The co-creation experience from the customer perspective: its measurement and determinants

Purpose - Companies increasingly opt for co-creation by engaging customers in new product and service development processes. The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the customer experience in co-creation situations and its determinants. Design/methodology/approach - The conceptual framework addresses the customer experience in co-creation situations, and its individual and environmental determinants. To examine the degree to which these determinants affect the customer experience in co-creation situations, the author starts by proposing and testing a multidimensional co-creation experience scale (n = 66). Next, the author employs an experiment to test the hypotheses (n = 180). Findings - Higher levels of customer role readiness, technologization, and connectivity positively affect different co-creation experience dimensions. The impact of these dimensions on the overall co-creation experience, however, differs according to customers' expectations in terms of co-creation benefits. Therefore, the author concludes that the expected co-creation benefits determine the importance of the level of customer role readiness, technologization, and connectivity for the co-creation experience. Originality/value - This research generates a better understanding of the co-creation experience by providing insight into the co-creation experience dimensions and their relative importance for customers with different expectations in terms of co-creation benefits. Additionally, this research addresses the implications of customer heterogeneity in terms of expected co-creation benefits for designing co-creation environments, thereby helping managers to generate more rewarding co-creation experiences for their customers

Managing engagement behaviors in a network of customers and stakeholders: evidence from the nursing home sector

Firms striving for long-term profitability need to build stronger customer-firm relationships by getting their customers more engaged with the firm. One path to this end is introducing practices to manage different forms of customer engagement behaviors (CEBs). To develop more effective and efficient CEB management practices, this research proposes and empirically tests a theoretical model on managerial and psychological processes to encourage CEBs that are embedded in a broader network of customers and stakeholders. Based on qualitative and quantitative studies in nursing homes, we demonstrate that organizational support and overall service quality toward significant others influence some forms of CEBs—more particularly feedback and positive word of mouth (WOM) behaviors—through customer affect toward the organization. It is interesting to note that customer affect toward the organization encouragesWOMbehaviors, while it discourages feedback behaviors. Conversely, managerial processes that increase customer role readiness—such as organizational socialization and support from other customers—were found to have a positive impact on all forms of CEBs. This research helps managers of nursing homes and other services with a broad network of customers and stakeholders to improve existing CEB management practices and develop new CEB management practices that are beneficial for the firm and its stakeholders

Designing the customer journey in a service delivery network: evidence from cancer patient treatments

Customer experiences - not in the least for customers with chronic diseases - depend on a series of exchanges over a considerable amount of time with a variety of service providers and thus a service delivery network (SDN). The impact of SDNs on the customer experience, however, is unclear. This research provides insight into (1) the service delivery system characteristics in SDNs, and (2) their impact on the relationship between customer journey duration and value for time as an important customer experience indicator. The service delivery system characteristics were explored by process travel sheets of patients undergoing cancer treatment in a hospital (n=412). These data were linked to time measurement data (n=262) and survey data (n=312) to explain customer journey duration and value for time, thereby showing the importance of the number of service events and the type of service providers. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed

How & why governance dynamics emerge in inter-organizational networks : a meta-ethnographic analysis

Over the past few decades, governance was a pervasive theme in discussions of strategy and management in the context of inter-organizational networks. To date, network researchers call for a dynamic theory of governance in inter-organizational networks to deal with increased uncertainty in the network environment and unpredictable network changes. In response to this call, the present research aims to generate a better understanding of how and why governance mechanisms in inter-organizational networks change over time and the implications of such governance evolutions for the network actors. Based upon a meta-ethnographic analysis of 19 longitudinal case studies, a multitude of governance mechanisms ranging from relational to formal governance are identified at the single dyad, multiple dyad and network level. These governance mechanisms constitute five network governance dynamics over time: purely relational, relational-formal, combinations of relational and formal, formal-relational, and purely formal governance patterns. These governance dynamics empirically demonstrate that governance in inter-organizational networks is always possible in other, although not infinite, ways. By detailing the conditions under which path dependencies occur, the present research advances the literature on network governance

Engaged customers as job Resources or demands for frontline employees?

Purpose – This paper proposes and empirically tests a theoretical model on how different customer engagement behaviors (CEBs), such as giving feedback and helping other customers, affect the role stress–job strain relationship among frontline employees. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing from the job demands-resources model, this paper hypothesizes that some CEBs weaken the role stress–job strain relationship among frontline employees, whereas the opposite holds for other CEBs. To test these hypotheses, the study involved a survey among 279 frontline employees in 20 nursing home teams in Belgium. Findings – The results reveal that the impact of role stress on job strain is stronger when frontline employees notice more helping behaviors among customers and weaker when frontline employees receive more customer feedback or notice that customers spread positive word of mouth about the nursing home. Originality/value – This research contributes to the customer engagement and frontline employee literature by showing that CEBs can act as both job demands and job resources for frontline employees

Implications of customer participation in outsourcing noncore services to third parties

Purpose Focal service providers increasingly involve customers in the decision-making about outsourcing parts of the service delivery process to third parties. The present study investigates how customers' outsourcing decisions affect the formation of the waiting experience with the focal service provider, by which the objective waiting time, environmental quality and interactional quality act as focal drivers. Design/methodology/approach To test our hypotheses in the context of cancer care, we gathered process data and experience data by means of a patient observation template (n = 640) and a patient survey (n = 487). The combined data (n = 377) were analyzed using Bayesian models. Findings This study shows that opting for a service triad (i.e. outsourcing non-core services to a third party) deduces customers' attention away from the objective waiting time with the focal service provider but not from the environmental and interactional quality offered by the focal service provider. When the type of service triad coordination is considered, we observe similar effects for a focal service provider-coordinated service triad while in a customer-coordinated service triad the interactional quality is the sole experience driver of waiting experiences that remains significant. Originality/value By investigating the implications of customer participation in the decision-making about outsourcing parts of the service delivery process to third parties, this research contributes to the service design, service triad and service operations literature. Specifically, this study shows that customer outsourcing decisions impact waiting experience formation with the focal service provider.Purpose Focal service providers increasingly involve customers in the decision-making about outsourcing parts of the service delivery process to third parties. The present study investigates how customers' outsourcing decisions affect the formation of the waiting experience with the focal service provider, by which the objective waiting time, environmental quality and interactional quality act as focal drivers. Design/methodology/approach To test our hypotheses in the context of cancer care, we gathered process data and experience data by means of a patient observation template (n = 640) and a patient survey (n = 487). The combined data (n = 377) were analyzed using Bayesian models. Findings This study shows that opting for a service triad (i.e. outsourcing non-core services to a third party) deduces customers' attention away from the objective waiting time with the focal service provider but not from the environmental and interactional quality offered by the focal service provider. When the type of service triad coordination is considered, we observe similar effects for a focal service provider-coordinated service triad while in a customer-coordinated service triad the interactional quality is the sole experience driver of waiting experiences that remains significant. Originality/value By investigating the implications of customer participation in the decision-making about outsourcing parts of the service delivery process to third parties, this research contributes to the service design, service triad and service operations literature. Specifically, this study shows that customer outsourcing decisions impact waiting experience formation with the focal service provider.A