How to engage customers in co-creation: customers’ motivations for collaborative innovation

Abstract

The term ‘customer engagement’ has been increasingly used in academic marketing literature. Empowered by the rise of the internet, customers are no longer a ‘passive audience’ but ‘active co-producers’ and engage in behaviours that strengthen their relationship with the product, company or brand, such as collaborating to co-create value through innovation. However, few studies exist on collaborative innovation and how to engage customers in co-creation, namely in specific virtual environments. Drawing on insights from product innovation and virtual communities, our study seeks to understand why customers participate voluntarily and freely in co-creation online activities, by testing a conceptual model which considers an integrated set of motivations for members to engage in collaborative innovation. On a managerial level, our study intends to provide valuable insights to firms on how to create an experience to engage consumers in co-creation in virtual communities.

Keywords:

• co-creation
• collaborative innovation
• customer engagement
• motivations

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Please see Frow, Nenonen, Payne, and Storbacka (2015), Frow et al. (2011), or O’Hern and Rindfleisch (2010) for a detailed discussion of the different contexts of co-creation.