The primary purpose of this study is two-fold. First, this study proposes a model to explain the factors predicting consumers' intention to co-create based on the theory of planned behavior. More specifically, this study investigates how perceived benefits, perceived costs, subjective norms, and ability to co-create influence consumers' behavioral intentions toward tourism co-creation. Second, this study seeks to examine differences in the relationships among different constructs in the models in accordance with different contextual settings. To gain a richer understanding of consumers' co-creation behaviors, the study examines the impacts of different co-creation settings as moderating effects among the model's constructs. By using 2 X 2 factorial between-subjects design, two co-creation scale categories (radical and incremental) are matched with two co-creation intensity categories (high involvement and low involvement). The results of this study suggest that proposed antecedent constructs (perceived benefits, perceived costs, subjective norms, and abilities to co-create) are strong indicators to predict consumers' intention to co-create. The study also finds that different co-creation settings have strong moderating effects on the relationships among constructs in the co-creation intention model. The insights from the study results are discussed and important practical implications and subjects for further future research are presented. / Tourism and Sport

This dissertation centers on the study of brand appropriation, the altering of brand meaning by non-target market consumers who belong to a subculture. Although oftentimes referenced within the social sciences, appropriation is a scantily explored construct within the context of marketing, and specifically branding. Using a multi-method approach, this research establishes a conceptual framework for brand appropriation, develops an in-depth understanding of why and how it occurs, and examines its effect on consumers and their relationships with brands. Overall, this work builds a theoretical foundation for this phenomenon, contributing to literature involving the role of brands within subcultures, the process and effects of non-target market adoption, and gives consideration to uninvited co-creation behavior. Furthermore these studies gives insight for firms which encounter this unexpected consumption behavior, providing understanding that can help inform strategic response. / Business Administration/Marketing

Yes / Adopting a Service-Dominant Logic lens, recent research within industrial marketing contexts increasingly recognizes the role of operant resources in value co-creation. Incumbent within operant resources is actor competence. Despite this, an investigation into the role of actor competence in value co-creating processes is scant and the competence literature, in general, has tended to concentrate on specialized knowledge and skills based interpretations that potentially restrict our understanding of the construct. To address this gap, this research adopts a phenomenological approach to explore perceived behavioral attributes of competent actors. Findings confirm two broad behaviorally based conceptualizations of competence: 1) extra-role behavior demonstrated through organizational citizenship behavior, and 2) in-role behavior demonstrated through understanding of work, and engagement behavior. To this end, the contribution of this research is twofold. First and from a theoretical perspective, it offers empirical insights into a relational based framework of competency within industrial marketing contexts. Second, and from a pragmatic perspective, this framework may aid managers in developing a broader understanding of actor competence and how such competencies may be enhanced within the workplace to optimize value co-creation.

This study intended to advance the understanding of brand and value co-creation in sport management. A single exploratory case study of the Ottawa REDBLACKS, the CFL expansion franchise launching in 2014, was conducted. The purpose of the research was to unveil the practices that could lead to brand and value co-creation in the relationships between the Ottawa REDBLACKS and their stakeholders. Semi-structured interviews were performed with 20 participants from the focal organization’s network of stakeholders. The sample was built through a purposeful and snowball sampling method that added to stakeholders identified from the literature. Archival data of media publications, organizational online content, and radio podcasts were also gathered in order to complement the data from the interviews. The deductive and inductive data analysis highlighted five main practices that could lead to brand or value co-creation in the stakeholder-firm relationship performance in a unique sport context: establishing relationships, supporting public relations, sharing resources, enhancing the experience, and driving brand image. The findings explained that joint actions between stakeholders and the REDBLACKS can lead to increases in brand equity and value creation. In the end, the study suggested that future research should investigate the threat of co-destruction.

Consultant and client collaborations seek to create value for both parties. This thesis builds on service-dominant logic and examines how value is perceived and co-created by consultants in their client projects. The findings of this qualitative interview study advance a model of value co-creation in consultant assisted projects, which outlines what operant resources embrace the activities in the value co-creation process. The thesis supports the notion of value co-creation as a function of interaction in consulting projects and further contributes to the understanding of value from a professional service suppliers' perspective. The results contribute to the value creation literature and provide insights for consultants, clients and practitioners within the consulting domain. / Konsult och kundsamarbeten strävar för att skapa mervärde för båda organisationerna. Denna uppsats bygger på tjänstedominanta logiken och utforskar hur mervärde är uppfattat och skapat av konsulter i deras kundprojekt. Forskningen tar fram en modell som bygger på empirisk kvalitativ intervjudata. Uppsatsen stöder föreställningen av samskapat mervärde som en funktion av interaktion i kontexten av konsultprojekt och ger en insikt i hur konsulter uppfattar mervärde. Resultaten bidrar till mervärde litteraturen och ger insikter för konsultkunder och praktiker inom konsultdomänen.

Yes / The study extends customer-led co-creation research to the related staff-led value co-creation domain. In particular, the purpose of the study is to investigate the role of staff engagement as a facilitator of staff-led value co-creation. Design/methodology/approach: A new conceptual framework develops a model of staff-led value-creation, using three types of staff-led co-creation. A quantitative approach is used. Survey collection yielded a sample of 1165 employees in an Australian not-for-profit context across nineteen organizations. AMOS SEM (Structural Equation Modelling) analyzes the data. Findings: A major finding is the nexus between staff engagement and staff-led value co-creation. The nexus applies for three types of staff-led co-creation and three staff categories. Different explanatory mechanisms apply to each type of staff-led value co-creation. Research Limitations/implications: The not-for-profit context may not generalize to the for-profit sector, but future research could clarify this matter. Practical implications: The results can inform organizations wishing to create greater service contributions through greater staff participation, which can include a staff-initiating (staff-led) role. Different value co-creation targets require different corporate triggers, reflecting the different explanatory mechanisms of each co-creation type. Social Implications: The not-for-profit context provides major social implications. Originality/value: The emphasis on staff-led value co-creation augments the customer-led co-creation literature. Additionally, exploring the (staff) engagement to (staff) value co-creation nexus is a novel contribution.

Crafting and stimulating service innovation is considered a main research priority and remains a challenge for service providers. One suggested component of stimulating service innovation is customer creativity. Customers who adapt, modify and transform services or products to better suit themselves are increasingly being recognized as a source of competitive value and innovation. It has been proposed that understanding and supporting the customer’s value creating practices is the key to creating and sustaining value over time in health care. Health services directly address a customer’s well-being and have a significant impact on his or her quality of life. In these types of services, the service outcome is highly dependent on the activities of the individual customer. Health care services often require customers to participate extensively, over long periods of time, with limited support and control. Health services also stretch far beyond the particular service setting into the customer’s daily life. While research, policy, and legislation have all emphasized the active role of health care customers, such customers have traditionally had few opportunities to design their health care services. Nevertheless, health care customers solve health-related problems and engage in self-care and medical decision-making on a day-to-day basis, although this creativity is often unknown to the service provider. To understand how health care customers can enable service innovation, this thesis seeks to conceptualize and investigate the concept of customer creativity in health care. The thesis focuses on customer creativity, not only as an outcome, but also as a dynamic and contextualized process that can be enhanced. The thesis combines insights from health care research with service and innovation research to provide build a framework for health care customer creativity. Building on five papers, the research develops an understanding for health care customer creativity. The individual papers are based on systematic literature reviews as well as empirical data in the form of customers’ ideas for service innovation collected through diaries. The results of the thesis suggest that despite the negative nature of the service, health care customers are creative. Given the opportunity, health care customers can provide creative ideas and solutions on a multitude of aspects, both within and outside the health care setting. This provides the potential to view the health care experience through the customers’ eyes and take part in their creativity in spheres where the service providers have not traditionally had any access. This thesis contributes to the literature by providing a framework for health care customer creativity that recognizes the concept as a complex interplay of factors operating at the individual, contextual, and situational levels. The proposed framework specifies the health care specific factors upon which customer creativity depends, with the intention of positing potential research directions and developing an enriched theory of health care customer creativity.

Uppsatsens syfte är att utforska hur deltagande design kan möjliggöra samlärande mellan elever i gymnasieskolan. Underlaget för studien är ett designpedagogiskt projekt som jag utformat vid namn Design Lab. Inom Design Lab arbetade en grupp gymnasieelever med pedagoger och barn på en närliggande förskola. Design Lab är utformat efter metoden deltagande design och ramverket participatory prototyping cycle. Undersökningen har ett elevperspektiv och försöker svara på frågorna: På vilka olika sätt sker samlärande inom det deltagande designprojektet Design Lab? Hur möjliggör ramverket participatory prototyping cycle samlärande för eleverna inom det deltagande designprojektet Design Lab? Pia Williams myntade begreppet samlärande och menar att begreppet innefattar lärandet mellan människor, mellan kollektiv, kulturer, miljöer och diskurser. Då forskning kring elevers samlärande främst inriktats på naturvetenskapliga ämnen och inom läs- och skrivinlärning ämnar jag studera elevers samlärande inom det avgränsade designområdet deltagande design. Jag hoppas därmed att undersökningen lyfter hur samlärande kan förstås utifrån ett vidgat kunskapsbegrepp. Undersökningen avser även introducera hur participatory prototyping cycle kan användas som didaktiskt förhållningssätt inom designundervisning. Resultatet visar att elevernas samlärande inom det deltagande designprojektet Design Lab består av ett växelspel av olika verktyg som: bild, praktiska handlingar, skrift, tal och rörlig bild. Eleverna intog olika läranderoller inom projektet vilket skapade situationer för samlärande mellan elev-elev, elev-barn, elev-förskolpedagog och elev-artefakter. Undersökningen synliggör samlärandets praktiska dimensioner genom att visa hur eleverna samlär tillsammans med andra medverkande aktörer när de designar och formger artefakter och tjänster. Den gestaltande delen av examensarbetet består av två utställningar. Den första utställningen presenterades på ett bibliotek i närheten av gymnasieskolan där projektet drevs. Den andra utställningen visades i januari 2015 under examensutställningen på Konstfack. Min intention var att visa elevernas arbetsprocess i installationsform.

Purpose: The aim of the research is to investigate what successful booksellers provide in store that increase interaction and thereby enhance perceived value for the customers. Approach: The study is based on a combination of using both quantitative and qualitative data, collected through questionnaire and through face-to-face interviews. A deductive approach has constituted the paper as the theoretical framework was constructed upon already existing theories. Findings: The investigated booksellers are working with all of the three interaction facilitators; servicescape, shopping event as well as employee competence to create interaction in store that thereafter through relating, communicating and knowing increase the customer perceived value. The success behind the booksellers is based on their niche and personal approach that is thoroughly implemented in their offerings, which will create a community feeling. The personal relationship with the customers gives a structural support for the communication that in the end increase the knowledge. However, the knowledge renewal was more vital for the employees in order to provide personal service. Practical implications: Brick-and-mortar stores should fully acknowledge the importance of interacting with customers, by implementing servicescape, shopping event and employee competence with a personal touch. It is important to be as physical as possible and use the store as a social meeting place. The store should create a unique atmosphere, where like-minded customers socialize. The employee competence is vital for the brick-and-mortar stores in order to provide personal service. Theoretical implications: Grönroos and Voima’s (2012) Value creation sphere-model was extended by integrating Ballantyne and Varey’s (2006) triangulated value-enable-model into the joint sphere of Grönroos and Voima’s (2012) model. Since both of the models were tested empirically the paper supplies empirical evidence for both of the theoretical models.

Mass customization (MC) constitutes a promising strategy for companies which aim to provide products which are better adapted to individual customers' aesthetic and functional preferences. Drawing on commodity theory, we argue that the perceived uniqueness of a self-designed product is a second driver of utility in MC. We find that in addition to the significant effect of aesthetic and functional fit, the perceived uniqueness of a self-designed product (1) contributes independently to the utility a customer experiences, and (2) that this effect is moderated by the consumer's need for uniqueness. In product categories which can serve this counterconformity motive for consumers, this suggests that MC toolkits should be constructed with the objective of facilitating the creation of unique products as well as providing affirmative feedback that this uniqueness has been achieved. (authors' abstract)