Public Sector Organizations and Cocreation With Citizens: A Literature Review on Benefits,Drivers, and Barriers

ABSTRACT

Cocreation has captured the attention of public managers and policymakers and yet the literature focusing in the public sector is still relatively dispersed. In this literature review we present a contextualized analysis of the potential reasons that lead public sector organizations to cocreate with citizens and identify potential barriers that may hamper the adoption of cocreation in public settings. The analysis undertaken allowed us to conclude that the topic is increasingly capturing the interest of researchers, although the state of the literature is characterized by a reduced heterogeneity in research methods. We classified cocreation benefits in the public sector as innovation related, improved decision-making, and symbolic related, and we categorized the drivers for cocreation according to three broad categories: external, relation-specific and internal. Finally, we identified potential barriers of cocreation, including structural, organizational, and behavioral barriers.     

Contextualizing customer organizational citizenship behaviors: The changing nature of value cocreation and customer satisfaction across service settings

This study identified economic, emotional, and relational value as outcomes of customer organizational citizenship behaviors (COCBs; Study 1: in‐depth interviews). Study 2 (filed survey) found that COCBs have the strongest impact on emotional value compared with economic and relational value. Economic, emotional, and relational value also lead to customer satisfaction. Specifically, the findings supported that emotional value asymmetrically influences customer satisfaction, whereas economic and relational value symmetrically and positively influence customer satisfaction. Study 3 (filed survey) demonstrated that emotional value through COCBs has a greater and symmetrical influence on satisfaction in hedonic rather than utilitarian service contexts. However, economic value through COCBs is negatively associated with satisfaction in hedonic contexts, and there is no significant difference in the impact of relational value on satisfaction between service contexts. This study furnishes empirical evidence for the associations among COCBs, value perceptions, and customer satisfaction, along with their dynamic relationship patterns across service contexts.     

Transformative service networks: cocreated value as well-being

Fundamental to emerging theories of value cocreation is a developing awareness that value emerges in networks. Service networks form to address issues for those in need, and value is conceived differently by the various constituents in the network. To represent this reality, a core service interaction, the reason for the construction of the network, is evaluated based upon a typology of value-creating interaction styles. Next, the potential impact on transformative value cocreation of various relationships in a service network is explored. To illustrate value cocreation from a network perspective, this paper develops research propositions assessing cocreated value in a health service network. Network factors regarding the structural and relationship properties of networks that advance the theory of value cocreation are proposed. Finally, suggestions for managers include ways to engage service network entities to enhance communication to foster a balanced, mutualistic relationship that optimizes cocreated value. Organizations need to better identify and activate customers' support networks in order to facilitate enhanced collaboration and communication.     

Social entrepreneurship and digital platforms: Crowdfunding in the sharing-economy era

Though crowdfunding is no longer an atypical fundraising mechanism, its practical use remains limited, particularly when it comes to social entrepreneurship, owing to the numerous challenges unique to social-entrepreneurial ventures. By combining existing research on social entrepreneurship, value cocreation, the sharing economy, and digital platforms, this work offers practical insights into how existing platforms can be used for crowdfunding financial resources, sourcing creative ideas, collaborating, and gathering an array of nonfinancial resources. Additionally, this article discusses the ideal digital platform solution and explains how a multifaceted, multiuse digital platform can be created and utilized by new social ventures for meeting a multitude of needs. By focusing on a mission of social change and by understanding how digital platforms can avail crowdfunding, social entrepreneurs can overcome legitimacy issues and lack of traditional funding avenues. This taps into many of the typical aspects of the sharing economy: the benevolence of the actors, use of the internet for facilitation, and the motivation to engage in a new way of doing things. Thus, this article adopts a multidisciplinary view in exploring how crowdfunding can be coupled with the remobilization of idling resources using digital platforms to support social-entrepreneurial ventures in a myriad of ways.     

Customer value co-creation and employee silence: Emotional intelligence as explanatory mechanism

Although there seems to be maximum attention to co-creation for value addition, dearth of research exist about how customer co-creation might not always serve the interest of firms. . Base on the servicedominant logic, transactional stress and coping theories, we examine the effects of customer participation in value co-creation (CPVC) on employee silence (ES) andemotional intelligence (EI) as mediator to comprehend the CPVC-ES link.Using a sample of 528, comprising customers and subordinate employees from upscale hotels in Ghana, we test the proposed hypotheses. The structural equation modelling results indicate a positive influence of CPVC on ES and a significant negative effect of EI on ES. Also, there is indirect effect of CPVC on ES through EI. These findings imply that the lack of employee emotional intelligence inhibits customer co-creation with firms.     

International Service Learning as Social Value Cocreation

International Service Learning (ISL) is a growing trend in higher education in which students have the opportunity to earn academic credit while participating in community-based service projects. This growth represents an opportunity for NGOs to generate resources for their organization to pursue their mission and generate broader social value. The present work adopts a service dominant logic (SD Logic; Vargo & Lusch, 2004) perspective of value cocreation to highlight the exchange that occurs on two ISL programs based in sub-Saharan Africa. We find that the process of critical reflection on personal fulfillment and social justice serves as the vehicle to create change in (and value for) the program participants. NGOs gain a range of resources including financial, human, intellectual, and social capital through creating this ISL experience with consumers. The current work illustrates how ISL is an opportunity for NGOs to further their mission and serves as a means of sustainable social change.     

Who's got my back? Comparing consumers' reactions to peer-provided and firm-provided customer support

This study demonstrates that when an individual encounters a product-related problem, fellow consumers (i.e., one's peers) have a unique advantage in providing social support to the affected consumer. Specifically, we find that social support can be a dominant driver of consumer satisfaction when the risk of customer defection is at its highest (i.e., following an unsuccessful attempt to solve the consumer's problem). Using real-world data from an online support community, a pilot study finds that if the problem that a consumer faces goes unsolved, satisfaction is greater when consumers receive peer-provided versus firm-provided support. Study 1 replicates this finding in a controlled experiment that realistically simulates an actual customer support incident in real-time. Study 2 identifies social support as the mechanism that underlies this effect and investigates whether firm employees can take steps to appear more customer-like and thereby replicate the advantage of peer-provided support. Finally, Study 3 reveals an alternative strategy (i.e., utilizing multiple employees) that firms can use to enhance social support and provides evidence that peer-provided support not only enhances satisfaction but also positively influences consumers' behavioral intentions.     

基于文献计量分析的我国数字经济研究现状

数字经济已成为学界的研究热点,通过对国内数字经济的期刊文献进行系统的梳理与分析,希望能为该领域的研究者提供一定借鉴与参考。以中国期刊全文数据库1998年到2019年8月1日收录的,以篇名"数字经济"检索出的971篇中文期刊论文作为数据来源,以文献计量为主要研究方法,运用可视化软件CiteSpace,对该领域的期刊文献进行数据挖掘与规范化处理,以可视化的知识图谱,描述各个高频关键词的起源以及内在联系,揭示该领域自产生至今的研究热点以及演进过程,最后提出相应的展望。     

Exploring customer engagement in the product vs. service context

Though customer engagement (CE) is heralded as a strategic organizational imperative, empirically derived insight into its nomological network remains sparse. Extending existing research, we therefore test service-dominant logic-informed CE vis-à-vis its key antecedents of knowledge sharing and learning, and its consequences of customer cocreation and relationship quality. We also envisage the existence of CE-based differences across physical goods (versus service) contexts, leading us to include the nature of the offering (good vs. service) as a moderating factor in our model, making a novel contribution. To test the model, a survey was conducted in the tangible sports goods (i.e., sports retail) and -service (i.e., sports club) contexts. The findings substantiate a positive effect of customer learning and knowledge sharing on CE, thus empirically validating conceptual literature-based claims. In addition, CE was found to exert a favorable effect on customer cocreation and relationship quality. Moreover, the results confirm our hypothesized moderating effect by revealing the framework’s stronger associations for service- (vs. product-based) CE. We conclude by discussing key implications that arise from our analyses.     

Value co‐creation between foreign firms and indigenous small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in Kazakhstan's oil and gas industry: The role of information technology spillovers

Study related to the extractive sector still plays a limited role in the mainstream international business (IB) and management literature, with even less focus on ongoing liberalization and digitalization in the industry. This article was motivated by the question of how collaboration between foreign and indigenous oil and gas (O&G) companies can support small‐sized and medium‐sized indigenous technological development. The main contribution of this article is the development of a model that explains how different actors can cocreate value in the ecosystem of the O&G industry through digital technologies. A three‐stage qualitative–interpretive method based on interviews with industry experts was adopted to build three vignette case studies. This article proposes what companies and the government could do to increase the competitiveness of the local economy, diversify from O&G into high technological industries, and support industrial development through information and communication technologies (ICT).