Tom Chen

Epilogue to the Special Issue and reflections on the future of engagement research

We are confident this Special Issue will generate scholarly discussion and debate, as well as act as a catalyst in advancing marketing-based engagement research. We thank each of the contributing authors, and in this commentary, synthesise our key reflections regarding the current state of engagement research, and identify key areas for further research in this area, which emanate from this Special Issue.

Usage center – value cocreation in multi-actor usage processes

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to advance extant theorizing around resource integration by conceptualizing and delineating the notion of a usage center. A usage center consists of a combination of interdependent actors that draw on resources across their individual usage processes to create value. Design/methodology/approach This paper provides a conceptual inquiry into the usage center. Findings This paper delineates the notion of a usage center by way of focal and peripheral resource integrators, as well as focal and peripheral resources that form part of interdependent resource usage processes. The conceptual analysis reveals the need for resources to be accessible and shareable to focal and peripheral actors, with rivalry and emergence central factors influencing the actor’s usage processes. Originality/value Responding to recent calls for research developing insights into multi-actor value cocreation, this paper is the first to comprehensively and coherently conceptualize the notion of a usage center. In doing so, the authors build an important foundation for future theorizing related to the potential emergence of usage centers as well as the cocreation of individual and collective value.

User experience sharing: Understanding customer initiation of value co-creation in online communities

Purpose This paper aims to propose user experience sharing (UES) as a customer-based initiation of value co-creation pertaining to service provision, which represents customers’ level of effort made for the direct benefit of others in their service network. The authors propose and empirically examine a user experience sharing model (UESM) that explicates customer-to-customer (C2C) UES and its impacts on firm-desired customer-based outcomes in online communities. Design/methodology/Approach Based on an extensive review, the authors conceptualize UES and UESM. By using online survey data collected from mobile app users in organic online communities, the authors performed structural equation modeling analyses by using AMOS 24. Findings The results support the proposed UESM, showing that C2C UES acts as a key driver of both firm-desired customer efforts and customer insights. The results also confirmed that service-dominant (S-D) logic-informed motivational drivers exert a significant impact on C2C UES. Importantly, C2C UES mediates the relationship between S-D logic-informed motivational drivers and firm-desired customer-based outcomes. Originality/value This study offers a pioneering attempt to develop an overarching concept, UES, which reflects customers’ initiation of value co-creation, and to empirically examine C2C UES. The empirical evidence supports the key contention that firms should proactively facilitate C2C UES.

The beginning of value co-creation: understanding dynamics, efforts and betterment

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand the beginning of value co-creation by uncovering the roles, efforts, and desired outcomes of employees and how they affect employees’ responses to their firm’s co-creation initiatives. Design/methodology/approach This study applies a single case study to explore micro-level processes at the beginning of value co-creation informed by a case about how a Taiwanese firm moved from a conventional to a co-creative business model. Findings The case study findings affirm nine subthemes that underlie three key themes: co-creation dynamics, efforts, and betterment. The authors provide a value co-creation framework that is informed by nine subthemes derived from interview data. Research limitations/implications Current literature on understanding value co-creation processes focuses on formalized co-creation processes which produce diverse and contextually dependent findings. The authors contribute to current value co-creation literature by offering convergent insights into the interplay of dynamics, efforts, and betterment experienced by employees transitioning to a value co-creation process. Practical implications The authors offer a diagnostic value co-creation checklist and propose three benefits of using the checklist, which can help managers mitigate the uncertainty that arises during the transition from a conventional to a co-creation firm. Originality/value The study responds to calls for research to investigate where and when the co-creation of value emerges, value co-creation behavior from employees’ point of view, and employees’ roles in the co-creation of value.