Identifying typologies of user-innovators in value co-creation.

Since 1990s, customer competence has been recognised as a key source of co-creation in new product development (NPD). In high-technology product innovation, this concept is more pivotal since firms cannot achieve fast and successful innovation without collaboration and network. However, how to identify the right customers for collaborative product innovation in high-technology industry context is an unresolved question in both marketing theory and practice. This remaining question may stem from a lack of consensus in how extant research defined the two key considerations in co-creation activities, named as ‘innovation typologies’ and ‘degree of co-creation’. To address the gap and further develop the traditional concepts in NPD, this research is aimed to gain an insight of customers’ behaviour in high-technology industry context. Within the scope of research, this paper will employ ‘user-innovator’ as the main body of knowledge to develop study on their behaviours and competence in various stages of NPD process. Participant observation and in-depth interview techniques will be conducted amongst participants in Robotics project run by researchers in the University of Birmingham and a co-creatin process run by IBM. The study is expected to identify clusters of user-innovators from a holistic view, understand their competence in co-creation and gain a broader perspective in approaching innovation attempts. In addition to its originality in literature of cocreation and consumer behaviour, this study will bring valuable contributions in assisting firms to achieve a higher degree of co-creation with customers, including a generation of tacit knowledge which is widely known to be difficult to transform in high-technology context

Chapter 5. Four decades of engaging customers in product innovation

Customer co-creation has been an increasingly discussed concept within the innovation field in recent years. This study traces the development of this concept since it first appeared in 1976. By conducting content analysis of 588 academic articles and case studies, the evolution of the concept of customer co-creation has been properly depicted. Alongside the elaboration of this evolution, related issues such as the complexity and the conceptualization of types of customer values are also discussed

Chapter 7: When an orchestra misses its harmony (or how I learnt to work with my supervisors)

The chapter uses the metaphor of sonata form to describe the life of the author’s doctoral thesis. Her first year somewhat resembled the first movement of a sonata. Difficulties in understanding both her supervisors’ expectations and the standard of work required led to a dramatic coda in which a surprising piece of critique caused a significant drop in her confidence. Moving to her second year, she experienced a number of crashes, ranging from epistemology and research directions to working style. However, the introduction of a new voice, in the form of a third supervisor, restored some harmony to the PhD composition. Further discordance arose in the third year, but the author concludes that the journey provided some memorable counterpoints that trained her to become a skilled composer, conductor, and performer of knowledge. These counterpoints inspire her to offer a few useful lessons for current and future PhD students

Connecting with God through Live-streaming

The growth of online religion and consumer engagement with donation and church services, especially post-pandemic, has inspired us to look into the role of Religious live streaming in society. This study aims to develop an understanding of how megachurches can respond to the public when entering the general media’s public sphere, develop transformable rituals to help congregant-consumers to find, create and grow their spiritual authentic self - including both intra and interpersonal authenticity

Inside the joint sphere of value co-creation

Research on the role of consumers in value creation has advanced the consumer culture theory and added values to the field of marketing (Lanier and Schau, 2007; Lusch and Vargo, 2006). After management scholars Prahalad and Ramaswam began a series of essays suggesting the changing paradigm of firm-consumer interaction (2000), Gronroos further evolved the theory by introducing the concepts of different value creation spheres and had a strong focus on the joint sphere of value co-creation (2013). Joint sphere, by offering a dialogical manner between consumers, allows consumers to possibly cross the boundary into provider sphere and become the co-producers at an early stage. This encourages and facilitates their reflection of “the world”, their expression of multi-realities, and communication with larger audience (including firms) about the alternatives to realities

Revisiting Benjaminʼs aura in the age of mediatisation–the digital aura of megachurches

This study employs Walter Benjamin’s aura framework as a theoretical lens to look at religious consumption in virtual worlds, via a case study of the London megachurch Kingsway International Christian Centre. Findings suggest inter-personal authenticity contributes to authenticity in online religious consumption and emphasise the need to re-sacralise space and de-sanctify time to help congregant-audiences access sacred experiences. We also highlight the importance of re-mooring traditions and transformable rituals in replicating essential components of real-world worship gatherings through media and technologies. Proposing that the digital imbues its own aura, we develop the concept of ‘digital aura’, characterised by hypermediacy in media usage and remediation, which leads to the refashioning of certain practices and, ultimately, changes the way that audience members engage in ritual events

The orchestra of ideas: Using music to enhance the ‘fuzzy front end’ phase of product innovation

By introducing music composition theory, we offer a new perspective from which to understand the ‘fuzzy front end’ (FFE) phase of product innovation with regard to both value outcomes and the innovation process. Focusing on ideas co-created by consumers, we draw on an ethnographic study to examine how young consumers tackled a real-life challenge to produce a digital product that would engage audiences in classical music. Working with two organizations, one a city symphony orchestra, the other a global technology corporation, this work bridges innovation and aesthetics and challenges the established mind-set of the science-art schism in business management. The findings contribute to innovation theory by introducing a hybrid model that structures FFE activities based around the composing process. We also illuminate how music can facilitate and ensure greater value for consumers as ‘the composers of ideas’. Managerial implications are suggested