LUẬN văn THẠC sĩ impact of customer co creation behaviors on crowd local delivery service quality master’s thesis, vietnam national university, hanoi

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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
VIETNAM JAPAN UNIVERSITY

VU LE HUY

IMPACT OF CUSTOMER CO-CREATION
BEHAVIORS ON CROWD LOCAL
DELIVERY SERVICE QUALITY

MASTER’S THESIS
BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Hanoi, 2019

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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
VIETNAM JAPAN UNIVERSITY

VU LE HUY

IMPACT OF CUSTOMER CO-CREATION
BEHAVIORS ON CROWD LOCAL
DELIVERY SERVICE QUALITY

MAJOR: BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
CODE: 60340102

RESEARCH SUPERVISORS:
ASSOC. PROF. DR. VU ANH DUNG
PROF. DR. YOSHIKI MATSUI

Hanoi, 2019

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Firstly, I would like to show my profound gratitude towards Associate Professor
Vu Anh Dung and Professor Yoshi Matsui for your kind and careful guidance over
my master thesis. In class, you are both wonderful teachers of the course of
international business and operation management. To Associate Professor Vu Anh
Dung, thank you very much for your suggestion of value co-creation, it is an
interesting and attractive research topic that I hardly know about it before. Without
your recommendation, I obviously lost the chance to learn about this key concept of
modern marketing. To Professor Matsui, I enjoy my time in your seminar very much.
Thank to your precious suggestion and interesting arguments that help me to know
more about survey-based empirical research that I almost know nothing about it
previously. From bottom of my heart, I really want to apologize to you for my not
very good thesis that deserve your supports.
Secondly, I would like to thank VJU and YNU professors, students and staffs
to help me to have unforgettable two years. Especially my beloved MBA2, you guys
are so interesting and fun. I am happy to have chance to know you all.
Finally, I would like to thank Ms. Huyen (aka Huong or vice versa). You have
done a wonderful job that takes care all of our MBA2 students. I wish you had best
success and happiness with your family and your career.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................................... i
LIST OF FIGURES................................................................................................... iii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ................................................................................... iv
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................1
1.1. Necessity of the thesis ......................................................................................1
1.2. Research objectives ..........................................................................................1
1.3. Research questions ...........................................................................................1
1.4. Research scope .................................................................................................2
1.5. Structure of the research...................................................................................2
CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................................3
2.1. Overview of value co-creation .........................................................................3
2.2 Dimensions of customer co-creation behavior..................................................9
2.3. Crowd logistics and crowd local delivery service .........................................18
2.4. Logistics service quality.................................................................................22
2.5. Research gap ..................................................................................................25
CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH MODEL AND METHODOLOGY .............................27
3.1. Dimensions of customer value co-creation behavior in crowd local food
delivery service .....................................................................................................27

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3.1.1. Service delivery process of crowd local food delivery ...........................27
3.1.2. Analyzing dimensions of customer co-creation behavior .......................29
3.2. Conceptual model and hypotheses development ...........................................30
3.2.1. Responsible behavior and quality of crowd local food delivery service 31
3.2.2. Feedback and quality of crowd local food delivery service ...................31

3.2.3. Advocacy and quality of crowd local food delivery service...................32
3.2.4. Tolerance and quality of crowd local food delivery service ...................32
3.3. Measure items development ...........................................................................32
3.4. Research method ............................................................................................35
CHAPTER 4. DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS ..............................................36
4.1. Data collection and demographic results .......................................................36
4.2. Reliability test ................................................................................................38
4.2.1. Reliability analysis of Responsible behavior ..........................................38
4.2.2. Reliability analysis of Feedback .............................................................39
4.2.3. Reliability analysis of Tolerance.............................................................40
4.2.4. Reliability analysis of Advocacy ............................................................41
4.2.5. Reliability analysis of Quality.................................................................42
4.3. Factor analysis ................................................................................................43
4.4. Correlation test ...............................................................................................45
4.5. Regression ......................................................................................................46
4.6. Findings and implications ..............................................................................47

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CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSION ..................................................................................49
5.1. Contributions ..................................................................................................49
5.1.1. Academic contribution ............................................................................49
5.1.2. Practical contribution ..............................................................................49
5.2. Limitations .....................................................................................................49
5.3. Future research ...............................................................................................50
REFERENCES ..........................................................................................................51
APPENDIXES ..........................................................................................................58
Appendix 1. Survey form in both Vietnamese and English ..................................58
Appendix 2. Question items on customer co-creation behavior (Yi & Gong, 2013)

...............................................................................................................................62
Appendix 3. Question items on service quality (Stank et al., 2003) .....................63

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LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1. Comparison between business logistics and crowd logistics (Carbone et
al., 2017) ....................................................................................................................20
Table 2.2. Characteristics of local delivery service (Carbone et al., 2017) .............22
Table 2.3. Dimensions of SERVQUAL (Parasuraman et al., 1988) ........................24
Table 3.1. Questions of co-creation behavior...........................................................33
Table 3.2. Questions of local delivery service quality .............................................34
Table 4.1. Gender of respondents (Processed by SPSS 24) .....................................36
Table 4.2. Age distribution of respondents (Processed by SPSS 24) .......................37
Table 4.3. Education level of respondents (Processed by SPSS 24) ........................37
Table 4.4. Living location of respondents (Processed by SPSS 24) ........................37
Table 4.5. Most frequently used service (Processed by SPSS 24) ...........................38
Table 4.6. Testing reliability of Responsible behavior (Processed by SPSS 24) .....38
Table 4.7. Testing reliability of Feedback (Processed by SPSS 24) ........................39
Table 4.8. Re-testing reliability of Feedback 1 (Processed by SPSS 24).................39
Table 4.9. Re-testing reliability of Feedback 2 (Processed by SPSS 24).................40
Table 4.10. Testing reliability of Tolerance (Processed by SPSS 24) .....................40
Table 4.11. Re-testing reliability of Tolerance (Processed by SPSS 24) .................41
Table 4.12. Testing reliability of Advocacy (Processed by SPSS 24) .....................41
Table 4.13. Re-testing reliability of Advocacy (Processed by SPSS 24) .................42

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Table 4.14. Testing reliability of Quality (Processed by SPSS 24) .........................42
Table 4.15. Re-testing reliability of Quality (Processed by SPSS 24) .....................43
Table 4.16. KMO and Bartlett's test (Processed by SPSS 24) .................................43
Table 4.17. EFA rotated component matrix (Processed by SPSS 24) .....................44
Table 4.18. Correlations (Processed by SPSS 24)....................................................46
Table 4.19. Regression model summary (Processed by SPSS 24) ...........................46
Table 4.20. Regression coefficients (Processed by SPSS 24) ..................................47

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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.1. Spheres of value co-creation (Grönroos & Voima, 2013) ......................8
Figure 2.2. Constituent parts of value co-creation (Saarijärvi et al., 2013) ..............9
Figure 2.3. Third-order factor model with CFA results (Yi & Gong, 2013) ...........11
Figure 2.4. Antecedents and dimensions of value co-creation (Neghina et al., 2015)
...................................................................................................................................13
Figure 2.5. Dimensions of co-creation activities in three phases of service provision
(Tommasetti et al., 2017) ..........................................................................................16
Figure 2.6. Dismantling value co-creation in crowd logistics (Carbone et al., 2017)
...................................................................................................................................21
Figure 2.7. Conceptual model of e-LSQ (Rao et al., 2011) .....................................25
Figure 3.1. Crowd local food delivery process ........................................................28
Figure 3.2. Conceptual model ..................................................................................31

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
SDL

Service-Dominant Logic

LSQ

Logistics service quality

e-LSQ

Electronic logistics service quality

PDS

Physical distribution service

PDSQ

Physical distribution service quality

SERVQUAL

Service quality model

SERVPERF

Service performance model

EFA

Exploratory

RB

Responsible behavior

FB

Feedback

TO

Tolerance

AD

Advocacy

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CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Necessity of the thesis

Value co-creation is a key concept in modern marketing theory (Saarijärvi,
Kannan, & Kuusela, 2013). It has been approached from different perspectives and
levels. However, most of studies focus on the macro or meso level and leave the
micro-level many unanswered questions. Recently, crowd initiatives have risen in
many business industries, especially logistics and believe to provide new means of
logistics value co-creation (Carbone, Rouquet, & Roussat, 2017). The major type of
crowd logistics – crowd local delivery gets more attentions from business
internationally but very few from academic research. It also fosters new need of
measuring new service quality in its model. All of these issues bring up an idea of
investigate relation between customer co-creation behavior within crowd local
delivery service and their perception of value.
Service quality is always a vital concern for service business, especially the new
type as crowd local delivery. Since it relies much more on co-creation among
involved actors in its nature of service model, it is important to understand potential
relationship between service quality of crowd local delivery and customer co-creation
behavior. Based on insights from this potential relationship, effective implications
that could improve service quality from customer co-creation could be suggested for
practical businesses.
1.2. Research objectives
This research aims at measure the relationship between level of customer value
co-creation behavior and service quality of crowd local delivery.
1.3. Research questions
“Which dimensions of customer co-creation behavior have impact on factors of
crowd local delivery service?”
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1.4. Research scope

Because of limitations in terms of survey scale, only type of food delivery is
researched.
1.5. Structure of the research
This thesis consists of 5 chapters:
 Chapter 1: Introduction – revealing basic ideas of the research in terms
of background, objectives, subject and scope of the research
 Chapter 2: Literature review – building comprehensive understanding
over very complicated concept of value co-creation as well as
background to promote refined logistics service quality measurement for
the new crowd business initiatives in logistics industry.
 Chapter 3: Research model and methodology – describing the
conceptual model and how the research is designed and carried out.
 Chapter 4: Data analysis and findings – discussion of research results
 Chapter 5: Conclusion – summarizing the contributions, limitations
and intentions for future research

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CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Overview of value co-creation
Research stream of value co-creation rooted in the observation of changing roles
between customers and firms. Customers have been long considered as passive actor
in value creation. Traditionally, under the assumptions and models of industrial
economy (R. F. Lusch & Vargo, 2014a, 2014b); Porter (2008); (Stephen L Vargo &
Lusch, 2008; Stephen L. Vargo & Lusch, 2011) value is only created for customers
and its creation is driven by value-adding activities (Normann & Ramirez, 1993).
Both of technological advances and changes of management towards unconventional

and innovative ways of integrating resources for the creation of value lead to new
forms and shapes of interaction that replace this traditional dyadic relationships.
Value creation should not be limited in the manufacturing process, but extends over
consumption contexts under customers’ own control (Grönroos, 2008a; R. F. Lusch
& Vargo, 2014b). The focus is shifting from value creation to co-creation in order to
realize the new role of customers. It is crucial for firms to comprehend the logic of
business ecosystems facilitating value co-creation, in order to gain and maintain
competitiveness. As a result, value co-creation is one the most important concept
within service marketing and business management (Saarijärvi et al., 2013).
Currently, there are multiple ways to approach value co-creation. Each
approaches target value co-creation from different perspectives, scopes and level of
abstraction, thus they provides a complex of definitions, dimensions and interactions
among actors (Galvagno & Dalli, 2014). It is both of practical examples such as Dell,
Lego… and academic arguments that contribute to the fragmentations and
diversification (Di Gangi & Wasko, 2009; Hienerth, Keinz, & Lettl, 2011). The major
approaches to value co-creation are discussed in the following parts.
Many-to-many marketing

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Instead of dyadic relation between firms and customers, this approach promotes
the role of customer networks and the importance of other factors from broader view,
such as employees, marketing intermediaries, and society during the co-creation
process of value (Gummesson, 2007). Edvardsson, Tronvoll, and Gruber (2011) have
presented a social constructionist approach that only considers value co-creation in
the social context and uses the holistic concept of value as “value-in-social-context”.
New product and service development

Customers tend to be more active and willing to involve in the firms’ new
product/service development process. The involvement of customers in the
development process helps firms to discover the hidden needs of customers as well
as take advantage of their creative potentials. Nambisan and Nambisan (2008) have
suggested that customer could have multiple roles in the development process, consist
of product conceptualizer, designer, tester, support specialist and marketer. This
involvement of customer rises partly upon the facilitation of technological advances,
especially the Internet (S. Ohern & Rindfleisch, 2010).
Postmodern marketing
Similar to new product and service development literature, the postmodern
marketing also acknowledges the more active customers “who takes elements of
market offerings and crafts a customized consumption experience out of these” (Fuat
Firat, Dholakia, & Venkatesh, 1995). Customers require a more active role in
production and in order to meet this demand and enable active participation of
customers, marketers have to make their business processes more open (Bendapudi
& Leone, 2003; Firat & Venkatesh, 1995). This phenomenon is often referred as
“prosumption” that involves both production and consumption (Ritzer & Jurgenson,
2010). According to Bendapudi and Leone (2003), customers have attained a new
role that traditionally attaches to the producers. Thus, customers’ consumption is
gradually viewed as a production process and requires “development of special skills”
(Fuat Firat et al., 1995). This view shares similarities with later approaches that

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customer’s value creation also embraces not just the good or the service but additional
resources (e.g. information and knowledge) (Grönroos, 2008b; R. F. Lusch & Vargo,
2014a). According to Fuat Firat et al. (1995), the product does not consider as a

“finished” object but a process that “customer could immerse oneself and contribute
inputs”.
The Service-Dominant logic
In the past decade, the stream of research on SDL has caught a lot of attentions
of researchers for both the academic purposes and practical implications (Tommasetti,
Troisi, & Vesci, 2017). Research on SDL (R. F. Lusch & Vargo, 2014a, 2014b;
Stephen L Vargo & Lusch, 2008; Stephen L. Vargo & Lusch, 2011) has intensified
discussion about value co-creation because value co-creation is a key concept in SDL
(Stephen L Vargo & Lusch, 2008). Despite that SDL is dominant theory in marketing
and value co-creation, it is still a pre-theoretical paradigm (Cantone, Testa, &
Marrone, 2019). Stephen L. Vargo and Lusch (2016) recognized the limitation of the
current foundational premises/axioms of SDL that lacks explicit articulated
specification of the co-creation mechanism. Therefore, SDL to date could be regarded
as a logic or mindset that includes many fragmentations of marketing (Gummesson,
2008). According to SDL, the logic of goods-centric thinking that marketing has
inherited is less germane in the current service era. This way of thinking has
influenced how value and value creation are perceived. In the new era with increasing
relevance of service, service rather than goods, should be the fundamental unit of
exchange, and goods only function as transmitters of services and means for
customers to get benefits from firm competences (R. F. Lusch & Vargo, 2014a;
Stephen L Vargo & Lusch, 2008). Actualization of value of goods only happens if
customers continue the value creation process. “For these services to be delivered,
the consumer still must learn to use, maintain, repair, and adapt the appliance to his
or her unique needs, usage situations and behaviors” (R. F. Lusch & Vargo, 2014a).
Consumers are considers as source of operant resources that play essential role within
resources integration during value creation. Because operant resources are different
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and heterogeneous in each individuals, the capability of consumer skills and
knowledge influences how value is created (Saarijärvi et al., 2013). Thus value is a
joint function of actions of consumers and producers (Ramaswamy & Prahalad, 2004),
and is certainly always co-created (Stephen L Vargo & Lusch, 2008).
According to Stephen L Vargo and Lusch (2008), value co-creation consists of
two components. The first is the co-creation of value. In SDL, at the intersection of
the offer and the consumer, value is created and determined by the consumer in the
consumption process. The second component of value co-creation is co-production
that refers to the involvement in the creation of the core offering itself. Co-production
can occur via shared ideas, co-design, or even shared production, with any partners
in the value network.
Service science
Service science largely overlaps with SDL and originates from an IBM-led
discipline (Saarijärvi et al., 2013). Maglio and Spohrer (2008) have suggested that
service science theoretically roots in SDL. Its approach considers that value cocreation occurs via the integration of existing resources and the available ones from
various service systems, rather than just firm competences and consumers’ operant
resources in SDL. The purpose of the mentioned resource integration in service
science is to “contribute to system well-being as determined by the systems’
environment context” (R. F. Lusch, Vargo, & Wessels, 2008). According to service
science, a service system is value co-creation layouts that consist of people,
technology and value propositions (Saarijärvi et al., 2013). In each service system,
both a service provider and a customer interact each other to co-create value, and
every service systems depends on other entities (Jim, Laura, Norm, & Tryg, 2008).
Therefore, service science approaches to value co-creation in a broader perspective
in comparison with SDL. The resources integration and configuration within a service
system and between different service systems is certainly very large and technology
often plays an important role as a critical facilitator (Saarijärvi et al., 2013).

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Service logic
Deviating from SDL, researchers in service logic approach introduce clear
separation of customer service logic and provider service logic (Grönroos & Ravald,
2011). Regarding to the former service logic, customers combine the resources that
are provided by the firm with other resources they could access in daily activities and
in the value creation processes. In this approach, value is eventually created by the
customers and they also carry out the value creation processes. Hence, value is not
always co-created and basically it could be the result of customer’s own act (Grönroos,
2008b; Heinonen et al., 2010). Only in case that the firm wants to become the cocreator of value with customer, it has to apply provider service logic and creates the
interactions with the customer. These interactions help firm be able to influence the
value actualization process of the customer and could assure that the actualized valuein-use equates to the value proposition (Grönroos, 2008b). The firm needs to develop
effective way to interact with the customer, in order to become a value co-creator
with its customers. Grönroos and Voima (2013) have introduced a concept of value
spheres that further distinguish domains of provider, customer and the joint area. The
value of provider sphere is just potential. Through the actualization process, the value
of customer sphere is the real value and it is independent in case of customer’s sole
creation process. Value is only co-creation in the joint sphere as the result of
interactions between provider and customer.

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Provider
sphere

Production
(potential value)

Joint sphere
Value creation
in interaction

Customer
sphere
Independent
value creation
(real value)

Figure 2.1. Spheres of value co-creation
(Grönroos & Voima, 2013)
All the above approaches from many-to-many marketing, new product
development, postmodern marketing, SDL, service science and service logic to value
co-creation proves the nuanced multifaceted nature of the concept (Saarijärvi et al.,
2013). A variety of value co-creation approaches enriches knowledge about the
concept and clearly expresses its importance and attractiveness in academic research
as well as potential practical implications. However, it is challenging to capture the
concept of value co-creation with the given various approaches. Aligning with
Grönroos and Ravald (2011) that emphasized the key importance of actors’ role
classification, Saarijärvi et al. (2013) suggest a useful model to explore different
approaches to value co-creation. The model dismantles value co-creation into three
fundamental parts that consist of “value”, “co-” and “creation”.

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Figure 2.2. Constituent parts of value co-creation
(Saarijärvi et al., 2013)
2.2 Dimensions of customer co-creation behavior
As the above discussion on different research approaches to value co-creation
that varies in terms of perspectives, level of abstraction and scope. The concept of
value co-creation is studied from the either micro, meso or macro level of interaction
level. Among these different levels, to date, most of studies are on meso (R. F. Lusch,
2011) or macro (R. Lusch & E. Webster, 2011; Maglio & Spohrer, 2008; Wieland,
Polese, Vargo, & Lusch, 2014) perspectives. Thus, there are few answers about how
interactions happen between customer and firm employee at the micro level (Neghina,
Caniëls, Bloemer, & van Birgelen, 2015). Understanding this basic level of
interactions is essential for better knowing the concept of value co-creation in larger
contexts. According to R. F. Lusch (2006) development of a detailed macromarketing perspective is based on insights of micro-level. Further discussions in this
part are the most relevant studies of value co-creation at the basic level of direct
interactions between customer and employee.
Randall, Gravier, and Prybutok (2011) introduce a model of three variables to
measure scale and analyze not directly value co-creation but only the relational
feature of the concept. Based on the adoption of mixed method and quantitative

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analysis, the authors suggest connection, trust and commitment as dimensions of
value co-creation with question mark. The study doubtfully departs from SDL and
featuring customer relationship management approach (Tommasetti et al., 2017).
Gustafsson, Kristensson, and Witell (2012) focus on the role of communication

in fostering co-creation and innovation. The study identifies four categories of
communication,

including

frequency,

direction,

modality

and

content.

Communication however, is just a section in the interactions between firm and
customer. Therefore, main limitation of the study is its specific narrow scope of cocreation. Moreover, the study approach is somewhat on the single corporate point of
view.
Third-order factor model of customer co-creation behavior
Yi and Gong (2013) introduce a third-order model that consists two major
dimensions: customer participation behaviors and customer citizenship behaviors. It
is popular among the empirical studies on customer co-creation (Ahn, Lee, Back, &
Schmitt, 2019; Hau, Tram Anh, & Thuy, 2017; Hussainy, 2017) in various service
industries. While authors define customer participation behavior as a role behavior
that is required for value co-creation process, customer citizenship behavior is
voluntary and additional. The citizenship behavior could help to bring extraordinary
value to the firm but it does not consider as requirements for value co-creation like
the participation behavior. In short, customer participation behavior is in-role and
customer citizenship behavior is extra-role behavior. Separate scales are adopted to
measure each type of behavior based on the empirical evidence that in-role and extrarole behaviors have different patterns and antecedents as well as consequences (M.

Groth, 2005; Yi, Nataraajan, & Gong, 2011). In this model, each construct consists
of four different lower-order dimensions.

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Figure 2.3. Third-order factor model with CFA results
(Yi & Gong, 2013)
Dimensions of customer participation behavior
 Information seeking: customers put effort into clarifying the requirements of
service and satisfaction of other cognitive needs. Provision of this these
information helps to reduce the customers’ uncertainty about service
interaction and value co-creation with employees. Hence, customers could
understand and manage the co-creation environment as well as their role of
value co-creator.
 Information sharing: from the side of customers, some resources are very
important to achieve successful value co-creation with firm, such as
information. Without essential information, firm’s employees could not
perform their duties as they are capable of. By sharing this information with
employees, customers themselves could make sure that the delivered service
meets their specific needs.
 Responsible

behavior:

Customers

also

have

certain

duties

and

responsibilities to comply with in order to have successful service delivery.
Customers recognize their responsibilities to be cooperative, follow the
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service rules, policies, and directions from employees. In case of lack of
cooperative behavior from customers, little value could be created.
 Personal interaction:

this dimension represents interpersonal relations

between customers and employees. Different aspects of these type of human
interactions could be take into account such as courtesy, friendliness,
respect… In the social setting of value co-creation environment, people tend
to be more likely to engage in co-creation if they feel more pleasant,
congenial and positive.
Dimensions of customer citizenship behavior
 Feedback: It is essential for firm and employees to improve the service
creation process in the long-term. Firm could be greatly beneficial as

receiving suggestions from customers for better service. Even though,
feedback is not requisite for successful service result.
 Advocacy: the behavior of customers that recommend firm or employees to
other people. Obviously, advocacy is effective word-of-mouth advertisement
and could contribute significantly to establish firm’s positive fame. Although
this kind of behavior could represent the evidence of loyalty, it is voluntary
and not required to perform the service delivery.
 Helping: Customers could help each other to realize their value creation
environment and roles of value co-creator. It could be considered as a sense
of social responsibility among customers to help each other under similar
difficulties.
 Tolerance: to some extent, customers could tolerate a certain failure of
service to meet their expectation. Mistakes and risks could always happen
and be inevitable. This kind of empathy toward firm could come from the
belief of long-term fruitfulness from customers’ perspective.
Model of joint activities

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Based on the previous studies (Gustafsson et al., 2012; Karpen, Bove, & Lukas,
2012; Randall et al., 2011; Yi & Gong, 2013), Neghina et al. (2015) introduce a model
of customer value co-creation behaviors with six dimensions of joint activities and
three antecedents. This study is in line with the approach of service logic rather than
SDL (Tommasetti et al., 2017).

Figure 2.4. Antecedents and dimensions of value co-creation
(Neghina et al., 2015)

From the Grönroos (2012)’s conceptualization of value co-creation, two key
aspects of value co-creation are: the purpose is to create value with service as the
basic unit of exchange; co-creation is a joint collaborative activity. According to the
behavioral sciences, a joint activity is defined as a social interaction that two
individuals use to coordinate their actions in order to make a change in the
environment (Knoblich, Butterfill, & Sebanz, 2011). In services, the joint activities
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between customer and employee as they interact each other may include several
discrete joint actions. Based on the single purpose of each joint actions, it is possible
to distinguish these actions. Each joint actions lead to different value creation.
Based on the work of Karpen et al. (2012), Neghina et al. (2015) form six
dimensions of value co-creation from six types of joint actions:
 Individualizing joint actions: are collaborative actions between customers
and employees for mutual understandings of each other’s roles, resources,
integration process and desired outcomes. From customers’ perspective,
these actions could consist of personal preferences explanation, description
of the personal hierarchy of needs or informing the preferred means of
interactions…
 Relating joint actions: are part of the value co-creating activity that provide
necessary condition for occurrence of interactions, since any interaction
always involves a relational element. In a service interaction, this dimension
could be referred as actions that aimed at building or enhancing a social and
emotional relationship between customers and employees. Such actions as
exploring similarities between interaction participants, sharing mutual
interests… are examples of this dimension.
 Empowering joint actions: refer as collaborative actions that negotiate the

power to influence the outcome of the interaction between customers and
employees. Because of empowered role, actors in value co-creating processes
could resume their responsibility for the outcome and could take action to
intervene in case that they believe that it is necessary for the overall goal.
 Ethical joint actions: are collaborative actions that aims at creating fair and
moral guidelines among participants of interactions. In order to achieve
successful interactions, the involved actors have to work toward a shared goal
without conflicts. Ethical behavior is very important to minimize risks of
occurring conflicts, thus becomes a critical factor for value co-creation.

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According to Randall et al. (2011), value co-creation requires a certain level
of transparency, integrity and risk sharing.
 Developmental joint actions: are joint actions that focus on improvement of
customers’ and employees’ operant and operand resources. As mentioned
above different approaches to value co-creation, the focus is mostly on
operant resources. From the customers’ perspective, these actions could be
referred as learning actions toward how to better use the service and enhance
customers’ resource base.
 Concerted joint actions: are joint actions that help to synchronize customers
and employees’ interactions in terms of relevance or timing. Such actions as
to adapt participants’ behaviors to other involved actors, to coordinate
movement or to establish agreements could be included in this dimension.
Aspects of interaction like pace of conversation, distance between the
participants and timing and relevance of information exchange could
influence over synchronization.

Antecedences of value co-creation are adopted from the studies of (Gustafsson
et al., 2012; Randall et al., 2011); Yi and Gong (2013) and introduced as
“communicating”, “relating” and “knowing”:
 Communicating: as earlier discussion of Gustafsson et al. (2012) study, three
out of the four aspects of communication, including frequency, direction, and
content, are adopted as antecedences of value co-creation. Indeed, among six
joint actions in this model of co-creation behavior, communication is obvious
a crucial factor to establish interaction among participants.
 Relating: is to have or establish social bonds in value co-creation.
Relationships create structure to generate knowledge and integrate operant
resources among participants. Moreover, it also has positive impacts on
amount of communication participants and enables to share the each
participants’ required tasks to pursue their final goals. Three factors from
Randall et al. (2011) study, including connection, trust and commitment are
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