What motivates consumers to cocreate? Comparing professional and generic services

Abstract

Consumers are increasingly expected to invest their own resources, time and energy into co-creating value with service providers. Our study aims to investigate the motives that drive consumer willingness to co-create by comparing the relative importance of six motives across professional and generic services. Our results show that consumers asked to co-create with a professional service firm are positively influenced by developmental motives, and negatively by empowerment motives. In contrast, consumers asked to cocreate with a generic service are driven by individualizing and relating motives. We show how motives driving consumer willingness to co-create are influenced by knowledge intensity and workforce professionalism. In addition we show the positive impact of willingness to co-create on passive and active co-creation behaviours. We aim to open the way for a more contextual understanding of value co-creation from a consumer perspective.