Editorial

Abstract

Innovation and co-creation process in service enterprises implications for process management and service development Welcome to this special issue of Business Process Management Journal. This special issue takes as its theme "Innovation and Co-creation Process in Service Enterprises". The main motivation behind this special issue was to enhance the readers understanding of co-creation from different conceptual and methodological perspectives. Through the academic contributions within this special issue, we explore and examine a number of topical research themes around the subjects of innovation and co-creation more specifically how these subjects contribute to the body of knowledge and our understanding of innovation and co-creation as applied within a broader service framework.The authors Coimbatore Krishnarao Prahalad and Venkat Ramaswamy popularised the concept of co-creation in their 2000 Harvard Business Review article, Co-Opting Customer Competence. Since the publication of Prahalad and Ramaswamy, papers (2004, 2000), there have been but a few influential contributions to the subject body of knowledge. Perhaps the most notable and most recent contribution by Pieters and Jansen (2017) developed existing cocreation theories and introduced the term "complete co-creation", creating clarity for organisations who struggled with implementing co-creation into their daily operations. Whilst co-creation is an admirable activity to gather unique and various ideas from customers, it also brings challenges to the organisation and the practicing manager.The contributions presented in this issue, identify a number of overarching themes, within the literature which the authors discuss to arouse and stimulate further debate. Empirical research suggests that brand identity and design are relevant to the market success of new services. In this context, the paper by Barry Ardley et al., provides insight into brand communities and their purpose. Using Muniz and O'Guinn ( 2001) as an investigative framework, the research established that there exists a range of co-creation practices in online communities, revolving around design, engagements, procedures and understandings. The article begins with an informative section about brand communities and how value is created in member to member social media community that include social networking sites participation motivations, customer participation, brand trust and brand loyalty in social media brand communities. On deeper inspection, the paper shows evidence of many complex and related purposes within brand communities, for example as a conceptual and empirical example of forms of co-created value in communities, the work by Schau ( 2009) is revealing. Through the examination of a range of brand communities, the authors identify four key value creation practices: social networking, impression management, community engagement and brand use. These four practices are concerned with factors like grooming the caring for and heightening use of the brand or product, and the discussion su...