Customer Participation in Service Cocreation: An (Extended) Abstract

Abstract

This study investigates the question of when a customer firm’s participation is helpful or harmful for value cocreation in professional services. Codevelopment between customer and supplier firms is an overlooked research area in the supply chain literature. Further, when there exist no common language and clear rules between suppliers and their customers, the presence of ambiguity is unavoidable. Thus, the investigation of what role ambiguity plays out that affects customer participation and value cocreation is rather imperative. The objective of this research is to answer the following question: How does customer participation (depth and breadth) moderated by ambiguity (need based and knowledge based) affect strategic collaboration, which in turn affects service cocreation outcomes?