Approaches to managing co-production for the co-creation of value in a museum setting: when authenticity matters

ABSTRACT

This qualitatively-based empirical research explored the strategies used by two museums to manage their roles in co-production as well as how they manage, motivate and guide visitors through the process of co-production. We also gained insights into how visitors responded to these strategies. Our findings suggest that the two museums employ different strategies to co-produce the consumption experience and that their strategies were linked to the nature of authenticity that is apparent in the museums. Strategies included explicitly controlling the visitor experience through empowering visitors to design their own visitor experience. The success of these strategies relied on the two museums recognising the situational variables of the context of consumption and adopting appropriate strategies that enabled them and the visitors to leverage the value of the visitor experience. The findings from this study suggest that further research should be undertaken on how authenticity might be integrated into a service-dominant logic paradigm and service strategies aimed at enhancing the co-creation of value.

KEYWORDS:

• Co-production
• value
• museum
• authenticity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maree Thyne

Maree Thyne is an Associate Professor in the Department of Marketing, University of Otago, New Zealand. Her research interests centre around combining marketing and tourism theories, an approach she has applied to consumer psychology, particularly in tourist behaviour. She has published in these areas in a number of Marketing and Tourism journals such as European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Travel Research, and Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management. Maree is on the editorial boards of Australasian Marketing Journal; International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research; and International Journal of Business Science and Applied Management.

Anne-Marie Hede

Anne-Marie Hede is Professor of Marketing and Director of Research and Research Training within the College of Business at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia. Anne-Marie has been successful in attracting grants from a range of organisations with much of this research being undertaken on consumer behaviour in the tourism, cultural events, and attractions arena. Her research interests are in consumer behaviour, branding and authenticity, and arts marketing. She is on the editorial boards of Arts and the Market; Current Issues in Tourism; Tourism, Culture and Communication; and the Journal of Vacation Marketing.