Customer Co-creation Research Articles

Customer co-creation in hotel service innovation

PurposeWith increased competition in service sector due to dynamic nature of customers’ taste and preferences, service providers have realized the importance of co-creating with customers across various stages of new service development. Co-creating with customers require a focused attention on the psychological variables that influence customers to participate in developing a new service. However, availability of scant literature creates difficulty in comprehending co-creative hotel service innovation practices, especially in developing country like India. The purpose of this paper is to explore the inter-relationships among the customer participation in hotel service innovation variables with the help of interpretive structural modeling (ISM) approach.Design/methodology/approachISM approach is used to determine the direction of customer participation and categorization of psychological variables with their driving and dependence power. Identification of related variables was done through a review of literature initially and arrived at a common consensus through brainstorming sessions with academicians and hotel industry experts.FindingsThe results indicate that a few variables possess higher driving power that include: consumer innovativeness, customer participative behavior, customer socialization, willingness to co-create, role clarity, customer ability and their interlinking. Thus, the research contributes in the development of relationship among various identified variables of customer participation in service innovation (CPSI) using ISM.Research limitations/implicationsThis study suggests that hoteliers should co-create with customers to develop new services by understanding their psychological variables that play a crucial role determining their active participation in new hotel service offerings.Practical implicationsThis study suggests that hoteliers should co-create with customers to develop new services by understanding the enablers of customer participation in co-creative hotel service innovation. Hoteliers can have hierarchical map of their customers for co-creating at different stages of service innovation or can segregate the variables as per their driving and dependence power for enhanced applicability of the variables. Further, the observed inter-relationships among the CPSI variables can guide the managers in planning and implementing identified relationships for successful implementation of co-creative service innovation.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge this study is the first to provide an integrated model using ISM and Matrix Impact Cross-Reference Multiplication Applied to a Classification (MICMAC) analysis with a goal to identify and classify various key enablers of customer participation in co-creative hotel service innovation in India. The authors believe that this study will enhance the understanding of the psychological factors influencing customer-firm co-creative service innovation activities and help the academicians and industry practitioners to select right enablers for customer participation in co-creative hotel service innovation. Thus, this study will be the foundation for studying co-creative service innovation using the ISM and MICMAC approaches.

Engaging Customers through Social Media to Improve Industrial Product Development: The Role of Customer Co-Creation Value

ABSTRACTThis study aims to investigate the effect of social media on customer loyalty with the mediation of customer co-creation value and to build a customer engagement model through co-creation value, which is supported by product improvement perceived in increasing customer loyalty. The data collection employed a survey method with structured questionnaires which were distributed to 150 respondents who were the members of social media product communities in Indonesia. The findings showed that interactions through social media are able to increase customer engagement, facilitaitng collaboration in co-creation value, allowing the company to improve and develop products based on customers' needs and desires, which will eventually increase customer loyalty.

Customer Satisfaction as an Antecedent to Engagement in Co-Creation of Value in the Hotel Industry

Customer Satisfaction as an Antecedent to Engagement in Co-Creation of Value in the Hotel Industry Laurence Bell, Andrew Babyak Abstract Purpose - An examination of the existing literature found that no research had been performed examining customer satisfaction as an antecedent to co-creation of value. This is important because organizations have difficulty engaging customers in co-creation of value, which can increase loyalty, trust, innovation, and competitive advantage. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between customer satisfaction and its constructs, and engagement in co-creation of value. Design - Six hypotheses were developed regarding the relationship between customer satisfaction, each of its components, and customer engagement in co-creation of value. A survey was distributed to 256 adults who lived in the United States and had recently experienced hotel services. Data were examined using Pearson correlations and ordinary least squares multiple regressions. Findings - The results indicated overall customer satisfaction, reliability, assurance, tangibles, empathy, and responsiveness each had a significant and positive relationship with customer engagement in co-creation of value. Practical Implications - Due to the benefits that can be developed through creating value with customers, it is important for organizations to encourage customers to engage. The results of this study can be used to build better strategies for customer participation in co-creation of value with organizations. Originality/Value - Prior to this study, no research had been performed that examined customer satisfaction as an antecedent to co-creation of value. This research fills that gap and develops customer satisfaction as a factor towards engaging customers and developing value. Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/jthm.v6n2a2

Social Media Approach on Customer Co-Creation of Innovation on Service Telecommunication

Social Media Approach on Customer Co-Creation of Innovation on Service Telecommunication

Developing business customer engagement through social media engagement-platforms: An integrative S-D logic/RBV-informed model

While the service-dominant logic-informed nature of customer engagement in social media has been recognized in business-to-consumer contexts, little is known regarding this theoretical interface in business-to-business (B2B) settings. Insight into business customer engagement (BCE), as expressed through social media and/or other B2B engagement-platforms (e.g. trade shows) and its S-D logic-based antecedents and consequences thus remains limited. Based on the observed gap, this paper integrates the theoretical entities of BCE, B2B social media engagement-platforms, and S-D logic and through its analyses, uncovers the related importance of the resource-based view (RBV) in affecting this association. An integrative S-D logic/RBV-informed model is developed, where BCE denotes an industrial customer's investment of operant/operand resources in supplier interactions via particular B2B engagement-platforms, including social media. The model considers business customer actors and resources in driving business customer resource integration, business customer resource integration effectiveness, and business customer resource integration efficiency, which act as BCE antecedents that extend to coincide with BCE. BCE, in turn, triggers business customer cocreation and relationship productivity, which subsequently, contribute to business customer relationship quality and ultimately, supplier performance. A set of research propositions is derived from the model, which serves as a useful guide for further research. Managerial implications focused on B2B social media marketing are discussed, before we conclude with an overview of research limitations and future research directions.

A review of service quality and service delivery

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide researchers with an overview of the service quality and delivery domain, focussing on the inclusion of customer co-production and customer integration. Specifically, this paper concentrates on service quality (including quality measurement), the service environment, controls and their consequences.Design/methodology/approachA comprehensive review of the literature is conducted, analysed and presented.FindingsThe review shows that service delivery is both complex and challenging, particularly when considering the unique characteristics of services and the high level of customer involvement in their creation. The facilitation, transformation and usage framework identifies how failures can occur at each stage of service delivery, beginning with the characteristics of the service environment, while control theory offers insights into the formal and informal controls that may be applied in the facilitation and transformation stages, which may reduce the likelihood or extent of such failures.Originality/valueDespite the fact that it is widely accepted that service quality is an antecedent to customer satisfaction, it is surprising that this customer co-creation aspect has been largely neglected in the extant literature. As such, the role that customer co-production plays in service quality performance has been examined in this paper. It is hoped that this examination will enhance both theoretical and practical understanding of service quality. It would be useful to find modern tools that can help in improving service quality performance.

Acccommodating co-creation in a hotel experience

Acccommodating co-creation in a hotel experience

Designing Customer Co-Creation: Business Models and CoDesign Activities

Designing Customer Co-Creation: Business Models and CoDesign Activities

How valuable are your customers in the brand value co-creation process? The development of a Customer Co-Creation Value (CCCV) scale

Despite an increasing amount of research on co-creation of value, in general, research on brand value co-creation remains limited. Particularly, how much value customers contribute to the brand value co-creation process remains unclear. This research develops in a series of eight studies the Customer Co-Creation Value (CCCV) measurement scale that helps firms assess the value of customers in the brand value co-creation process. The findings reveal that CCCV is a multidimensional construct consisting of two higher-order factors and seven dimensions: customer-owned resources (including brand knowledge, brand skills, brand creativity, and brand connectedness) and customer motivation (comprising brand passion, brand trust, and brand commitment). Further, the CCCV scale reliably and validly gauges the value customers contribute to a firm's brand. The CCCV framework helps marketing managers understand how customers can contribute to a firm's brand value co-creation efforts and how much value customers contribute to a brand in the co-creation process.

Exploring Links Between Engaging Customers in Value Co-Creation and Product Innovativeness

AbstractThe study examines the hypothesis that firms engaging customers in value co-creation tend to display more innovativeness. As such, it is one of the few quantitative studies on the link between these two concepts. Customer engagement in value co-creation was operationalized as a multiple scale following the DART framework by Prahalad and Ramaswamy. The DART acronym denotes four salient dimensions of enabling co-creation: Dialog, Access, Risk and Transparency. The applied innovativeness metric was revenue share from new and modified products. Data were collected from 432 managers of manufacturing and service SMEs. Statistical data analysis methods included EFA, CFA and multiple regression modeling.The major finding is the existence of a significant positive effect between engaging customers in value co-creation and innovativeness. In particular, certain DART dimensions, such as Dialog, elements of Access and Risk, coincided with increased levels of innovativeness. Among the study’s limitations, two are particularly pertinent. First, different conceptualizations of customer engagement in value co-creation could yield different results in terms of effect magnitudes, although the authors believe that the direction of relationships should remain the same. Second, the research considered customer engagement from the perspective of managers, which could induce bias. Hence, it may be worthwhile to examine how customers evaluate their own engagement.In terms of practical application, to enhance innovativeness, firms should intensify their efforts to engage customers in day-to-day operations. However, not all aspects of co-creation provide equal benefits – it appears that more involved actions on the part of the company are needed to produce noticeable positive effects.From a theoretical viewpoint, the findings empirically validate the business relevance of engaging customers in value co-creation. Unlike many other studies of the co-creation stream, this paper relies on a large, representative sample of manufacturing and service firms.

Customer co-creation and adoption intention towards newly developed services: an empirical study

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework to empirically examine and explain the antecedent factors of consumers’ adoption intention toward co-creatively developed new travel services using smart phone apps. The antecedents include consumer innovativeness, trust, degree of co-creation that results in positive adoption intention. In this study, tourists’ degree of co-creation acts as a mediator between trust and adoption intention.Design/methodology/approachData were collected through online surveys from tourists that resulted into a total of 152 valid responses. An analysis of data was done by applying the confirmatory factor analysis along with structural equation modeling.FindingsThe findings of this study indicate that both consumer innovativeness and trust significantly affect adoption intention directly and indirectly via degree of co-creation among tourists and e-travel service providers. Degree of co-creation acts as a mediator between the above-mentioned relationships.Research limitations/implicationsUse of smart phone apps by tourists’ and e-travel companies to co-create new services and tourists’ adoption intention have been examined in context of co-created service innovation that limits the generalizability of the results to other industries. A few other limitations are also discussed.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study guides the policy planners and e-travel company managers toward application of mobile technology in consumer co-creation in context of service innovation.Originality/valueTourists’ trust in the e-travel companies and their innovativeness were found to influence their degree of co-creation, which are instrumental in developing adoption intention toward co-creative new service innovation using smart phone apps in India. This is a significant addition to the existing literature, as studies on co-creation activities aiming to co-develop new services by tourists and e-travel companies in India are scant in number. In addition to this, the newly developed conceptual model also highlights the role of degree of co-creation as a mediator between two antecedents (trust and innovativeness) and outcome (tourists’ adoption intention), which are considered as new additions to the co-creative service innovation literature.

Customer Participation Behavior in High- Versus Low-Contact Services: The Multiple Roles of Customer Trust

ABSTRACTIn light of the changing roles of customers from service co-producer to value co-creator, the customer participation literature has conceptualized two types of participation behavior: co-production and value co-creation. However, there is a dearth of knowledge concerning both the antecedents of customer co-creation behavior and the outcomes of such behavior in relation to customer-perceived value and loyalty. Anchored in the trust-commitment theory, the present research (a) examines the effect of how a customer's trust in the service personnel could affect his/her cooperative behavior over the service design and delivery processes; and (b) investigates how the potential impact of a customer's trust in service personnel on his/her co-design and co-delivery behavior could be made contingent upon the customer's trust in the service brand and the types of high- versus low-customer-contact service contexts. Filling the aforementioned research gaps, the present research contributes to advance our knowledge of the roles played by trust at different levels of analysis in facilitating customer participation behavior and improving our appreciation of the customer contact service contexts when designing the service organization for maximizing service value and sustaining brand loyalty over time.

Transforming Jewellery Designing: Empowering Customers through Crowdsourcing in India

Dynamic business environment demands ‘value’ to be co-created with larger group of stakeholders and especially with customers as partners for development and growth. With this goal in mind, MNCs are engaging in value creation with the customers by largely seeking customer engagement in designing features of products and services that foster customer action and instil a sense of pride and confidence in them. The focus of this study is to investigate crowdsourcing as a tool for customer co-creation in ideation stages of new product development (NPD) through an engagement platform called ‘My Expression’. Case study methodology is applied, and secondary data are collected online mostly from firm website. Thus, this is an attempt to highlight present and future avenues of co-creation in Indian MNCs with distinct cultural and social aspects.

Change of Attitude, Technology and Practice: Identifying the Change for Increased Value Creation with Customer Co-creation

Building customer relationships and customer equity is the prime concern in today’s business decisions. The emergence of internet, especially social media like Facebook and Twitter, changed traditional marketing thought to a great extent. The importance of customer orientation is reflected in the axiom, “The customer is the king”. A good number of organizations are engaging customers in their new product development activities via social media platforms. Co-creation, a new perspective in which customers are active co-creators of the products they buy and use, is currently challenging the traditional paradigm. The concept of co-creation involving the customer’s knowledge, creativity and judgment to generate value is considered not only an upcoming trend that introduces new products or services but also fitting their need and increasing value for money. Knowledge and innovation are inseparable. Knowledge management competencies and capacities are essential to any organization that aspires to be distinguished and innovative. The present work is an attempt to identify the change in value creation procedure along with one area of business, where co-creation can return significant dividends. It is on extending the brand or brand category through brand extension or line extension. This article, through an in depth literature review analysis, identifies the changes in every perspective of this paradigm shift and it presents a conceptual model of company-customer-brand-based co-creation activity via social media. The main objective is offering an agenda for future research of this emerging trend and ensuring the way to move from theory to practice. The paper acts as a proposal; it allows the organization to go for this change in a large scale and obtain early feedback on the idea presented.

Exploring the “black box” of customer co-creation processes

PurposeMany firms use customer co-creation practices with the aim of benefiting from their customers’ knowledge, skills and resources. This paper aims to explore co-creation processes which involve users with different background characteristics and motivational drivers.Design/methodology/approachThe study builds on an analysis of data from six teams in which users collaborated with in-house professionals for the development of new service concepts. Observations and open-ended questionnaires provided insights into the teams’ development processes. Independent experts rated the generated concepts. The data were analysed using cross-comparison matrices.FindingsThe findings suggest that the co-creation process and outcomes can be influenced by numerous intra-team factors, including relationship and task conflicts, participation style, team bonding, team identity and cohesiveness and intra-team collaboration. Their occurrence and influence seem to be linked with a specific team composition. A conceptual co-creation process model and six propositions are used to describe the complex relationships between team composition, intra-team factors and key innovation outcomes.Research limitations/implicationsResearch that investigates user involvement in teams needs to consider the complexity of intra-team factors affecting the development process and outcomes. The findings are limited to a specific setting, design task and user sample. Future research should replicate this study in different sectors.Practical implicationsKey to customer co-creation is the systematic recruitment of users based on their background characteristics and motivational drivers. For instance, the involvement of users with very specific innovation-related benefit expectations can cause conflict, leading to narrowly focused outcomes. This, however, can be mitigated by the form of facilitation and roles adopted by in-house professionals. Understanding intra-team dynamics can allow the firm to assemble and facilitate customer co-creation so that generated outcomes can align with set innovation targets.Originality/valueThis paper provides original insights into the “black box” of the customer co-creation process and the complex relationship between team composition, intra-team factors and key innovation outcomes.

Atypical Shifts Post-failure: Influence of Co-creation on Attribution and Future Motivation to Co-create

This study investigates how the effect of the failure of co-created products or services influences: (a) internal attribution (i.e. the self) and external attribution (i.e. the firm), (b) customers' expectancies of success, and (c) customers' future motivation to co-create and contribute to recovery from failure. We use attribution theory and the attribution–expectancy framework to explain the theoretical relationships we advance and test our hypotheses in two independent experiments that stimulate co-creation through role-play and vignettes. The results show that customer co-creation shifts the attribution for failure to the self, resulting in atypical shifts in expectancy (increasing customers' expectancy of future success and motivation to continue co-creating in the future). Our results suggest that utilizing customers' efforts and skills in the co-creation of products and services can help firms to manage failure effectively. The implications of our findings on co-creation research and product and service failures are discussed, specific applications within the digital context are considered, and suggestions are offered for future research.

Customer Co-Creation: A Value Creation Perspective

Forces like globalization, deregulation, convergence of technology and evolution of success have shaped the international markets extensively and made a large number of product and service choices readily available to the consumer across boundaries. However, with these forces coming into play, an average consumer is not satisfied with the consumption of the products offered to him. Today, Consumers are more aware and actively search for information to make more informed purchase decisions. Web 2.0 has revolutionized consumer interaction with available products and services and lead to consumer empowerment. With Consumer empowerment, comes the contemporary view of the value creation process; consumers are no longer passive members of a value creation process, they participate proactively with the company to create value. Consumer Co-creation has transformed today’s market from a firm-centric perspective to a consumer-centric perspective, where the consumer has evolved as a competence. Customer Co-creation has become the driving reason for success, our research delves into exemplars to display the impact Customer Co-creation has on the company.

Drivers and resources of customer co-creation: A scenario-based case in the restaurant industry

The aim of this study was to build and test a model that explores customer co-creation by integrating drivers and resources that promote customer co-creation. This study used a scenario-based survey that combines respondents’ personal experiences of dining at a full-service restaurant and their responses to the hypothetical scenario of the co-creation experience. The population of the study was restaurant customers in the United States who visited any full-service restaurant within the previous three months before the survey date. Using convenience sampling, respondents were recruited from the Amazon Mechanical Turk. A total of 501 responses were used for data analysis using a two-step approach of structural equation modeling. This study found that customers with a higher level of knowledge, self-efficacy, and motivation are more likely to participate in the co-creation experience. In addition, the results supported the role of the customer as a resource integrator during the co-creation experience.

Linking positive psychological capital with customer value co-creation

PurposeThis study aims to identify the driving forces of customer value co-creation (VCC) that occur through employee positive psychological capital (PPC), employee service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior (SOOCB) and customer brand experience (BE).Design/methodology/approachIn total, 493 valid samples were retrieved from 30 hotels in Taiwan. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to extensively and accurately examine customer VCC from a cross-level perspective.FindingsThe results showed that employee PPC was not positively related to customer VCC, that employee PPC affected customer VCC indirectly through the mediating effect of employee SOOCB and that the relationship between employee SOOCB and customer VCC was positively moderated by customer BE.Originality/valueFirst, this study investigated the customer VCC driving forces through the role of the employee, and thus advances the customer VCC field. Second, it identified employee SOOCB as a key mediating mechanism that links the indirect relationship between employee PPC and customer VCC. Third, it identified customer BE as a key moderating mechanism in the relationship between employee SOOCB and customer VCC. Fourth, regarding methodology, few studies investigate VCC through a cross-level approach. The present study used hierarchical linear modeling to extensively and accurately examine customer VCC and its cross-level relationships, thus providing greater research value compared with single-level analysis. Finally, the result findings suggest that organizational leaders should enhance the PPC of employees in furtherance of encouraging the employees to perform extra-role SOOCB, which makes customer co-creation behavior, and ultimately, contributes to managerial practice.

Customer interface design for customer co-creation in the social era

The purpose of this study was to examine (1) whether six elements of a customer interface for co-creation, (a) character, (b) choice, (c) community, (d) contact interactivity, (e) convenience, and (f) customization, were related to customer commitment to co-creation, (2) whether customer commitment was related to patronage intention toward co-creation of ordinary fashion products (study 1) and Hawaiian Aloha fashion products (study 2), and (3) whether the moderating effects of financial and product performance risks affected the relationship between commitment and patronage intention. Data were collected from online apparel shoppers (n = 688) for study 1 and online apparel shoppers who are willing to engage in co-creation for Aloha fashions (n = 336) for study 2, using a U.S. consumer panel via an online survey. Structural equation modeling was employed to test the proposed model. Among the 6Cs of the customer interface design for co-creation, character, choice, and customization were found to be important elements that affected customer commitment to co-creation for both ordinary fashion products and Aloha fashion products. Product performance risk did not moderate the relationship between customer commitment and patronage intention. The differences between the results of ordinary fashion products and Aloha fashion products were discussed.