Consumer Participation: The Case of Home Meal Preparation

Consumer participation (CP) has become an important topic in marketing literature with the emergence of service‐dominant logic (SD logic), where consumers are viewed as co‐creators or coproducers of value. However, most studies of CP have largely focused on its economic implications for the supplying firm and thus not much attention has been paid to the factors explaining this phenomenon. This study explains the CP process in the context of home meal preparation by proposing and testing a model of how convenience orientation and knowledge influence both a motivational (involvement) and a behavioral component (time use) of a CP process. The results show that high involvement is a main driver of CP behavior. Convenience‐oriented people are less involved and spend less time on CP activities. Knowledge is suggested to have a positive influence on involvement with CP, but it may not necessarily positively impact the time people use in CP because skills may bring about efficient performance.