With the digitalization of production and consumption environments, consumers are no longer merely targets of marketing, but key players in creating value jointly with companies by participating in various decision-making processes. Much virtual content in particular, such as fashion shows, exhibitions, games, social activities, and shopping, which fashion brands implement in virtual worlds, cannot be completed without consumers’ active engagement and interaction. Thus, this study considers consumers’ participation in virtual content provided by fashion brands as value co-creation in virtual worlds. This study aims to examine how consumer (i.e., consumer smartness) and fashion firm (i.e., perceived intellectual capital) factors influence value co-creation behavior intention in virtual worlds. Data were collected from 410 consumers in their 20s nationwide through an online survey, and a higher-order structural equation modeling analysis was conducted to test the research model. The results showed that both consumer smartness and perceived intellectual capital positively influenced customer participation behavior and citizenship behavior intentions. Specifically, perceived intellectual capital had a greater impact on value co-creation behavior in the virtual world than consumer smartness. The findings provide empirical evidence that the fashion firms’ intangible assets and consumers’ competence in the digital shopping environment encourage their intentions to co-create value in virtual worlds.

NFTs are touted as revolutionary to market and monetize digital assets. However, critics have questioned NFT value, labeling it as fraudulent. Despite mixed reviews, various firms are leveraging NFTs as a value proposition for customers. In this study, using service-dominant (S-D) logic, we explore how NFTs can help firms in value co-creation and service exchange. We propose and test a conceptual framework using a multi-method approach -1) we investigate NFTs popularity using historical news articles spanning ten years, 2) we use a case study to examine business NFT use in value co-creation and service exchange, subsequently, proposing a conceptual framework illustrating such value exchange, 3) we test our conceptual framework by analyzing data from multiple sources, including surveys, online forums, social media, and transactions. Results from our study, provide business valuable insight into using NFTs as value co-creation and service exchange tool.

With the rise of social media platforms, influencer marketing has become an essential tool for marketers to promote their products and services. Value co-creation behavior of influencers involves collaborating with their followers and brands to create content that provides value to their audience. This approach can help to build stronger relationships with followers and drive engagement and sales for the brands they work with.

An important segment, tourism e-commerce live streaming (TEcLS) has emerged as a new marketing channel actively embraced by destination marketing organizations (DMO) and tourist firms due to the COVID-19 pandemic. China, Japan, Australia, and many other nations have been selling such tourism products on various platforms. Live e-commerce generates a real-time interactive virtual environment that can be called a livescape. However, many tourism destinations or companies are unaware of the marketing science implications of live streaming and are unsure of their effectiveness or the intricacies of marketing live streaming. Previous research has explored the factors influencing consumer purchase behavior from the product, technology, and live-streamer perspectives, arguing that the advantages of breaking through time and space constraints, strong interactivity, the experience of reality, technological ease of use and usefulness, and celebrity aura encourage online purchases. However, limited investigation has been carried out on the impact of customers’ value-co-creation in livescape when watching tourism live streaming on their purchase intentions considering the key role of engagement. This calls for specific investigation of the phenomenon to facilitate live streaming design and tourism marketing. This study aims to explores the factors influencing consumer purchase intentions in the livescape based on a value co-creation research framework. Compared to traditional e-commerce, livescapes provides the “many-to-many” social presence and an immersive value co-creation platform. Thus, we focus on why and how social presence inspires customer engagement, ultimately leading to purchase intentions. This study finds that, as a crucial marketing tool, the social presence of tourism livescapes can promotes customer engagement, which in turn results in intentions to purchase tourism live-streaming products. Additionally, the mediating role of inspiration (inspired-by and inspired-to) between social presence and customer engagement is examined to reveal the influence mechanism in the tourism context. Finally, this study examines how to create an effective tourism livescape to enhance tourists social presence experience and inspire their engagement, which in turn increases their purchase intention.

Customer value co-creation behavior (CVCB) has been regarded as a strong predictor of firm performance in many industries for decades. CVCB—the customer’s direct and indirect contribution of resources to enhance the offering of the focal agent/object—is ubiquitous in service industries. Recently, customer engagement has been identified as a determinant of the value realized by customers and businesses. Customer psychological engagement (CPEngagement) is a multidimensional customer-firm relationship marked by customer satisfaction and emotional connectedness to the firm. Although there is concurrence that customer engagement and CVCB are linked, scholars diverge as to the precise nature of the relationship. Marketing and hospitality literature have not yet developed an integrated model of customer engagement with the digital and physical components of hospitality services. Given the increasing managerial interest in digital customer engagement and value co-creation behaviors, it is essential to enhance our understanding of the interplay between these concepts and their implications for both consumers and businesses. This research investigates the relationship between CPEngagement and value co-creation in the digital and physical aspects of hospitality services.

Despite a surging amount of research on value co-creation in the social media context, research on how value co-creation and value co-destruction coexist from a system perspective remains scarce. This conceptual research aims to understand how social media allows for value to be co-created and/or co-destroyed in interconnected social networks. The study takes a first step toward integrating the two value processes in the social media context and opens up new research possibilities. By looking at value co-creation, we differentiate between values that are created from both firm and customer sides and show the value can be destructed if without cautions. From a managerial standpoint, the proposed framework could facilitate managers to build a more holistic view of creating social media value through collaboration with their social media users.

Internet of Things (IoT) research is devoted to the idea that a wide array of devices, including appliances, vehicles, buildings, and cameras, can be interconnected to collect and share their abundant sensory information to use for intelligent purposes. IoT technologies are universally seen as transforming the manufacturing and services sectors. Service-Dominant (S-D) logic focuses on a dynamic, ongoing way to co-create value through resource integration and service exchange. Based on research data from business-to-business and business-to-government customers, as well as feedback from employees and managers of two different manufacturers, our study addresses four questions: (1) In the light of the IoT-does the second axiom of the S-D logic—value is co-created by multiple actors, always including the beneficiary—still hold true for B-to-B and Business-to-Government (B-to-G) customers? (2)With reference to the IoT—is there a difference in the acceptance of digital services between B-to-B and B-to-G groups? Does the age group of the customers have to be considered? (3) Are there digital customer services already perceived as being ―co-created‖ in the sense of the S-D logic? (4) Marketing management in the digital age—how to implement IoT projects in buyer-manufacturer relationships considering the abovementioned chances and challenges. Discussing a background of disruption management and S-D logic, we examine factors that influence IoT buyer–manufacturer project success in organizational networks, and compare the attitude of different customer groups towards these projects. Our findings show that in the IoT-driven digital projects even long term customers that trust in their manufacturers have very strong reservations with regards to data safety. We propose a modular concept of a relationship alignment model to enhance trust in manufacturer's credibility in the context of disruptive IoT projects. The evaluation of our empirical studies revealed serious reservations of managers and service employees towards an active integration of customers into digital product maintenance. If manufacturers are not willing to incorporate customers in digital platforms and networks and provide them with digital services they are interested in, this will hamper A-to-A co-creation of value in digital IoT projects.

Tourism and hospitality service providers have been seeking ways to engage customers into the value creation process to deliver personalized customer experience. Rapid development of information communication technology has facilitated such practice by providing various computer-based or mobile platforms. While online platforms such as social network sites and online communities have received most research attention, mobile instant messaging (IM) remains under-researched in spite of its unique potential for firm-customer interaction and communication. Based on service-dominant logic (Vargo & Lusch, 2004) and computer-mediated communication theories (Walther, 1996), this study examines (1) the factors influencing customers’ perceived co-creation experience facilitated by mobile IM, and (2) customers’ perceived value of personalization results from such experience in the tourism and hospitality context. Data was collected via online survey targeting Chinese users and was analyzed using structural equation modelling. The results found significant positive effects of users’ perceived social presence, perceived media richness and prior experiences on their co-creation experience. The significant positive relationships between customers’ co-creation experience and perceived personalization of the service offering validate the unique potential of mobile IM to engage customers into value co-creation with tourism and hospitality service providers. The findings extend the theoretical framework of value cocreation to a context mediated by mobile IM. Managerial suggestions are provided for tourism and hospitality companies to engage with customers using mobile IM.