Co-creation is nowadays a booming activity implemented by companies in order to be closer to their customers and to fulfil their needs. By using co-creation, a company involves their customers in the process of creation aiming to get ideas and insights that allow the company to launch a new product or to improve an existing product. Nevertheless, most of the companies think that implementing a co-creation process is a question of methodology. Companies believe that by building on a formalized method and by using a step-by-step implementation, the co-creation will be successful. The truth speaks something else. Recently, researchers started to pop-up trying to highlight how the co-creation is a complex process arising the likelihood of having a value co- destruction rather than a value co-creation as a result of the process. Further, in 2015, a study states the importance of studying and understanding the negative consequences of value co-creation. For these reasons, the purpose of our thesis is to understand the downsides of co-creation during new product development and their effects on the relationship between the company and the customers. Our research question is: What are the downsides of the co-creation process and their effects on the relationship between the company and customers during new product development? In order to answer this question, we conducted a qualitative study to collect our primary data using an in-depth semi-structured interviews. Data have been collected from eleven participants involved in the co-creation field. From experts of co-creation to designers and researchers, we wanted to have a practitioner point of view rather than from a customer perspective. Indeed, the objectives of conducting these interviews were to gain a focus understanding and a comprehensive perception of the individuals using, implementing, researching on, or consulting about the co-creation process. From the data collected, we analysed our interviews using a thematic network analysis approach. From then, we tested and discussed our empirical results and our concepts from our theoretical frame of references. Through the analysis of the interviews data, we are able to state that there are four main downsides of the co-creation process during new product development: misbehaviour of the company, mismanagement of the environment, miscommunication and mismanagement of the process. The effects of these downsides will affect: the company, the product, the customer satisfaction, trust and commitment and the emotions. Further, we are capable to confirm the importance of the variables of trust, commitment and customer satisfaction in the management of a relationship. Finally, we compromise the idea of customer self-blaming, and the term of “failure”. Indeed, our analysis shows that the responsibility of co-creation belongs to the company that owns the project. Hence, the customer will not blame themselves or feel guilty in case of unsuccessful outcomes. Interestingly, our analysis debates about the use of the term failure to express unexpected negative outcomes from the process. We conclude that a mismanaged co-creation can be perceived as a learning process rather than a failure per se, leading us to confirm that we cannot consider the co-creation outcome as a failure.

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)

The involvement of customers and other stakeholders in the innovation process is proposed to be a key success factor and something that makes companies more competitive. As a consequence, more and more organizations alter their innovation strategy accordingly. In order for a company to open up innovation processes, it is vital to foster a practice where there is openness for external ideas and knowledge. However, when external ideas meet internal innovation practices complex organizational situations appear. Creativity, for example, involves co-dependence of other persons’ strategies and actions. New roles for those involved affect hierarchies and knowledge sharing opportunities. This thesis involves three different perspectives of the same process provides an opportunity to study both individual and structural challenges. This research aims to identify on-going challenges for an organization during the transformational processes that adjustment from a traditional product innovation structure to an open service innovation culture implies. This qualitative case study involves two main cases and three supporting cases and aims to understand how users and other external parties, top management and middle managers experience open innovation processes. The results describe interactions between organizations and users or external stakeholders as well as internal interactions within the organization. Top management were dedicated to the idea of increased openness, but detected structural issues to deal with in order to implement user involved innovation. Among middle management, some individual aspects such as attitudes and relational issues matter, as well as organizational structures and practices. Users had mixed opinions about their participation in the process. Favorable experiences, such as benevolence and deepened relationships, were balanced by un-favorable experiences such as incapability and intrusion. Different dimensions of openness regarding open innovation practice are discussed. In this work a relational focus is emphasized. The findings assist managers in their work to create conditions for open innovation. Managers can benefit from this research by getting a better understanding of how different stakeholders’ experience co-creation of value. This is relevant for innovation managers in the process of redesigning innovation processes to understand different aspects of the interactions involved. / KIT / SIMGIC

Research focusing on service innovation has seen a significant growth in the last two decades, yet the research on KIBS innovation - and especially on innovation in the creative industries, like advertising - remains rather limited. Due to the increasingly competitive business environment, how KIBS firms co-create with their clients to develop more innovative products or services is becoming more important. Therefore, this research uses the UK advertising industry as a basis to explore the nature of advertising innovation, the service innovation process and the co-creation within it, and how KIBS project innovativeness influences new service development. The literature on service innovation, co-creation and innovativeness involved in developing services or products provides the theoretical foundation for this research. It uses multiple case studies methodology and is based on 45 interviews with advertising managers. The findings of this thesis can be divided into three key areas. First, this study conceptualises the advertising innovation and advertising innovation dimensions and identifies the importance of content innovation and two-sided interface in advertising innovation. Second, the innovation process in the advertising industry can be divided into five phases: the problem diagnosis phase, the creative process, the production phase, the commercialisation phase, and the evaluation and learning phase. (In more detail, the innovation process can be divided into fourteen development stages: client brief, understanding client business, problem diagnosis, strategy planning, creative briefing, idea generation, idea testing, idea selection, idea amplification, production, testing, launch, evaluation, and learning.) This research examines what is meant by co-creation, and identifies how co-creation changes over the course of the service innovation process - where co-creation activities and tasks, and the roles of service firms and their clients, vary across stages of service production. It finds that co-creation between advertising companies and their clients follows a 'W-shaped' curve pattern, with the most intense co-creation in the problem diagnosis phase and the least in the production phase. (The practitioners in these KIBS assert that having too much co-creation activities in the idea generation stage tends to develop uncreative ideas.) Third, as the tasks of KIBS are to fuse generic knowledge with local and special knowledge related to specific problems, to develop problem solutions for their clients, this study conceptualises KIBS project innovativeness as involving two parameters: (1) the knowledge and experience of the problem itself (which relates to problem novelty); (2) the knowledge and experience of developing innovative solutions (solution innovativeness), and explores how KIBS project innovativeness influences new service development. Based on the analysis of KIBS project innovativeness, this study develops a typology of project development in KIBS firms, which includes four types of projects: routine project, new project, solution-led project, and innovative project. This research contributes to understanding the nature of service innovation and co-creation by providing a more thorough understanding of the role of co-creation in the overall new service development process. It also shapes our understanding of KIBS project innovativeness and how it influences new service development.

Tentando gerar inovações e maior aceitação no mercado, as vinícolas brasileiras têm investido em estrutura física que proporcione uma experiência mais satisfatória do tradicionalmente oferecido pelas redes de varejo. Com o apoio do enoturismo, essas empresas realizam degustações acompanhadas por visitas guiadas em sua propriedade. Contudo, o vinho brasileiro tem sofrido forte concorrência com países como Argentina e Chile. Expostos à concorrência, torna-se necessário que as vinícolas busquem novas alternativas para se diferenciarem. Para isso, as vinícolas buscam maior qualidade e proximidade com os consumidores. Como solução para esse problema, a cocriação possibilita a geração de inovação a partir do envolvimento do cliente. Considerando que a cocriação de valor ocorre a partir das interações das empresas com os consumidores, não é suficiente entender apenas a visão de um dos lados. Para essa investigação, considerou-se os seguintes agentes da cadeia do vinho: a vinícola, os seus intermediários e o consumidor final. Dessa forma, esse estudo teve como objetivo entender quais são os canais adequados para um processo de cocriação de valor na cadeia do vinho. Para tal, fez-se necessária a compreensão de alguns conceitos como relacionamento com o cliente, partindo da Lógica do Serviço Dominante até a cocriação de valor. Abordando, assim, aspectos importantes de quatro modelos conceituais de cocriação de valor. A primeira etapa desse estudo foi qualitativa de finalidade exploratória, para levantamento de informações a respeito de como a vinícola e seus intermediários interagem. A segunda etapa foi quantitativa com finalidade exploratória e foi realizada com os clientes da vinícola Miolo. A vinícola não é o único canal por onde o consumidor consegue obter informações e produtos, sendo assim, foram considerados: uma loja especializada (Vinum) e um e-commerce (Vinhos e Vinhos). A escolha se deu porque esses foram considerados os canais onde as possibilidades de cocriação são maiores. Na primeira etapa desse estudo a técnica de coleta de dados utilizada foi a entrevista em profundidade com um dos responsáveis pela gestão, considerando dois setores da empresa relevantes à essa pesquisa. Na segunda etapa realizou-se um levantamento com 74 consumidores da vinícola. Realizou-se análise de conteúdo na primeira etapa, utilizando-se do software Nvivo. Na segunda etapa realizou-se uma análise descritiva da amostra e testes par verificação de correlações entre as variáveis, a partir do software SPSS. Observou-se que ainda há falhas na comunicação entre as empresas estudadas e seus consumidores, principalmente ao que se relaciona ao diálogo e ao acesso. Ademais, verificou-se que as empresas têm se preocupado menos com questões relacionadas ao planejamento, aprendizagem e métricas. Contudo, observa-se que as três empresas têm feito esforços para se relacionarem com seus clientes, mas as oportunidades de cocriação de valor estão sendo pouco exploradas. / Searching for interaction with customers, trying to generate innovation and greater market acceptance, Brazilian wineries have been investing in an infrastructure able to provide a more satisfactory experience than the one based on purchases at shops and supermarkets. With the support of wine tourism, these wineries hold tastings of some of their products combined with guided tours around the property, showing the customer the wine production method and explaining some important techniques for a better appreciation of the commercialized products. Due to competition with wineries from Argentina e Chile, it is necessary that Brazilian wineries seek new alternatives that will lead to an increased consumer demand of products. For this purpose, the wineries seek greater proximity to customers as well as higher quality. As a solution to this problem, co-creation generates innovation from the engagement of consumers (). Considering that value co-creation happens from interaction between companies and customers, understanding only the consumer vision or the company’s is not enough; an analysis of both must be done. For this investigation, it was considered for the wine productive chain the winery, the intermediary and the final consumer. Two types of intermediaries were considered: shops and e-commerce, since these are the channels with better possibilities for co-creation. Thus, the objective of this study was to understand which channels are appropriate for value co-creation process in the wine productive chain. For this purpose, it’s necessary to comprehend some concepts like relationship with client, from the Service Dominant Logic to co-creation of value. An approach of important aspects of value co-creation conceptual models was made: DART model, from Phahalad and Ramaswamy (2004), Payne, Storbacka and Frow model (2008), Arnould, Price and Malshe model (2006) and Brasil, Santos and Dietrich model (2010). The first stage of this study was qualitative with an exploratory purpose (GIL, 2008) for information survey about the winery and its intermediaries. The second stage was quantitative with an exploratory purpose and was carried out with Miolo winery’s customers. The customer can acquire information and products not only from the winery, so two intermediaries were considered in this study: the e-commerce Vinhos & Vinhos and the wine store Vinum. On the first stage of this study, the data collection technique used was an in-depth interview with the person responsible for the management, considering two important company departments to this research. On the second stage, it was made a survey with 74 winery’s consumers. On the first stage, a content analysis was made using the Nvivo software. On the second stage, a descriptive analysis of the sample and correlation verification test based on the SPSS software were made. It was noted that failures exist in the communication between the surveyed companies and the consumers, mainly related to dialog and access. In addition, it was found that companies are less concerned about issues related to planning, learning and metrics. However, it was noted that the three companies have been making efforts to build a relationship with customers, but the opportunities for value co-creation are not explored enough.

With the emergence of a new service delivery model, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), interest in quality management in the planning and operation of SaaS systems is increasing significantly. Most current quality management approaches for SaaS focus primarily on the perspective of service provider. They largely ignore the perspective of service customer as well as the nature of ongoing business relationship between the service provider and customer. Based on an extensive exploration of this relationship, the thesis research makes contributions in the following four areas: 1. A theory of SaaS business relationships is introduced by integrating an adapted quality paradigm with the notion of value co-creation (co-value) for the service provider and customer. In the theory, we define a specification of four quality-based service types (Ad-hoc, Defined, Managed and Strategic). 2. The theory is used as the foundation for building a model that assists service customers in SaaS evaluation in support of service planning and ongoing operations. 3. Based on the model, an evaluation tool is designed and used in a particular service area. As an example, a case study is undertaken to assist the decision making of email service adoption in the University of Alberta. 4. Two surveys are conducted to assist in the building and evolution of the evaluation model, as well as in the use of an email service evaluation tool.

Problem: In today’s business markets companies are faced with new challenges occurring from globalization, new technologies, deregulation, blurring borders between industries, and outsourcing which change the competitive environment in the market. To deal with these challenges organizations are forced to look for new and innovative ways to differentiate themselves from competitors and to satisfy customers’ demands for more customized products and services. Additionally, nowadays customers strive for fulfilling their needs by being more active. Value co-creation, the collaboration between companies and customers, is as a solution of current interest to cope with these challenges. Due to the close linkage between retailers and customers, value co-creation is of high interest for this part of the SC. Hence, this thesis focuses on the retailer-customer context and co-creation in terms of co-designing of bikes. Purpose: The purpose of this Master of Science thesis is to investigate how and why retailers and customers co-create value. Therefore, retailers’ and customers’ potential motivators, the interaction between them and the actors’ potential outcomes are explored. Method: This thesis conducts an exploratory and qualitative investigation of three case companies; Bike by Me, myownbike, and 718 Cyclery. The empirical material is gathered from interviews with the CEOs of the three companies, the retailers’ customers, and potential customers. The findings have been analyzed using a framework developed based on existing literature, stated in the frame of reference, which is improved by this thesis’ findings. Conclusions: Customers and retailers co-create value due to different potential motivators and outcomes. Retailers are motivated by aspects such as increases in competitive advantage, differentiation, customer loyalty, and better understanding of new needs. Customers’ motivators are amongst others the product itself, individuality, and enjoyment. As retailers’ outcomes increased efficiency and effectiveness, new customer acquisition, and the establishment of long-term relationships are identified. Customers’ outcomes are high customer satisfaction, new knowledge, convenience, and financial aspects. Actions between retailers and customers in value co-creation are identified through a learning phase and an innovation phase. The retailer participates through providing information, the platform for co-creation, and suggestions and assistance. The customers collaborate in terms of designing the product, expression of desires and experiences, feedback, and WOM in interaction with other customers.