Co-Creating Value : Reframing Interactions in Service Consumption

Abstract: How producers and consumers interact in the market and integrate resources is fundamental for our understanding of how value and value creation develop in contemporary economy. Value co-creation in markets has gained renewed interest in marketing theory. The existing literature has predominantly focused on emphasizing either how co-creation processes are organized from a provider perspective or how consumers create value in their consumption practices. In taking either a service-provider or consumption perspective, previous research disregards the complexity of interactions between two or more actors, and that interactions often are characterized by tensions and conflicts. The aim of this thesis is therefore to analyze how constellations of various actors interact to co-create value, and to demonstrate possible implications for marketing theory and research on value co-creation. This is done by examining different constellations of actors’ interactions, emphasizing organization and consumption of services in sport and tourism, two fruitful contexts for investigating complex actor constellations.In marketing theory, Service Dominant logic (S-D logic) has evolved into a key framework for conceptualizing and organizing value co-creation. The focus on the organization of value co- creation has occurred at the expense of emphasizing actors’ rich and varied competences and the contextual conditions that permeate actors’ interactions. Therefore, as another contribution, the present thesis further bridges S-D logic with socio-cultural oriented consumption theory on meaning creation, and how available recourses are made use of by organizations and consumers. Drawing on these two frameworks, and by conducting 52 interviews with respondents from actor groups, this thesis provides a systematization of interactions, demonstrating that value co-creation is dependent on the constellation of actors, their often contradicting interests and their various competences. The following types of interactions for value co-creation are suggested: converged, diverged, disjointed and fragmented.