This thesis addresses existing shortcomings in the co-creation literature by proposing organisational capabilities that support co-creation in financial service firms. A developing country perspective is taken and the context is Nigeria, a West African Country. In this thesis, the Resource-based view and Knowledge-based view are integrated with the Dynamic Capability perspective to identify capabilities required to manage the dyadic interactions during co-creation. First, a conceptual model is developed through an in-depth literature review, before testing, refining and validating the model through a mixed-method research approach, involving both qualitative and quantitative research steps. The conceptual model identified a set of capabilities - namely the firm's innovation, knowledge management and relational capability and their effect on co-creation practice. The aim of the qualitative research step was to improve the conceptual model through exploratory research. This step involved in-depth interviews (n=9) with key informants and a focus group discussion with users (n=7). In the quantitative step, empirical data was collected via a questionnaire (n=261) using a drop-off-pick-up (DOPU) technique. The data is analysed using structural path analysis, hypotheses testing and model re-specification. The results of the qualitative phase indicate that co-creation in financial services is dependent on regulation, user need and the structure of financial services in Nigeria. The results also confirm the influence of innovation, knowledge management and relational capabilities on co-creation practice. Nevertheless, qualitative findings also show that knowledge management capability emerged as a vital capability upon which other value creation activities in financial service firms depend. These findings were further tested and validated in the quantitative phase. In line with the resource-based view (RBV) and the knowledge-based view (KBV), empirical findings confirm that the firm`s resource endowments explain, in part, value co-creation in firms. Principally, the findings of this study show that the capacity of financial service organisations to provide sustainable value creation for its clients and itself depend on the degree to which they possess specific dynamic capabilities. The findings also show the relative importance of co-creation practices and how they are effective only in certain conditions and specific environments.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T14:23:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Jose Carlos Junqueira.pdf: 2902739 bytes, checksum: 4ec1e0e7a07c0af257870a0ee896add3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-03-11 / This study investigates the impact of processes of co-creation in organizations in general. Based on a multidisciplinary approach, case studies were carried out in four companies in order to investigate different levels of awareness and maturity concerning organizational processes. The focus was on two of the basic concepts that involve co-creation, i.e., self-organization and collective intelligence. A general survey presents the theoretical framework of the state of the art in research in self-organization and collective intelligence. It identifies the intersections and common characteristics between these concepts with reference to authors such as Humberto Maturana, Edgar Morin, Pierre Lévy, Manuel Castells, Lucia Santaella, Edward Hutchins, and Venkat Ramaswamy. The aim of the case studies was to find evidence for the awareness of processes of self-organization and the impact of collective intelligence in organizations. The result of this study shows that the importance of co-creation is only beginning to be acknowledged in organizations. It was found that there is still a lack of methodology and metrics. In particular, maturity curves are not yet being used, as they should. More specific studies to develop a methodology and tools for the interpretation of adherence in collaborative processes are needed / O objeto de estudo desta pesquisa é o impacto dos novos processos de cocriação nas organizações em geral. Baseado numa abordagem transdisciplinar, o trabalho apresenta estudos de caso em quatro organizações específicas que possuem processos em níveis diferenciados de conscientização e maturidade no entendimento de dois dos conceitos básicos que envolvem a cocriação, os quais são a auto-organização e a inteligência coletiva. A demonstração da evidência destes conceitos com os estudos de caso é realizada através do levantamento do referencial teórico em estado da arte dos conceitos e da identificação de intersecções de características comuns entre estes conceitos e sua evidenciação nos processos das organizações analisadas. Os trabalhos que dão sustentação a este estudo são de autores de referência como Humberto Maturana, Edgar Morin, Pierre Lévy, Manuel Castells, Lucia Santaella, Edward Hutchins e Venkat Ramaswamy. O resultado deste trabalho foi a constatação que a utilização de processos de cocriação nas organizações ainda é incipiente e carente de metodologias e métricas, sendo necessários estudos mais específicos para a elaboração de uma metodologia com ferramentas para a interpretação de aderência em processos colaborativos baseada em curvas de maturidade

Submitted by Silvana Teresinha Dornelles Studzinski (sstudzinski) on 2016-06-29T14:25:10Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Felipe Franzon Vargas_.pdf: 1272368 bytes, checksum: e54aba5b5967e66d37d008e93f0387e2 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-29T14:25:10Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Felipe Franzon Vargas_.pdf: 1272368 bytes, checksum: e54aba5b5967e66d37d008e93f0387e2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-03-30 / UNISINOS - Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos / A co-criação envolve diferente usuários na busca por desenvolver algo novo. O processo criativo é composto por diversas etapas, englobando desde a geração de ideais até a elaboração do projeto final. Desta forma, o processo de co-criação exige dos indivíduos diversas habilidades que devem ser desenvolvidas no decorrer das etapas, permitindo que estes possam integrar aos processos conhecimentos, compartilhar experiências e desenvolver novas capacidades. O engajamento destaca-se como uma forma de não apenas envolver os indivíduos neste processo, mas sim de fazer com que estes possuam participação ativa e eficiente, possibilitando agregar valor para a organização, para o projeto e para os participantes. A pesquisa tem como objetivo identificar os elementos que promovem o engajamento durante as etapas do processo de co-criação. Para a realização da pesquisa foram utilizados workshops que consistem em processos criativos de curta duração, envolvendo a intensa atuação dos participantes nas atividades. Assim, o estudo foi dividido em duas fases para a sua realização: uma fase exploratória e a outra descritiva. A pesquisa qualitativa consistiu na observação de outros workshops e em entrevistas com professores e participantes, para o reconhecimento e percepção do campo. Já a pesquisa quantitativa utilizou um modelo de questionário baseado no estudo de Vivek (2009), que considera diferentes dimensões do engajamento do consumidor relacionadas a produtos, serviços e atividades. Esta etapa da pesquisa buscou analisar a própria experiência dos participantes, com base no engajamento nos processos de co-criação através dos workshops estudados. Ademais, foram coletados relatos dos participantes que pudessem embasar e justificar as dinâmicas vivenciadas. A partir da pesquisa realizada foi constatado que os fatores intrínsecos e extrínsecos são importantes para o engajamento, possuindo uma relação direta através da influência deste, no contexto da co-criação. Além disso, a definição das atividades é muito importante em um workshop, auxiliando a atuação dos indivíduos e a forma como estes lidam com o tema. Porém, a condução das dinâmicas em um processo criativo é o que faz a diferença, possibilitando promover o engajamento dos participantes durante suas diferentes etapas. A gestão da co-criação torna-se um fator fundamental a ser explorado para auxiliar o desenvolvimento das inovações nas organizações. / The co-creation involves different users to discover new things. The creative process consists on different phases, encompassing from the generation of ideas to the development of the final project. Thus, the co-creation process requires from the individuals abilities to develop during the phases, allowing them to integrate to the processes knowledge, sharing experiences and new capacities. The engagement is relevant not just to involve the individuals in this process, but to enable them to participate actively and in an efficient way, to aggregate value to the organization, to the project and to the participants. This study aims to identify the different elements that influence the engagement during the phases of co-creation process. For this research to be accomplished it was used workshops consisting of short creative processes, involving the intense performance of the participants in the activities. Then, the study has been divided into two stages for its implementation: an exploratory and a descriptive phase. The qualitative research consists in observing other workshops and interviews with teachers and the participants, for the recognition and perception of the study field. The quantitative research has a questionnaire based on the model study from Vivek (2009), which considers different dimensions of consumer engagement related to products, services and activities. This phase of the research aims to examine the experience of the participants, based on engagement in the co-creation process, through the workshops analyzed. In addition, reports were collected from the participants, so that they could be able to support and justify the dynamics experienced. After this process, the survey found that the intrinsic and extrinsic factors are important for the engagement, having a direct relationship through the its influence, in the context of co-creation. Furthermore, the definition of activities is very important in a workshop, assisting the performance of individuals and the way they deal with the subject. However, driving the dynamics in a creative process is what makes the difference, making it possible to promote the engagement of the participants during its different phases. The co-creation management becomes a fundamental factor to explore and to assist the development of innovation in organizations.

abstract: This study develops a Creative MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conventions/conferences and Exhibitions) Tourism Destination Branding Model (CMDBM), and argues for co-creation and synergies between MICE and heritage resources in a popular business destination. MICE tourism can be enhanced through co-created offerings by adding innovative value to MICE tourism experiences. The proposed CMDBM framework aims to help determine how a destination can develop a co-created MICE brand through collaboration with key stakeholders to better meet potential MICE travelers’ other touristic interests and cultural values. The research project was undertaken in collaboration with the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA), New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, and several heritage institutions in New Orleans. The study adopts both qualitative and quantitative research designs to explore the destination brand strategy. The qualitative data were acquired through interviews with relevant stakeholders to analyze the use of destination branding strategies and understand existing and potential synergies with heritage institutions. The quantitative portion measures MICE attendees’ perceptions of the co-created value of enhancing MICE destinations with cultural heritage appeal. NRPA Conference attendees’ responses provide a practical understanding for stakeholders. This research provides both practical and theoretical insights for the tourism industry for destination communities, and has salient conceptual and theoretical implications for the academy. The study confirms that MICE tourism, collaborating with cultural heritage assets, can enrich MICE travelers’ travel experiences. The destination brand strategy was identified with supportive cultural heritage resources and an appropriate destination brand framework of MICE tourism was proposed. As confirmed by MICE attendees’ evaluations from the case study, it extends the literature on destination brand, destination brand awareness, destination brand experience, destination brand personality, and destination brand equity. The empirical exploration of MICE destination branding has been handicapped in existing literature by a lack of conceptual marketing perspectives. This work will lend credence to the important aspect of business destination marketing and stresses building synergy and adding value to MICE tourism experiences. As destination marketing programs become competitive, especially in the context of equitable distribution of monetary benefits across different stakeholders, creating synergies become crucial in the destination. A co-created brand strategy can help make destinations more competitive. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Community Resources and Development 2019

Supporters and spectators of sports club matches are often exposed to advertising of sponsors of the respective club. The most common exposure is to billboard ads, such as, e.g. LED screens on the side of the football pitch, the logo of sponsors embedded in the ice of an ice hockey rink or the logo of the sponsor on the athletes' jerseys. However, exposure does not mean engagement and engagement is what sponsors seek as it can increase the purchase intention of the supporters and spectators engaging with the company. With classical sponsorship approaches, it is hard to measure the number of supporters that actually engage with and eventually purchase from the sponsoring companies. Furthermore, the engagement approach that companies choose besides classical offline sponsorship is limited to occasional news updates or - at the most - highlights of matches. Therefore, the distance between sponsors and supporters is perceived as very wide by the latter. Digital communication channels and especially social media generally poses a good way to engage with supporters, but many companies fail to implement a strategic approach to social media communication.This study is aimed at analysing sports sponsorship in the light of digitalisation and wants to contribute to the scarce literature in the field. Sponsorship is a generally widely investigated and researched topic, and so is digital marketing. In current literature, these topics rarely appear closely linked to each other. Although many companies recognise the importance of digital communication tools for their sponsorship agreements, many fail to integrate it properly. Also, sports clubs often neglect the strategic implementation of digital communication. To fill this research gap, the study at hand wants to answer the following research question.“How is sports sponsorship effectiveness enhanced by the use of digital communication channels and by restructuring the relationships among all three stakeholders within the respective agreement?”An exploratory mixed methods study, which includes 115 questionnaire respondents as well as six expert interviews, was conducted to address this research question as well as the novelty of the research topic. The research was undertaken with a focus on Swedish football and ice hockey teams in professional divisions as well as their sponsors. The study yielded several results which contribute to the literature and show relevance for practice. Firstly, the study showed that all the stakeholders lack the knowledge of the aspiration of each other as well as structured communication strategies in digital channels. Secondly, the communication between clubs and sponsors is insufficient, and wishes, ideas and assumptions concerning a sponsorship agreement remain hidden to the other parties. Thirdly, the clubs, as well as the sponsors, fail to integrate the supporters' wishes and needs into the sponsorship approach, which impedes the effectiveness and the success of this agreement. Fourthly, clubs and sponsors fail to implement precise indicators for the success of a sponsorship deal.

This general purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate how businesses and consumers are co-creating brand value on social media by sharing photos on Instagram. The main focus is two-fold, one is to look at how corporations like Nike and Starbucks are utilizing Instagram to engage customers; another is to look at how customers presenting brand images and identify with brand personalities. This research analyzed 238 customer-created images and 62 corporate-created Instagram images using a hybrid method of qualitative content analysis and thematic analysis as an empirical way to explore the big picture of this new and understudied topic. The data was collected through Keyhole and Statigram, two online social media analytical tools. The analysis of the data shows overall positive brand image sharing among customers, implicit, indirect tactics in companies' official image sharing, and customers' use of brand as a way to promote and express themselves. Overall, customers' brand value co-creation practice on Instagram focus heavily on the individuals' self expression rather than brand community building. The study also discovered valuable themes of the use of selfies and the self-directed sarcasm among Instagramers who share brand images. The findings showed an overall decentralizing brand value co-creation process and that marketers today will face more and more challenges in controlling and managing a consistent brand image. The study contributes to the understanding of visual communication and the new marketing paradigm in a visual centric digital culture.

Abstract Background: Value co-creation emerged at the beginning of the 21st century as a new way of understanding of value and its creation which occurs around individualized experiences of co-creation, leading to the creation of value that is exclusive to every person. In the essence of the concept of value co-creation lays the service-dominant logic of marketing. The investigation of value co-creation within brand communities has been emphasized in recent years. The practices of brand community members play a significant role in the value co-creation. Since Airbnb has never been looked as a brand community in the value co-creation literature, it remained unclear how value can be co-created through the practices of Airbnb community members. Purpose: How value is co-created between brand community members of Airbnb (between hosts and guests and guests themselves) through their practices in their experiences within the corporeal world? Method: In order to meet the purpose of this study, authors applied a qualitative method. Further, a netnographic strategy has been employed which led us to collect online-posted reviews of Airbnb guests from Airbnb website. Authors used purposive sampling by selecting the only guests who had the previous experience of stay in Airbnb accommodations in cases of on-site hospitality. 155 reviews of different guests from 31 accommodation profiles were collected in three waves of data collection. Moreover, a grounded theory coding was employed in order to analyze the data. Conclusion: We identified 14 sub-categories of value-creating practices that emerged under four major categories, namely: practice of sharing, practice of communicating, practice of saving, and practice of authenticating. Further, in the process of elaboration of main elements of practices (i.e. objects, doings, and meanings), we found general connections of these elements within the practices of hosts and guests (i.e. Airbnb community members) that helped us to understand how value is co-created in their experiences within the corporeal world.

The purpose of this research was to gain the perspectives of venue managers and meeting planners on their roles in the meetings industry, their relationship with each other and attributes needed to host a successful meeting. An online survey was conducted involving these two stakeholders to define their roles, assess the strength of their relationship and identify attributes based on their experience with working together and hosting meetings. Results showed that venue managers and meeting planners are essential to the hosting of successful meetings. It also indicated that venue managers are willing to build and maintain stronger relationships with meeting planners and brought to light some attributes such as communication skills, responsiveness and self-competence, which when improved upon, could help achieve this. The study also presents a theoretical model of how stakeholder co-creation activities can drive more successful meetings.

The competition between organizations has become tougher due to the globalization of the market place. This case study has been conducted at Stilexo, which are situated in Skillingaryd. Stilexo is an aluminum die caster and is a part of the Alteams group. Within the Swedish market approximately half of the casted products used are imported and this is a trend that seems to be increasing. In order to stay competitive next to the foreign suppliers the Swedish manufactures needs to differentiate, the question is how? In order to find the answer to the question Thomke and Hippel (2002) argues that the suppliers must listen to their customer with the intention of finding the needs and wants of the customers. The purpose of this thesis is to interpret how Stilexo can create higher customer value. This thesis has been written with an interpretivistiv research position combined with an inductive approach. The research strategy used is a single case study strategy. A qualitative approach has been used with in-depth interviews of employees at Stilexo and of existing/potential customers to them. Price, quality and the ability to deliver on time are parameters that have to be fulfilled in order for a supplier to be qualified. If these parameters are reached there are other values that can make a supplier an order winner. The main finding is that the relationship between the supplier and the customer is very vital. A higher interaction between the two parties has the potential of increasing the customer value. Co-creation of new products is something that is mentioned as value adding that can be gained from higher interaction. Further on innovativeness, flexibility, technology, and that the supplier can handle the whole supply chain has also been identified as value adding activities.

How can suppliers contribute to their customers’ value creating processes? Although this question is crucial for firms’ collaboration with customers and for their competitiveness, it is not clear how firms co-create value with their customers. Research on value co-creation has increased notably the last years. However few empirical studies have been conducted on how value is co-created in the day-to-day activities. Therefore this thesis addresses value co-creation with a strategy-as-practice perspective. The strategy-as-practice enables to link micro-level activities with the structures in which they are carried out as well as the strategic outcomes they lead to. In order to understand the process of value co-creation, a supplier and four customer companies are studied. The empirical context is a technical knowledge-intensive business service company providing its competence in product development and operating in a highly competitive environment. Focus is put on how the supplier’s processes fulfil customers’ requirements and expectations. The notion of value-in-use from the service logic forms a starting point in the analysis of customer’s requirements. Dynamic capabilities in the strategy field is used to analyse the supplier’s processes. Based on interviews, annual reports, observations and workshops, the empirical material indicates that the supplier’s processes play a crucial role for the customer. The findings in this thesis show that value-in-use is a contextual and compound concept that can take different forms as “values-in-use”, “postpone value” and “value-after-use". Understanding customers’ value-in-use requires an open dialogue between the customer and the supplier. In this sense, processes that help capture the more intangible and unconscious parts of a relationship, and the roles the parties take during the process are necessary. A finding in this thesis is that culture enhances certain processes at the expense of others. Another finding is that dynamic capabilities need to be more than well-performed processes in order for the customer to differentiate the firm from competitors. Dynamic capabilities necessitate the combination of smooth processes, understanding of customers’ value-in-use as well as managerial skills in order for the supplier to co-create value, and this in a competitive way.