Elina Jaakkola

The Role of Customer Engagement Behavior in Value Co-Creation A Service System Perspective

Recent developments in marketing and service research highlight the blurring of boundaries between firms and customers. The concept of customer engagement (CE) aggregates the multiple ways customer behaviors beyond transactions may influence the firm. However, the term is embryonic and academics and practitioners alike lack understanding on how CE contributes to value co-creation. This article marks the first attempt to conceptualize the role of customer engagement behavior (CEB) in value co-creation within a multistakeholder service system. We combine the theoretical perspectives of CE and value co-creation research to the analysis of a rich case study of a public transport service system involving consumers, communities, businesses, and governmental organizations. Our findings describe drivers for CEB, identify four types of CEB, and explore the value outcomes experienced by various stakeholders. This article proposes that CEB affects value co-creation by virtue of customers’ diverse resource contributions toward the focal firm and/other stakeholders that modify and/or augment the offering, and/or affect other stakeholders’ perceptions, preferences, expectations, or actions toward the firm or its offering. Through inducing broader resource integration, CEB makes value co-creation a system-level process. We offer nine research propositions explicating the connections CEB has to value co-creation by focal customers, the focal firm, and other stakeholders. Our research suggests that firms should focus greater attention on the resources that customers can contribute, explore the potential to engage diverse stakeholders around a common cause, and employ organically emerging systems that provide opportunities for more extensive value co-creation.

Customer participation and value creation: a systematic review and research implications

Purpose – Customer participation in the creation of offerings has become a key focus in marketing literature. This paper synthesizes extant research on the topic to enhance understanding of the conceptualization and value outcomes of customer participation in the creation of offerings.Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on an extensive, systematic literature review covering 163 articles on customer participation published over the last four decades. Selected publications were analyzed according to the topics studied, study context, research approach, and findings.Findings – The review demonstrates how the conceptualization of customer participation has evolved in terms of the nature and range of customer contributions, their temporal scope, and the outcomes considered. It also synthesizes the hypothesized and empirically scrutinized value outcomes of customer participation for both sellers and customers.Research limitations/implications – The review reveals important gaps in the existing know...

Co‐creating customer‐focused solutions within business networks: a service perspective

Purpose – Increased competition and more extensive customer needs have motivated companies to develop integrated solutions. In practice, companies struggle to co‐create effective solutions that meet customer needs. The purpose of this paper is to identify critical factors affecting the effective co‐creation of customer‐focused solutions within business networks.Design/methodology/approach – The study investigates the co‐creation of two different types of solution. Data were collected from two business networks comprising 13 companies, including suppliers and their customers. The empirical data comprise 51 interviews and observations made at 21 company workshops.Findings – Effective co‐creation of solutions requires a fit between the perceptions of multiple suppliers and their customers with regard to core content, operations and processes, customer experience and value of the solution. Co‐creation is affected by, e.g. customers preferences for participation and value, and the degree of competition, clari...

Service experience co-creation: conceptualization, implications, and future research directions

Purpose – The collective, interactive aspects of service experience are increasingly evident in contemporary research and practice, but no integrative analysis of this phenomenon has been conducted until now. The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize service experience co-creation and examines its implications for research and practice. Design/methodology/approach – To map the multi-approach research area of service experience co-creation, the study draws on literature in the fields of service management, service-dominant logic and service logic, consumer culture theory, and service innovation and design, together with invited commentaries by prominent scholars. Findings – A conceptualization is developed for “service experience co-creation,” and multiple dimensions of the concept are identified. It is postulated that service experience co-creation has wider marketing implications, in terms of understanding experiential value creation and foundational sociality in contemporary markets, as well as in t...

Accessing resources for service innovation – the critical role of network relationships

Purpose – This paper aims to explore how companies access resources through network relationships when developing service innovations. The paper identifies the types of resource that companies seek from other actors and examines the nature of relationships and resource access strategies that can be applied to access each type of resource. Design/methodology/approach – A longitudinal, multi-case study is conducted in the field of technical business-to-business (b-to-b) services. An abductive research strategy is applied to create a new theoretical understanding of resource access. Findings – Companies seek a range of resources through different types of network relationships for service innovation. Four types of resource access strategies were identified: absorption, acquisition, sharing, and co-creation. The findings show how easily transferable resources can be accessed through weak relationships and low-intensity collaboration. Access to resources that are difficult to transfer, instead, necessitates st...

Fresh perspectives on customer experience

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide directions for future research on: broadening the role of customers in customer experience; taking a practice-based approach to customer experience; and recognizing the holistic, dynamic nature of customer experience across all touch points and over time. Design/methodology/approach – The approach is conceptual identifying current gaps in research on customer experience. Findings – The findings include a set of research questions and research agenda for future research on customer experience. Originality/value – This research suggests fresh perspectives for understanding the customer experience which can inspire future research and advance theory and managerial practice.

Customer participation management

Purpose – Management of customer participation (CP) in service production and delivery is of critical concern for service managers, as CP can result in various positive but also negative outcomes. However, an integrated understanding on how service providers can manage CP is still missing. The purpose of this paper is to gather and synthesize the extant knowledge on the constituents of CP management into a comprehensive framework, and to offer an extensive agenda for future research. Design/methodology/approach – A systematic literature review of existing research is conducted. A total of 181 journal articles are analyzed in five steps: attaining basic understanding, coding, categorization, comparison, and further analysis. Findings – The authors provide identification and categorizations of the customer inputs, their antecedents, the management approaches, and the outcomes of CP. To date, CP management has been addressed from three distinct perspectives: human resource management that treats customers as...

Developing service research - paving the way to transdisciplinary research

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss how service, as an interdisciplinary area of research, can increase its potential for transdisciplinary contributions from the perspective of what signifies intra-, multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary research. Design/methodology/approach – The essay first discusses common perspectives on the service concept before presenting a review on what signifies intra-, multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary research. The emerging theoretical framework is followed by a discussion on the challenges and opportunities for service research in making interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary theoretical contributions. Findings – The research provides a typological framework for understanding intra-, multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary service research and, implications related to how service research contributions can become increasingly inter- and transdisciplinary. Originality/value – The paper contributes to widening the scope of service research by focussing on how ...

Customer engagement behaviours and value co-creation

Contemporary markets are increasingly interconnected, with actors no longer seen as part of linear value chains but existing in networks of service systems where interaction, collaboration and experience sharing take place (Jaakkola, Helkkula & Aarikka-Stenroos, 2015; Lusch & Vargo, 2014; Chen, Drennan & Andrews, 2012). In such markets, traditional boundaries between the roles of “customer” and “provider” are losing clarity, highlighted by the emergence of concepts such as prosumers and post-consumers (Carù & Cova, 2015; Cova & Dalli, 2009). Customers are not satisfied with the limited role of a buyer, receiver and user of a firm’s offering at the end of the value chain, but proactively engage in crafting the offering according to their personal needs and wants, and seek to also engage other stakeholders (such as other consumers, communities, firms or government organisations) in the service system to contribute their resources towards common aims (Jaakkola & Alexander, 2014). Examples include, customers rating products and services in various online marketplaces, co-creating experiences in brand communities, co-designing and innovating products and services, and arranging boycotts against firms and products perceived as doing harm (e.g. Carù & Cova, 2015; Fournier & Avery, 2011; Füller, 2010; Libai et al., 2010). To capture the various customer activities and behaviours beyond the traditional role of a buyer and user that affect the firm, an overarching concept customer engagement has been introduced (Brodie, Hollebeek, Jurić, & Ilić, 2011; Van Doorn et al., 2010)

Zooming out: actor engagement beyond the dyadic

The purpose of this paper is to broaden extant understanding of actor engagement behavior beyond its currently dominant dyadic (micro-level) focus, by examining it from multiple levels of aggregation within a service ecosystem framework.,This conceptual paper draws on service-dominant logic and structuration theory as theoretical lenses to inform engagement research.,By means of a stepwise exercise of “zooming out,” the paper introduces a multi-perspective (micro-, meso-, macro- and meta-level) view of actor engagement that develops understanding of multiple engagement contexts, and suggests that balancing multiple roles may result in actor disengagement behavior. The role of reference groups and role conflict associated with balancing multiple roles is critical to understanding why engaged actor proclivities may wax and wane between contexts.,The paper offers a set of five propositions that can be utilized by engagement scholars undertaking further research in this area.,Firms need to understand the values and norms embedded in diverse engagement contexts which can affect actor groups’ needs and motivations. Firms should develop appropriate organizational mechanisms to facilitate (rather than impede or obstruct) the desired behaviors of engaged actors.,The broader context within which engaged actors operate, and its effects on engagement, has been largely overlooked to date. By broadening the analytical perspective on engagement beyond the dyadic this paper reveals previously unaddressed aspects of this phenomenon, such as the role of disengagement behavior, and the effects of multiple engagement contexts on actors’ future behaviors.