Consumer co-creation and the impact on intermediaries

Abstract

Purpose – While prior studies have examined how loyal customers create value for preferred manufacturers, this study aims to focus on the supply chain and captures the indirect economic and relational benefits and costs of customer value creation on channel intermediaries. Design/methodology/approach – Service-dominant logic is used to explain the rationale behind consumer contributions and supply chain connectedness in an interactive online world. Drawing from the relevant literature, a conceptual model supported by propositions is presented. Findings – As manufacturers utilize consumer contributions, affiliated intermediaries will report having less informational power, providing less value to the channel, greater benefit-based and cost-based dependence, heightened efforts to create channel value, an enhanced reputation and greater sales, and greater collaboration with customers. Research limitations/implications – This conceptual paper is the beginning of an investigation into the pragmatic function of a service-dominant view as it pertains to a marketing channel. As this avenue for research is further developed, it is important that the propositions included in this study first be examined. Practical implications – Awareness of the underlying logic and the resulting impacts should aid channel intermediaries in realizing their own contributions throughout the manufacturer ' s value chain and recognizing changes to their positions of power. As a result, channel intermediaries should be better positioned to assess the health and future prospects of the relationship. Originality/value – This work is the first study to examine potential impacts on the intermediary operating in a channel in which the manufacturer is significantly influenced by consumer contributions.

Supply Chain Collaboration, Integration, and Relational Technology: How Complex Operant Resources Increase Performance Outcomes

“…; Siguaw et al. ). Further, the imperfect mobility of knowledge and skill‐based assets make the advantage they provide more durable to those firms holding them in comparison to more tangible resources (Barney , ; Rungtusanatham et al.…”

Conceptualizing the Value Co-Destruction Process for Service Systems: Literature Review and Synthesis

“…Intentional value codestruction, in turn, refers to a service system intentionally misusing resources in order to gain more benefit-described as well-being-and capacity for adaptiveness for itself, to the detriment of those of another system [8]. Intentions to co-destroy or not to co-create value [8,23,36,49,50,63], opportunism or deviancy [37, 47-49, 51-54, 56], and changes in intentions [31,35,48,[55][56][57] are implied to herald value codestruction in the literature.…”

Service-dominant logic and supply chain management: a systematic literature review

“…The large portion of conceptual or theoretical contribution efforts is eventual for a recently rising body of knowledge. These papers try to understand the interface between the two research fields by utilizing different constructs, like branding (Glynn, 2012; Ballantyne and Aitken, 2007), product-to-service shift (Sheth and Sharma, 2008; Spring and Araujo, 2009), value co-creation (Yazdanparast et al , 2010; Prockl et al , 2012; Stank et al , 2012; Hammervoll, 2014; Siguaw et al , 2014) or directly SDL and SCM (Flint et al , 2014; Lusch, 2011) to name a few.…”