The Paradigm of Value Co-creation: A Conceptual Review

Abstract

According to the conventional approach, value creation is considered a sequential and transitive pro-cess, implemented by the producer of the respective product or service, in every step thereof value is “added”; this value is finally materialized at the locus of the exchange (“value-in-exchange”), with the client regarded as its “consumer” (i.e. destroyer). However, recent developments in management and marketing have led to an alternative approach to value creation, namely “value co-creation”, based on the idea that customers actually create value during the use of the purchased products or services. Thus, value is “created” and “re-created” over time, through the interaction between consumers and producers in a process of mutual resource integration and value creation. This document hosts a broad discussion on the topic of value co-creation, mainly in the context of Lusch & Vargo’s Service-Dominant Logic (SDL) - a theory regarded as one of the dominant approaches on the subject. Also presented are the views of Grönroos and Voima who criticize SDL’s foundational concept of “value-in-context” in favor of “value-in-use”; as well as the views of Edvardsson, et al. who, from the per-spective of the Social Construction Theories, underline the crucial effect of the social context on the value co-creation process.