An Empirical Study on Value Co-creation System by Integrating Customers

The traditional isolated value creation strategy is losing its utility owing to the fundamental changes in technology, competition and customer demand. Companies are shifting their focus from increasing internal efficiency to leverage external resources, especially the customer competence, in order to gain new competitive advantages. Involving customers to co-create value is an increasingly important strategy. Of this trend, little research empirically examines the impact of such co-creation activities on firms competence. Using large-scale survey data supplemented with multi-method, this study provides the first empirical examination into the links among customer interaction, co-creation system and the unique competence. The results of this study suggest that firms with more emphasis on the co-creation interactions may gain greater customization competence. The two types of co-creation activities should be considered as a synergy strategy other than isolated single activity while more emphasis should be placed on the key co-creation activities. The results of this study demonstrate that customer interaction may generate benefits for firms across industries. The empirical evidence also supports the logic of co-creation system and point out a new way for firms to create the unique competence.