Peter Horvath(This series of posts is based on my literature review – ask me for sources in the comments.)
From a managerial perspective, processes that describe co-creation from initiation to implementation, on the frontstage and the backstage, are painfully missing. A number of publications specifically point out this gap (see quotes below). Accordingly, the fact that my paper aims to establish a specific process seems to fill a real gap in the market.
Processes are only mentioned on a high level, primarily pointing out the need for communications channels, ideally in the form of personalized experience environments, i.e. platforms. They should enable continuous, long term interactions across various situations allowing for room for growth, versus one-off transactionnal engagement. Some propose for these to have as few barriers to entry as possible, making it easy to join and receive feedback, enabling free-flow communication. Companies should even consider how to foster involvement and participation (if you ever tried to foster community engagement, you know this is true).
As the experience of the process could be as important as the experience with the outcome (see ‘Mindset‘ section), process quality needs special managerial attention. Where some processes are described, they focus on the frontstage customer engagement piece, but omit the internal backstage processes.
But hey, I might have missed something, and you might be aware of such process that describes how co-creation should be done. If that is the case, please drop me a note (And a big thank-you to Kevin for having sent a bunch of stuff already.)
[1] “Integrated perspective on how to design and facilitate co-creation programs remains lacking.”; “[…] the processes through which these outcomes unfold remain insufficiently understood […]”; “[…] urgent need to develop and implement management methods to tackle the increasingly complex co-creation […]”; “Gap between policy makers and delivery organizations – in companies and government.”; “[…] stop short at how these [marketing and co-creation] objectives should be achieved […]”; “To date, there is no model in service design research that offers a comprehensive analysis and structure of the influencing factors in the implementation of projects.”
