and identifies differences in their prerequisites, customer activities, challenges, abilities, ability enhancers, and perceived benefits that arise in collaborative value creation (CVC). Data from 105 collaborations, collected through in-depth interviews, support the qualitative and quantitative analyses that reveal distinct patterns in customers’ value creation for each service offering. A categorical principal components analysis, combined with cluster analysis, identifies five customer roles: bargain-hunting independent, comprehensive help seeker, engaged problem solver, technology-savvy networker, and self-reliant customizer. Our theoretical contribution includes the identification of customer roles across generic offerings and empirical evidence that customers perform multiple roles when engaging in CVC processes. Our findings provide managers engaged in CVC with recommendations on criteria for segmenting customer groups, on the role of the service provider in various value creation processes, and on tailored communication strategies to attract customers.

Collaborative Value Creation

In this second of a two-part focused review of the nonprofit business and corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature, the authors present the third and fourth components of the collaborative value creation (CVC) framework: the partnering processes that unpack the value creation dynamics and the collaboration outcomes that examine the benefits and costs on multiple levels. The authors suggest that greater value is created at all levels of analysis, micro, meso, and macro, as collaboration moves from sole creation to co-creation of value. The CVC framework assigns equal importance to all forms of value (economic, social, and environmental), types of actors (individuals, organizations, and societies), and time scales (short/long term), providing the analytical paths for assessing value creation holistically. Examining systematically the processes and the outcomes of value co-creation allows for greater specificity, dimensionality, and inclusivity. The article concludes by delineating the contribution of the CVC framework and offering recommendations for future research.

Collaborative Value Creation

This focused review of the nonprofitbusiness collaboration and related corporate social responsibility literature identifies problematic aspects of the treatment of value creation and, therefore, develops a conceptual and analytical framework to address them and the following research question: How can collaboration between nonprofits and businesses most effectively co-create significant economic, social, and environmental value for society, organizations, and individuals? The first two components of the Collaborative Value Creation framework are presented in this first of two articles The Value Creation Spectrum provides new reference terms for defining and analyzing value creation, and Collaboration Stages reveals how value creation varies across different types of collaborative relationships. The framework’s next two components, which are elaborated in the sequential article, are Partnering Processes, which reveals the value creation dynamics in the formation and implementation stages, and Collaboration Outcomes, which examines impact at the micro, meso, and macro levels.

Platform-based Innovation Management: Directing External Innovational Efforts in Platform Ecosystems

Modular platforms have become the centerpiece of collaborative value creation in platform ecosystems. Platform ecosystems co-create the platform’s value proposition and support its market adoption as the more complementors join the ecosystem to supply complementarities, the more valuable the platform becomes to consumers due to a greater variety of choice. This poses new requirements on managing innovation in open platform environments. While academic research stresses the relevance of external complementary innovation for platform success, it lacks, however, a concrete understanding to guide platform owners in directing external innovational efforts in coopetive platform ecosystems to co-create and deliver value while ensuring the overall quality, reliability and consistency of the ‘whole’ solution. Based on the challenges platform ecosystems place on innovation management, this paper explores and categorizes control mechanisms leading platform owners in the ICT industry have implemented to steer external complementary innovation efforts. From that an overall platform-based innovation management process is developed.

Preface to the focus theme section: collaborative value creation in e-business management

Preface to the focus theme section: collaborative value creation in e-business management

How Brand Community Practices Create Value

Using social practice theory, this article reveals the process of collective value creation within brand communities. Moving beyond a single case study, the authors examine previously published research in conjunction with data collected in nine brand communities comprising a variety of product categories, and they identify a common set of value-creating practices. Practices have an “anatomy” consisting of (1) general procedural understandings and rules (explicit, discursive knowledge); (2) skills, abilities, and culturally appropriate consumption projects (tacit, embedded knowledge or how-to); and (3) emotional commitments expressed through actions and representations. The authors find that there are 12 common practices across brand communities, organized by four thematic aggregates, through which consumers realize value beyond that which the firm creates or anticipates. They also find that practices have a physiology, interact with one another, function like apprenticeships, endow participants with cultural capital, produce a repertoire for insider sharing, generate consumption opportunities, evince brand community vitality, and create value. Theoretical and managerial implications are offered with specific suggestions for building and nurturing brand community and enhancing collaborative value creation between and among consumers and firms.

Co-Production on the Web: Social Software as a Means of Collaborative Value Creation in Web-based Infrastructures

The concept of co-production was originally introduced by political science to explain citizen participation in the provision of public goods. The concept was quickly adopted in business research targeting the question how users could be voluntarily integrated into industrial production settings to improve the development of goods and services on an honorary basis. With the emergence of the Social Software and web-based colla-borative infrastructures the concept of co-production gains importance as a theoretical framework for the collaborative production of web content and services. This article argues that co-production is a powerful concept, which helps to explain the emergence of user generated content and the partial transformation of orthodox business models in the content industries. Applying the concept of co-production to developmental policies could help to theorize and derive new models of including underprivileged user groups and communi-ties in collaborative value creation on the web for the mutual benefit of service providers and users.

The philosophy of performance evaluation

When engineering company revenues decline the typical reaction is to cut costs. At engineering companies, that means layoffs because the primary cost in engineering is staff salary. Work is priced with salary costs as a foundation. Other costs-indirect, overhead, and general/administrative-are layered on to generate the multiplier that determines the cost of each hour charged to the customer. So cost cutting begins with payroll and the inevitable performance evaluation or forced ranking. At its core, competitive evaluation based on costs often denies the employer and the employee the benefits of the potential collaborative value creation in a team and pits one individual against another, placing an inherent limit on cooperation. To be fair and to minimize abuse, the process must be as objective as possible. Results should not be a surprise to those being ranked who are aware of criteria. To be valuable, however, it must allow some subjective assessment of value creation but provide enough subjectivity in a ranking process to identify and consider the value of creativity that opens it up to potential compromise. Too often the mandate to cut costs is used to justify targeting those who have fallen from grace in their managers' eyes, and such a ranking process becomes the tool of choice.