Papers by Ivana Rihova
International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Sep 9, 2019
Purpose
This paper aims to explore and evaluate practice-based segmentation as an alternative con... more Purpose
This paper aims to explore and evaluate practice-based segmentation as an alternative conceptual segmentation perspective that acknowledges the active role of consumers as value co-creators.
Design/methodology/approach
Data comprising various aspects of customer-to-customer (C2C) co-creation practices of festival visitors were collected across five UK-based festivals, using participant observation and semi-structured interviews with naturally occurring social units (individuals, couples and groups). Data were analysed using a qualitative thematic analysis procedure within QSR NVivo 10.
Findings
Private, sociable, tribal and communing practice segments are identified and profiled, using the interplay of specific subject- and situation-specific practice elements to highlight the “minimum” conditions for each C2C co-creation practice. Unlike traditional segments, practice segment membership is shown to be fluid and overlapping, with fragmented consumers moving across different practice segments throughout their festival experience according to what makes most sense at a given time.
Research limitations/implications
Although practice-based segmentation is studied in the relatively limited context of C2C co-creation practices at festivals, the paper illustrates how this approach could be operationalised in the initial qualitative stages of segmentation research. By identifying how the interplay of subject- and situation-specific practice elements affects performance of practices, managers can facilitate relevant practice-based segments, leading to more sustainable business.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to segmentation literature by empirically demonstrating the feasibility of practice-based segments and by evaluating the use of practice-based segmentation on a strategic, procedural and operational level. Possible methodological solutions for future research are offered.
Rihova, I., Buhalis, D., Gouthro, M., Moital, M., 2018 Customer-to-customer co-creation practices in tourism: lessons from Customer-Dominant logic, Tourism Management, Vol. 67, pp.362-375 Rihova, I., Buhalis, D., Gouthro, M., Moital, M., 2018 Customer-to-customer co-creation practices... more Rihova, I., Buhalis, D., Gouthro, M., Moital, M., 2018 Customer-to-customer co-creation practices in tourism: lessons from Customer-Dominant logic, Tourism Management, Vol. 67, pp.362-375 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2018.02.010
Download FREE before 5 May https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1WjrfxTbMiwQx
Abstract
This study aims to explore specific customer-to-customer (C2C) co-creation practices and related value outcomes in tourism. The importance of C2C co-creation is first discussed in the context of the Service-Dominant logic, then a new approach to the study of tourists' social practices and related value-outcomes is proposed, drawing on the recently emerged Customer-Dominant logic in marketing. A pragmatic philosophy is adopted to best address the research questions in a purposively selected sample of five UK-based festivals. Qualitative interview- and observation-based methods are adopted to identify 18 C2C co-creation practices, placing these on a continuum of autotelicinstrumental and private-public practices. Four value-outcome categories are discussed: affective, social, functional and network value. The conclusions highlight the importance of value formed when tourists cocreate with each other in tourism settings and the authors identify specific opportunities for facilitating this process. Possible applications for future research are discussed, highlighting the merits of pragmatism.
Keywords
Co-creation; Value; Customer-Dominant logic; Customer-to-customer; Social practices; Pragmatism; Festivals
Highlights
• Customer-Dominant logic provides insights into tourists' co-creation practices.
•Practices performed on a continuum autotelic – instrumental and private - public.
•Tourists' C2C co-creation results in affective, social, functional and network value.
•Pragmatist paradigm and qualitative methods needed for C2C co-creation research.
International Journal of Event and Festival Management, 2011
Australian Geographer, 2013
Throughout the world, the number of festivals has grown exponentially in the last two decades, as... more Throughout the world, the number of festivals has grown exponentially in the last two decades, as people celebrate local and regional cultures, but perhaps more importantly as local councils and other groups seek to use festivals both to promote tourism and to stimulate rural development. However, most studies of festivals have tended to focus almost exclusively on the cultural and symbolic aspects, or on narrow modelling of economic multiplier impacts, rather than examining their long-term implications for rural change. This ...
The notion that tourists actively co-create value with organisations is increasingly acknowledged... more The notion that tourists actively co-create value with organisations is increasingly acknowledged in tourism marketing. Yet, not much is known about the processes in play when customers co-create value with each other. This conceptual paper offers a theoretical basis for the study of customer-to-customer co-creation in tourism contexts, while debating the epistemological assumptions of value-related research in tourism. Proposed conceptual framework posits that value is socially constructed and embedded in tourists' social practices.
Rihova, I., Buhalis, D., Moital, M., Gouthro, M.B. (2013) Social layers of customer-to-customer value co-creation, Journal of Service Management, 24 (5), pp.553-566 Journal of Service Management, Oct 4, 2013
Purpose – Approached from the Customer-Dominant [C-D] logic perspective, this paper aims to exten... more Purpose – Approached from the Customer-Dominant [C-D] logic perspective, this paper aims to extend current value co-creation discussions by providing conceptual insights into co-creation within customers’ social sphere. Focussing on socially dense contexts in which customers consume together in dyads or collectives, the paper seeks to provide recommendations of how service managers can facilitate customer-to-customer [C2C] co-creation.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper bridges current thinking on value within the customer-dominant logic with service management perspectives on C2C interactions and social science concepts on consumer communities. Examples from literature and practice are drawn on in the discussion.
Findings – The proposed framework reveals C2C co-creation as a dynamic, multi-layered process that is embedded in customers’ social contexts. Value emerges in four distinctive social layers: ‘Detached Customers’, ‘Social Bubble’, ‘Temporary Communitas’ and ‘Ongoing Neo-tribes’.
Research limitations/implications – This paper is conceptual. Further validation of the framework in a variety of socially dense consumption settings is needed, using field-based qualitative methods such as participant observation and interviews.
Practical/social implications – Awareness of the multi-layered nature of C2C co-creation and specific practices in which value is formed provides service managers with opportunities to create value propositions that help facilitate such co-creation. Service managers across various sectors benefit from understanding how customers can be ‘nudged’ into more socially immersive co-creation layers.
Originality/value – The paper contributes by introducing a C2C co-creation perspective, conceptualizing the social layers within which value is formed, and providing specific propositions to service managers with regards to servicescape structuring and other strategies that facilitate C2C co-creation.
R. J. Mykletun (ed.) Proceedings of The Global Events Congress V: Advances in Event Management Research & Practice. University of Stavanger, Norway
""What is value, how and where does it exist in a festival setting? There are extensive studies ... more ""What is value, how and where does it exist in a festival setting? There are extensive studies and perspectives that could address this question in a cohesive manner. Historically, in a services management context, the presence of customer value or value for the customer has been captured in consumer behaviour literature as judgement perception of the potential economic, functional and psychological benefits customers attribute to a marketer's offering (the ‘features-and-benefits’ approach). However, what this paper attempts to do is reflect on how value might be constructed or ‘co-created' in the context of participants’ social experiences in festival settings. In so doing, a more holistic appreciation into the significance of these social experiences within festival participation is illuminated, permitting deeper insight into the appeal of attending multi-day festivals.
Discussions in traditional market research literature therefore benefits from recognising the unique conditions by which value is co-created in social situations, guided by specific social rules and systems. Such a view is further reflected upon in this paper by proposing the adoption of the ‘value-in-social-experience’ perspective embedded in ethnographic principles and framed within a social constructionist epistemology. In so doing, this is a move away from highly individualistic, subjectivist customer-perceived value approaches through to a more holistic representation by which participants gain a valuable social experience merely by being in the company of others, and in its various contexts e.g. conversational, chilling out, camping, singing. More is therefore learned about what 'value behaviours’ and practices customers engage in when they themselves are immersed in the company of other people in festival settings, and how festivals can benefit from such perspective.
""
"Purpose - Using the inaugural Edinburgh International Magic Festival as a case study, this paper... more "Purpose - Using the inaugural Edinburgh International Magic Festival as a case study, this paper focuses on the motivational factors prevalent in a group of young event and festival volunteers.
Design/methodology/approach - This paper will first review the extent of volunteering and, thereafter, will discuss volunteering in the festival and events industry. Focussing on motivations to volunteer, this paper will also identify key research that has examined volunteer motivation in the festival and event sector. Within the context of the festivals and events sector, the paper highlights the benefits of volunteering to the volunteer, the organisation and the community as a whole. This paper discusses volunteering as a means of developing specific skills and knowledge that improves volunteer’s CVs and potentially has a positive impact on career opportunities and careers in the festival and event industries. Using the inaugural Edinburgh International Magic Festival as a case study, the authors conducted semi-structured interviews with volunteers as a means of more fully understanding motivations to volunteer.
Findings - The paper argues that volunteers in contemporary society approach a volunteering episode from a utilitarian perspective. The aim of such an episode is to improve industry specific skills and knowledge and positively impact on future career opportunities.
Practical implications - Festival and event organisers need to be fully understanding of the motivations of their volunteers in order to not only fully utilise existing skills, but also assist in the development of individually required skills and knowledge.
Originality/value - This paper argues for the development of specific training and development programmes for festival and event volunteers as a means of developing skills and enhancing career opportunities."
This paper introduces the concept of volunteering in the hospitality industry. Used to great succ... more This paper introduces the concept of volunteering in the hospitality industry. Used to great success in other industries, volunteering is almost unheard of in hospitality and this paper argues that substantial benefits might accrue to not only the volunteer, through the development of skills and knowledge, but also to the hospitality industry, through the identification of quality and committed employees. The paper defines volunteering and presents an indication of the extent of volunteering in the UK. Thereafter, the paper examines contemporary motivations to volunteer and discusses the potential benefits of the creation of a structured volunteering scheme for the hospitality industry.
… Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality …, Jan 1, 2010
"Purpose – This paper aims to determine the role of heritage tourism in Shetland Island destinati... more "Purpose – This paper aims to determine the role of heritage tourism in Shetland Island destination development and how this links to tourism public policy in island communities.
Design/methodology/approach – The study is conducted in the Shetland Islands, located off the north coast of Scotland, UK. Descriptive and inductive approaches are utilized to enable the researchers to recognize multiple social structures and draw conclusions from observations and specific information. Primary research focuses on semi-structured interviews with key informants. Data is analyzed via a mix of content analysis and interpretation of the responses through a connected narrative approach.
Findings – Seasonality is a key feature of Shetland Island tourism, alongside other key limitations to growth including transport links and climatic conditions. Potential conflicts exist between tourism stakeholders and their perceptions of the effectiveness of the heritage tourism public policy in Shetland, though overall stakeholder collaboration succeeds in enhancing heritage conservation and development.
Practical implications – While the findings relate specifically to the Shetland Islands, the general conclusions offer an example of best practice concerning tourism public policy for heritage-focused tourism in island communities, which could be used in comparable destinations.
Originality/value – The choice of the Shetland Islands as an example of a cold water island destination offers the opportunity to extend existing research and examine how the community of Shetland embraces the opportunities afforded by tourism as an alternative to traditional industries."
Conference Presentations and Talks by Ivana Rihova
Purpose – Approached from the S-D logic perspective, the purpose of the paper is to provide an un... more Purpose – Approached from the S-D logic perspective, the purpose of the paper is to provide an understanding of customer-to-customer co-creation in the socially dense context of festivals.
Design/methodology/approach – Six semi-structured interviews with festival participants explore the co-creation processes that participants in the socially dense festival landscape engage in. Data collection and analysis emphasise the contextual and socially co-created nature of value.
Findings – Participants’ co-creation is guided not only by personal factors (operant/operand resource integration) but also by the structural features of the liminoid social situation at festivals. Participants engage in social practices and interactions on four basic levels: ‘Attendee’, ‘Social Bubble’, ‘Stranger Encounters’, and ‘Communitas’. Consequently, value emerges as ‘value–in-social-experience’, a multidimensional construct manifested on the subjective, inter- and intra-subjective levels.
Research limitations/implications - The findings reflect participants’ meanings from a purely emic perspective. Participant observation is needed to complement and add to the findings through a more reflexive assessment of customers’ co-creation processes.
Practical/social implications - In order to create value propositions that facilitate customers’ co-creation processes, managers need to understand co-creation in its complexity, paying particular attention to its situational and contextual elements.
Originality/value - The notion of value-in-social-experience proposed in this paper expands on the traditional individualist, subjective and phenomenological view of consumer value in services research. The paper offers a more holistic perspective on the value co-creation processes in play when customers come together in socially dense contexts. The application of S-D logic and co-creation in the context of festivals is also novel.
Approached from the perspective of the service-dominant logic in marketing, this paper explores h... more Approached from the perspective of the service-dominant logic in marketing, this paper explores how valuable social experiences are co-created through social interactions among festival participants. Value is viewed as emerging from customers’ social co-creation experiences, which are supported and facilitated by the marketer’s value proposition. A qualitative methodological strategy is proposed, which, in line with the reflexive nature of value co-creation conceptualised in S-D logic, is guided by the social constructionist stance.
Book Reviews by Ivana Rihova
Rihova, I. (2015) Book review: D. O'Reilly, G. Larsen & K. Kubacki, Music, Markets and Consumption, Goodfellow Publishers, Oxford (2013), 232 pp., (Pbk.) £29.99, ISBN: 978-1-908999-52-8, Tourism Management, Vol. 51, pp. 283-284
The prevalent focus on hard-nosed economic impacts within the ‘event tourism discourse’ in festiv... more The prevalent focus on hard-nosed economic impacts within the ‘event tourism discourse’ in festival research has meant that, until recently, the development of an understanding of the social and cultural benefits of festivals in regional contexts has been somewhat neglected. This is the main rationale upon which the book ‘Music Festivals and Regional Development in Australia’ builds. While the number of studies that consider the triple-bottom line of events is slowly increasing, authors tend to put the spotlight on benefits brought to urban areas by major events. This book therefore fills an important thematic and contextual gap by offering in-depth holistic insights into the contribution of smaller-scale events to rural communities and economies.
Book Chapters by Ivana Rihova
In O. Moufakkir and T. Pernecky (eds.) Ideological, Social and Cultural Aspects of Events, CABI: Wallingford, pp. 74-85
This chapter reflects on different perspectives on value and their application to the study and m... more This chapter reflects on different perspectives on value and their application to the study and marketing of events and festivals. Historically, the presence of customer value has been captured in service literature as judgement perception of various benefits customers attribute to a marketer’s offering, with more recent perspectives conceptualising ‘co-created’ value in experience. Events and festival marketing has adopted both perspectives. At the same time, however, it has not recognised the potential value of event and festival visitors spending time cooking with their families, dressing up, jamming together and engaging in various other routine practices. The chapter advocates a shift from more traditional value perspectives to a holistic representation of socially constructed value in practice. This is argued to permit deeper insights into the appeal of events and festival visitation, as well as into the wider significance of the social aspects of events and festivals visitation.
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Papers by Ivana Rihova
This paper aims to explore and evaluate practice-based segmentation as an alternative conceptual segmentation perspective that acknowledges the active role of consumers as value co-creators.
Design/methodology/approach
Data comprising various aspects of customer-to-customer (C2C) co-creation practices of festival visitors were collected across five UK-based festivals, using participant observation and semi-structured interviews with naturally occurring social units (individuals, couples and groups). Data were analysed using a qualitative thematic analysis procedure within QSR NVivo 10.
Findings
Private, sociable, tribal and communing practice segments are identified and profiled, using the interplay of specific subject- and situation-specific practice elements to highlight the “minimum” conditions for each C2C co-creation practice. Unlike traditional segments, practice segment membership is shown to be fluid and overlapping, with fragmented consumers moving across different practice segments throughout their festival experience according to what makes most sense at a given time.
Research limitations/implications
Although practice-based segmentation is studied in the relatively limited context of C2C co-creation practices at festivals, the paper illustrates how this approach could be operationalised in the initial qualitative stages of segmentation research. By identifying how the interplay of subject- and situation-specific practice elements affects performance of practices, managers can facilitate relevant practice-based segments, leading to more sustainable business.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to segmentation literature by empirically demonstrating the feasibility of practice-based segments and by evaluating the use of practice-based segmentation on a strategic, procedural and operational level. Possible methodological solutions for future research are offered.
Download FREE before 5 May https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1WjrfxTbMiwQx
Abstract
This study aims to explore specific customer-to-customer (C2C) co-creation practices and related value outcomes in tourism. The importance of C2C co-creation is first discussed in the context of the Service-Dominant logic, then a new approach to the study of tourists' social practices and related value-outcomes is proposed, drawing on the recently emerged Customer-Dominant logic in marketing. A pragmatic philosophy is adopted to best address the research questions in a purposively selected sample of five UK-based festivals. Qualitative interview- and observation-based methods are adopted to identify 18 C2C co-creation practices, placing these on a continuum of autotelicinstrumental and private-public practices. Four value-outcome categories are discussed: affective, social, functional and network value. The conclusions highlight the importance of value formed when tourists cocreate with each other in tourism settings and the authors identify specific opportunities for facilitating this process. Possible applications for future research are discussed, highlighting the merits of pragmatism.
Keywords
Co-creation; Value; Customer-Dominant logic; Customer-to-customer; Social practices; Pragmatism; Festivals
Highlights
• Customer-Dominant logic provides insights into tourists' co-creation practices.
•Practices performed on a continuum autotelic – instrumental and private - public.
•Tourists' C2C co-creation results in affective, social, functional and network value.
•Pragmatist paradigm and qualitative methods needed for C2C co-creation research.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper bridges current thinking on value within the customer-dominant logic with service management perspectives on C2C interactions and social science concepts on consumer communities. Examples from literature and practice are drawn on in the discussion.
Findings – The proposed framework reveals C2C co-creation as a dynamic, multi-layered process that is embedded in customers’ social contexts. Value emerges in four distinctive social layers: ‘Detached Customers’, ‘Social Bubble’, ‘Temporary Communitas’ and ‘Ongoing Neo-tribes’.
Research limitations/implications – This paper is conceptual. Further validation of the framework in a variety of socially dense consumption settings is needed, using field-based qualitative methods such as participant observation and interviews.
Practical/social implications – Awareness of the multi-layered nature of C2C co-creation and specific practices in which value is formed provides service managers with opportunities to create value propositions that help facilitate such co-creation. Service managers across various sectors benefit from understanding how customers can be ‘nudged’ into more socially immersive co-creation layers.
Originality/value – The paper contributes by introducing a C2C co-creation perspective, conceptualizing the social layers within which value is formed, and providing specific propositions to service managers with regards to servicescape structuring and other strategies that facilitate C2C co-creation.
Discussions in traditional market research literature therefore benefits from recognising the unique conditions by which value is co-created in social situations, guided by specific social rules and systems. Such a view is further reflected upon in this paper by proposing the adoption of the ‘value-in-social-experience’ perspective embedded in ethnographic principles and framed within a social constructionist epistemology. In so doing, this is a move away from highly individualistic, subjectivist customer-perceived value approaches through to a more holistic representation by which participants gain a valuable social experience merely by being in the company of others, and in its various contexts e.g. conversational, chilling out, camping, singing. More is therefore learned about what 'value behaviours’ and practices customers engage in when they themselves are immersed in the company of other people in festival settings, and how festivals can benefit from such perspective.
""
Design/methodology/approach - This paper will first review the extent of volunteering and, thereafter, will discuss volunteering in the festival and events industry. Focussing on motivations to volunteer, this paper will also identify key research that has examined volunteer motivation in the festival and event sector. Within the context of the festivals and events sector, the paper highlights the benefits of volunteering to the volunteer, the organisation and the community as a whole. This paper discusses volunteering as a means of developing specific skills and knowledge that improves volunteer’s CVs and potentially has a positive impact on career opportunities and careers in the festival and event industries. Using the inaugural Edinburgh International Magic Festival as a case study, the authors conducted semi-structured interviews with volunteers as a means of more fully understanding motivations to volunteer.
Findings - The paper argues that volunteers in contemporary society approach a volunteering episode from a utilitarian perspective. The aim of such an episode is to improve industry specific skills and knowledge and positively impact on future career opportunities.
Practical implications - Festival and event organisers need to be fully understanding of the motivations of their volunteers in order to not only fully utilise existing skills, but also assist in the development of individually required skills and knowledge.
Originality/value - This paper argues for the development of specific training and development programmes for festival and event volunteers as a means of developing skills and enhancing career opportunities."
Design/methodology/approach – The study is conducted in the Shetland Islands, located off the north coast of Scotland, UK. Descriptive and inductive approaches are utilized to enable the researchers to recognize multiple social structures and draw conclusions from observations and specific information. Primary research focuses on semi-structured interviews with key informants. Data is analyzed via a mix of content analysis and interpretation of the responses through a connected narrative approach.
Findings – Seasonality is a key feature of Shetland Island tourism, alongside other key limitations to growth including transport links and climatic conditions. Potential conflicts exist between tourism stakeholders and their perceptions of the effectiveness of the heritage tourism public policy in Shetland, though overall stakeholder collaboration succeeds in enhancing heritage conservation and development.
Practical implications – While the findings relate specifically to the Shetland Islands, the general conclusions offer an example of best practice concerning tourism public policy for heritage-focused tourism in island communities, which could be used in comparable destinations.
Originality/value – The choice of the Shetland Islands as an example of a cold water island destination offers the opportunity to extend existing research and examine how the community of Shetland embraces the opportunities afforded by tourism as an alternative to traditional industries."
Conference Presentations and Talks by Ivana Rihova
Design/methodology/approach – Six semi-structured interviews with festival participants explore the co-creation processes that participants in the socially dense festival landscape engage in. Data collection and analysis emphasise the contextual and socially co-created nature of value.
Findings – Participants’ co-creation is guided not only by personal factors (operant/operand resource integration) but also by the structural features of the liminoid social situation at festivals. Participants engage in social practices and interactions on four basic levels: ‘Attendee’, ‘Social Bubble’, ‘Stranger Encounters’, and ‘Communitas’. Consequently, value emerges as ‘value–in-social-experience’, a multidimensional construct manifested on the subjective, inter- and intra-subjective levels.
Research limitations/implications - The findings reflect participants’ meanings from a purely emic perspective. Participant observation is needed to complement and add to the findings through a more reflexive assessment of customers’ co-creation processes.
Practical/social implications - In order to create value propositions that facilitate customers’ co-creation processes, managers need to understand co-creation in its complexity, paying particular attention to its situational and contextual elements.
Originality/value - The notion of value-in-social-experience proposed in this paper expands on the traditional individualist, subjective and phenomenological view of consumer value in services research. The paper offers a more holistic perspective on the value co-creation processes in play when customers come together in socially dense contexts. The application of S-D logic and co-creation in the context of festivals is also novel.
Book Reviews by Ivana Rihova
Book Chapters by Ivana Rihova
This paper aims to explore and evaluate practice-based segmentation as an alternative conceptual segmentation perspective that acknowledges the active role of consumers as value co-creators.
Design/methodology/approach
Data comprising various aspects of customer-to-customer (C2C) co-creation practices of festival visitors were collected across five UK-based festivals, using participant observation and semi-structured interviews with naturally occurring social units (individuals, couples and groups). Data were analysed using a qualitative thematic analysis procedure within QSR NVivo 10.
Findings
Private, sociable, tribal and communing practice segments are identified and profiled, using the interplay of specific subject- and situation-specific practice elements to highlight the “minimum” conditions for each C2C co-creation practice. Unlike traditional segments, practice segment membership is shown to be fluid and overlapping, with fragmented consumers moving across different practice segments throughout their festival experience according to what makes most sense at a given time.
Research limitations/implications
Although practice-based segmentation is studied in the relatively limited context of C2C co-creation practices at festivals, the paper illustrates how this approach could be operationalised in the initial qualitative stages of segmentation research. By identifying how the interplay of subject- and situation-specific practice elements affects performance of practices, managers can facilitate relevant practice-based segments, leading to more sustainable business.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to segmentation literature by empirically demonstrating the feasibility of practice-based segments and by evaluating the use of practice-based segmentation on a strategic, procedural and operational level. Possible methodological solutions for future research are offered.
Download FREE before 5 May https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1WjrfxTbMiwQx
Abstract
This study aims to explore specific customer-to-customer (C2C) co-creation practices and related value outcomes in tourism. The importance of C2C co-creation is first discussed in the context of the Service-Dominant logic, then a new approach to the study of tourists' social practices and related value-outcomes is proposed, drawing on the recently emerged Customer-Dominant logic in marketing. A pragmatic philosophy is adopted to best address the research questions in a purposively selected sample of five UK-based festivals. Qualitative interview- and observation-based methods are adopted to identify 18 C2C co-creation practices, placing these on a continuum of autotelicinstrumental and private-public practices. Four value-outcome categories are discussed: affective, social, functional and network value. The conclusions highlight the importance of value formed when tourists cocreate with each other in tourism settings and the authors identify specific opportunities for facilitating this process. Possible applications for future research are discussed, highlighting the merits of pragmatism.
Keywords
Co-creation; Value; Customer-Dominant logic; Customer-to-customer; Social practices; Pragmatism; Festivals
Highlights
• Customer-Dominant logic provides insights into tourists' co-creation practices.
•Practices performed on a continuum autotelic – instrumental and private - public.
•Tourists' C2C co-creation results in affective, social, functional and network value.
•Pragmatist paradigm and qualitative methods needed for C2C co-creation research.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper bridges current thinking on value within the customer-dominant logic with service management perspectives on C2C interactions and social science concepts on consumer communities. Examples from literature and practice are drawn on in the discussion.
Findings – The proposed framework reveals C2C co-creation as a dynamic, multi-layered process that is embedded in customers’ social contexts. Value emerges in four distinctive social layers: ‘Detached Customers’, ‘Social Bubble’, ‘Temporary Communitas’ and ‘Ongoing Neo-tribes’.
Research limitations/implications – This paper is conceptual. Further validation of the framework in a variety of socially dense consumption settings is needed, using field-based qualitative methods such as participant observation and interviews.
Practical/social implications – Awareness of the multi-layered nature of C2C co-creation and specific practices in which value is formed provides service managers with opportunities to create value propositions that help facilitate such co-creation. Service managers across various sectors benefit from understanding how customers can be ‘nudged’ into more socially immersive co-creation layers.
Originality/value – The paper contributes by introducing a C2C co-creation perspective, conceptualizing the social layers within which value is formed, and providing specific propositions to service managers with regards to servicescape structuring and other strategies that facilitate C2C co-creation.
Discussions in traditional market research literature therefore benefits from recognising the unique conditions by which value is co-created in social situations, guided by specific social rules and systems. Such a view is further reflected upon in this paper by proposing the adoption of the ‘value-in-social-experience’ perspective embedded in ethnographic principles and framed within a social constructionist epistemology. In so doing, this is a move away from highly individualistic, subjectivist customer-perceived value approaches through to a more holistic representation by which participants gain a valuable social experience merely by being in the company of others, and in its various contexts e.g. conversational, chilling out, camping, singing. More is therefore learned about what 'value behaviours’ and practices customers engage in when they themselves are immersed in the company of other people in festival settings, and how festivals can benefit from such perspective.
""
Design/methodology/approach - This paper will first review the extent of volunteering and, thereafter, will discuss volunteering in the festival and events industry. Focussing on motivations to volunteer, this paper will also identify key research that has examined volunteer motivation in the festival and event sector. Within the context of the festivals and events sector, the paper highlights the benefits of volunteering to the volunteer, the organisation and the community as a whole. This paper discusses volunteering as a means of developing specific skills and knowledge that improves volunteer’s CVs and potentially has a positive impact on career opportunities and careers in the festival and event industries. Using the inaugural Edinburgh International Magic Festival as a case study, the authors conducted semi-structured interviews with volunteers as a means of more fully understanding motivations to volunteer.
Findings - The paper argues that volunteers in contemporary society approach a volunteering episode from a utilitarian perspective. The aim of such an episode is to improve industry specific skills and knowledge and positively impact on future career opportunities.
Practical implications - Festival and event organisers need to be fully understanding of the motivations of their volunteers in order to not only fully utilise existing skills, but also assist in the development of individually required skills and knowledge.
Originality/value - This paper argues for the development of specific training and development programmes for festival and event volunteers as a means of developing skills and enhancing career opportunities."
Design/methodology/approach – The study is conducted in the Shetland Islands, located off the north coast of Scotland, UK. Descriptive and inductive approaches are utilized to enable the researchers to recognize multiple social structures and draw conclusions from observations and specific information. Primary research focuses on semi-structured interviews with key informants. Data is analyzed via a mix of content analysis and interpretation of the responses through a connected narrative approach.
Findings – Seasonality is a key feature of Shetland Island tourism, alongside other key limitations to growth including transport links and climatic conditions. Potential conflicts exist between tourism stakeholders and their perceptions of the effectiveness of the heritage tourism public policy in Shetland, though overall stakeholder collaboration succeeds in enhancing heritage conservation and development.
Practical implications – While the findings relate specifically to the Shetland Islands, the general conclusions offer an example of best practice concerning tourism public policy for heritage-focused tourism in island communities, which could be used in comparable destinations.
Originality/value – The choice of the Shetland Islands as an example of a cold water island destination offers the opportunity to extend existing research and examine how the community of Shetland embraces the opportunities afforded by tourism as an alternative to traditional industries."
Design/methodology/approach – Six semi-structured interviews with festival participants explore the co-creation processes that participants in the socially dense festival landscape engage in. Data collection and analysis emphasise the contextual and socially co-created nature of value.
Findings – Participants’ co-creation is guided not only by personal factors (operant/operand resource integration) but also by the structural features of the liminoid social situation at festivals. Participants engage in social practices and interactions on four basic levels: ‘Attendee’, ‘Social Bubble’, ‘Stranger Encounters’, and ‘Communitas’. Consequently, value emerges as ‘value–in-social-experience’, a multidimensional construct manifested on the subjective, inter- and intra-subjective levels.
Research limitations/implications - The findings reflect participants’ meanings from a purely emic perspective. Participant observation is needed to complement and add to the findings through a more reflexive assessment of customers’ co-creation processes.
Practical/social implications - In order to create value propositions that facilitate customers’ co-creation processes, managers need to understand co-creation in its complexity, paying particular attention to its situational and contextual elements.
Originality/value - The notion of value-in-social-experience proposed in this paper expands on the traditional individualist, subjective and phenomenological view of consumer value in services research. The paper offers a more holistic perspective on the value co-creation processes in play when customers come together in socially dense contexts. The application of S-D logic and co-creation in the context of festivals is also novel.