Value co-creation between the ‘inside’ and the ‘outside’ of a company

Abstract

Our study is focused on the case of a company-managed online brand community in the soda drink sector, which failed in facilitating value co-creation. The aim was to explore the meaning-making processes taking place inside the company, among brand decision-makers, to highlight the factors hindering value co-creation between company and consumers in the brand community context. The study followed a qualitative multi-method design based on three interlaced motivational, semiotic and narrative research phases. The results reveal how some key misalignments rooted in inner tensions in the meaning-making processes among brand decisionmakers resonate in an ambiguous community identity, which is then reflected into a detached and opportunistic consumer experience of the community, to the detriment of its value cocreation potential. The study points at the theoretical relevance of analysing the meaningmaking processes occurring among brand decision-makers, since their internal fine-tuning represents a precondition for value co-creation processes with consumers in the community context.

Brand champion behaviour: Its role in corporate branding

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