Two-sided effects of customer participation: roles of relationships and social-interaction values in social services

This research aims to extend customer participation and value co-creation theory to the social-services sector, where consumer choice is restricted. This study examines the relationship between the value creation of participation and customer satisfaction in social services. The perceived value corresponding to different types of relationships was divided into company–customer (relationship value) and customer–customer (social-interaction value). To test hypotheses, data were collected via an online survey of customers using child-care centers in Korea. The participating customers had children who attended day-care centers, and the proposed hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling. Empirical result shows that customer participation as information resource and customer participation as co-developer affect the relationship and social-interaction values. The most important and interesting result is that the relationship value has a positive effect, but the social-interaction value has a negative one on customer satisfaction. These results suggest that customer participation in social services has both positive and negative outcomes, which means that the social-interaction value of co-creation does not always lead to customer satisfaction in a choice-limited service such as child care. This study explains a counterintuitive and interesting relationship between the social-interaction value and customer satisfaction by validating the moderating role of social network service-based interaction intensity in child-care services.