The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/1066-2243.htm

Co-creation of services: an online Co-creation of

digital services
network perspective
Reihaneh Bidar, Alistair Barros and Jason Watson
Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
897
Abstract
Received 1 April 2020
Purpose – In the co-creation process from a network perspective, service is produced, designed, and evaluated Revised 8 November 2020
entirely by the actors with dynamic roles and with less participation by the firm’s employees in the service 14 May 2021
process. The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical model that represents environmental stimuli and 4 August 2021
value perceptions that contribute to service co-creation behaviour in an online network. Accepted 4 August 2021
Design/methodology/approach – A total of 36 semi-structured interviews were conducted with members of
two online programming communities – GitHub and Stack Overflow co-creators, with the data analysed using
thematic analysis. The stimulus-organism-response model guided the development of the final model.
Findings – Social influence and trust are influential in actor value perceptions, including primary and network
value, the interplay of which leads actors to co-production, supportive, and administrative behaviour.
Environmental factors do not directly drive actors; rather it is the value that initiates and drives actors, which,
by extension, initiates and drives the co-creation of services.
Research limitations/implications – The service co-creation behaviour model provides a basis for future
research in the co-creation and co-destruction context to model behaviours within the online network
organisation setting and thereby enable improvement of such systems. This model can be operationalised in a
network environment through design features.
Originality/value – This paper provides a rich understanding of environmental stimuli and value perception
factors that contribute to the co-creation of services, and identifies different types of behaviours in dynamic
online networks. This paper presents a new model of different types of behaviours emerging from actor
participation in the co-creation process.
Keywords Co-creation systems, Co-creation, Collaborative network, Online network, Value perception
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
Co-creation, as a core concept in the service-dominant logic (Vargo and Lusch, 2004), is
defined as the collaborative creation of value through the participation of different actors
(traditionally customers and firms) (Gr€onroos, 2012). Its view of customers as co-creators of
value targets organisations to directly engage customers in a collaboration process at
different stages of the design, production, personalisation and delivery of offers (Vargo and
Lusch, 2004). These collaborations, in the co-creation process, reflect a shift in thinking from
the organisations as the sole provider of value and services to a participatory model using
online communities (Frasquet-Deltoro and Lorenzo-Romero, 2019). Given the prominence of
services as the basis for value exchange in communities and businesses, the participatory
model has been extended to include the co-creation of services by actors using a variety of
generative information and processes for the design, development and delivery of services
(Oertzen et al., 2018).
Co-creation business models have been adopted by organisations to create mutual value
with customers with approximately 25% of innovation opportunities generated through
customer–provider interactions (Terwiesch and Ulrich, 2009). And since ideas offered by
prospective and real customers amplify novelty, compared with traditional organisational
resources of employees and marketers, customers are becoming a critical part of any business Internet Research
innovation strategy (Wang et al., 2016). Currently, co-creation adoption involves three Vol. 32 No. 3, 2022
pp. 897-915
different degrees of organisational and customer involvement (Bidar et al., 2017). Firstly, they © Emerald Publishing Limited
1066-2243
capture value from shared experiences and ideas in the co-creation process to enhance DOI 10.1108/INTR-04-2020-0168
INTR product/services, such as My Starbucks Idea. Secondly, they allow customers to take part in
32,3 the design of co-creation products/services, just as LEGO and Nike Plus did, for example, by
publicising and capturing innovative ideas using customers to design their products.
Thirdly, in network-centric co-creation, organisations capture value from co-created services
digitally provided by a network of actors [1] without being themselves directly involved in the
co-creation process. Examples of such online network organisations with a network-centric
co-creation strategy are PatientsLikeMe (actor-generated health service), and Waze
898 [a community-driven GPS (Global Positioning System) and navigation app]. Inspired by
the growing convergence in this third direction, network-centric service co-creation is the
focus of this paper, and we define network-centric service co-creation as a co-creation
approach where a network of actors collaborates online in the co-creation of digital services.
In such systems, the organisation is a facilitator of the platform and activities rather than
being directly involved in the co-creation of services, that is, the design, delivery, access and
understanding of services. Network-centric service co-creation is unstructured in nature and
the governance of service co-creation occurs through an open community.
Overall, this paper presents three specific aspects of service co-creation. Firstly, we
analyse co-creation from the online network-centric perspective, given there is limited
analysis of the relational and network aspect of co-creation in the literature (Achrol and
Kotler, 2012). The shift from business-to-customer (B2C) co-creation to more network
co-creation systems, and leveraging networks to contribute to the core services of firms is
imperative for organisations to maintain and advance their innovative competencies, reduce
costs, enhance efficiency and scale their service (Libert et al., 2016). The focus at the online
network level is to increase interactions among diverse actors, and their engagement in
understanding each other’s perspectives, and then negotiating shared perspectives in the co-
creation process (van Wijk et al., 2019). It is a network-centric approach therefore that
removes barriers to participation such as provider bias and diversifies co-creation towards
service innovation. Since shifts in value perception of actors who are involved in co-creation
processes are an important source of change in online networks, the success and completion
of co-creation depend highly on actor collaboration and how actors perceive value from their
collaborations. If one is to analyse service co-creation from a network perspective, then the
second point is the level of actor involvement in core activities rather than just experience
sharing and collaboration with organisations, which has been the focus of previous studies
(e.g. Kamboj et al., 2018). Organisations and their service creation and delivery strategies have
evolved from a traditionally inward-process to a more outward-process of co-creation, where
community collaboratively orchestrates and drives the value (Bidar et al., 2017). This
outward-process is evident in various examples that involve the adoption of a network of
online actors in their core process of service creation and delivery (e.g. Waze and GitHub).
Finally, we investigate actor behaviour in the service co-creation process of an online network
organisation and the antecedents of such behaviour.
Studies have explored antecedent stimuli of co-creation from different points of view with
Schallehn et al. (2019), for example, exploring antecedents of experience co-creation from the
consumption point of view. Frasquet-Deltoro and Lorenzo-Romero (2019) predict the
antecedents and consequences of virtual co-creation behaviours on the control of customer
organisation. However, what is not yet understood in the analysis of co-creation is the
perceived value of customers and its impact on their behaviour (Gan and Wang, 2017), or
more importantly, the effect of value perception and how it leads to actor involvement in key
service creation processes. This paper, therefore, addresses the need for evidence-based
research on the co-creation of services through an online network organisation by
understanding actor value perception and the behaviours involved in the co-creation process.
The stimulus-organism-response model (SOR) was used as a primary framework to define
the elements of environmental stimuli and internal factors that influence user behaviour, and,
therefore collaboration and actor-based co-creation. The SOR model has been prominent in Co-creation of
co-creation studies, enabling the analysis of the impacts of co-creation experience in customer digital services
participation via social media (Zhang et al., 2015; Kamboj et al., 2018), and is therefore
appropriate for this research to investigate the service co-creation process in the online
network-centric organisations (i.e. network-centric co-creation). This research serves to
identify, “what factors influence actor service co-creation and actor behaviour in the
co-creation process in online network organisations?” and addresses the sub-research
questions: (1) What are the environmental stimuli that influence actor service co-creation 899
behaviour in online network organisations? (addressing “environmental stimulus” in the SOR
model) and (2) what are the value perceptions that influence actor service co-creation
behaviour in online network organisations? (addressing “organism” in the SOR model).
This paper reports the results of a qualitative study in which 36 co-creators were
interviewed within two network-centric co-creation platforms, GitHub [2] and Stack Overflow
[3]. The results revealed that environmental stimuli do not directly influence actors in
collaborating; that it is the value perception that initiates and drives actors, which by
extension, initiates and drives resource integration and co-creation of services. We found that
service co-creation behaviour (SCB) comprises actor collaboration in service co-production,
and supportive and administrative activities.
This paper presents new knowledge of network-centric co-creation and extends earlier
studies by firstly, having investigated the co-creation of services from an online network
organisation perspective; and, secondly, by applying the SOR model to assess
the environmental stimuli and actor value perceptions which influence actor service
co-creation behaviour. This research is especially timely because the majority of firms
disrupting their industries through technology-enabled innovation have not adopted a
coherent service co-creation strategy and process to this level of open customer and customer-
controlled co-creation. Although businesses have progressively engaged customers in
product-development processes, service co-creation remains a proprietary activity, controlled
largely inside the firm (Bughin et al., 2008). Therefore, this SCB model can be operationalised
in a network environment to guide the business adoption of such a dynamic environment.

2. Theoretical background
To date, research in co-creation has focused on the co-creation procedures under
organisational control without considering how co-creation of services is vested in the
actor-networks with increased user engagement flexibility and peer-to-peer interactions.
To identify how actors engage in the co-creation of services and the preconditions of service
co-creation behaviour, we examined the literature in terms of co-creation from a network and
service perspective.

2.1 Co-creation: network perspective

Traditionally, co-creation involved customers in different stages of product/service design,
where the organisation was viewed as the sole provider of value and service. Moving towards
a participatory model using online communities, organisations, however, began to capture
value from co-created services digitally provided by a network of actors without being,
themselves, directly involved in the co-creation process. Co-creation relates to interactive
networks and processes where actors jointly participate in creating value by providing
information and feedback (Lusch and Vargo, 2006). Co-creation goes beyond individual
systems to dynamic and ongoing processes within service systems (Vargo and Akaka, 2009),
and represents the multi-actor nature of co-creation coordinated through a network of actors,
where all actors are co-creators using their knowledge, skills, capabilities and experiences
INTR (Durugbo and Pawar, 2014). This view asserts that the transformation of how co-creation is
32,3 applied, from traditional customer-to-organisation co-creation, to network co-creation, is done
in order to foster innovation and value.
Online network organisations, like those studied for this paper, are constituted by a
network of actors (e.g. workers in organisations, customers or individuals in communities)
that are “largely autonomous, geographically distributed, and heterogeneous in terms of
their: operating environment, culture, social capital, and goals” (Camarinha-Matos and
900 Afsarmanesh, 2005, p. 439). Researchers agree that co-creation occurs in a dynamic shared
space where multiple stakeholders interact (Vargo and Lusch, 2016), and where participation
in such a dynamic network helps to better achieve common goals (Camarinha-Matos and
Afsarmanesh, 2005), and solves various collaboration issues in the offline environment such
as the weak relationship between organisation and social actors; enterprise-centric view only;
and requirements for a community perspective rather than the one-to-one model (Camarinha-
Matos et al., 2017).
Online networks can assist as a platform, enabling interaction and collaboration between
actors in the process of co-creation. Services in such a network are co-created and delivered
through digital transactions (e.g. content, software, products). However, this does not mean
all transactions are limited to being digital (Williams et al., 2008). Co-creation in this dynamic
environment induces innovation and results in the co-creation of new sources of value by the
integration of ideas, practices and resources, and the creation of synergies (Camarinha-Matos
and Afsarmanesh, 2005).

2.2 Co-creation of services

There are different schools of thought for understanding and applying the co-creation of
services. Some authors use co-creation, co-production and customer involvement as
synonyms for customer participation in co-creation (e.g. Chang and Taylor, 2016). Other
researchers use co-creation as an integration of different forms of co-design, co-development,
co-production and co-consumption (Oertzen et al., 2018). Co-creation of services refers to
collaborative activities in the customer–provider interface associated with the service
through which at least one actor, as customer, and another, as service provider, are engaged
and participate in co-creation stages, leading to beneficial and/or counterproductive
outcomes through resource integration (Oertzen et al., 2018).
Value is the outcome of co-creation propagated by actor collaboration (Storbacka et al.,
2016), and can be regarded as an individual’s well-being (Vargo and Lusch, 2008), or as the
result of a trade-off between benefits and costs (Ple, 2017). Value is contextual in nature and
“is always uniquely and phenomenologically determined by the beneficiary” (Vargo and
Lusch, 2016, p. 18). From this perspective, value is multi-faceted (Vafeas et al., 2016), and is the
function of actor preferences and perceptions (Echeverri and Sk alen, 2011). This research
presents a broader view of value and defines it as actor disposition of benefits over costs in
the co-creation process.
Co-creation of services can take different forms depending on the phases of the service
process, including co-ideation, co-valuation, co-design, co-test, co-launch, co-production and
co-consumption (Oertzen et al., 2018; Echeverri and Sk alen, 2011). Studies to date on
co-creation have explored the specific forms of co-creation of services from a dyadic point of
view. For example, studies investigated co-ideation and co-evaluation phases (Geiger et al.,
2011), co-design phase (Durugbo and Pawar, 2014; Jaakkola and Alexander, 2014),
co-production phase (Chen et al., 2015), and a constructing and co-experience phase
(Gr€onroos et al., 2015). These studies looked at only one phase of the co-creation process with a
low level of actor involvement in service processes, where coordination of service
management was mainly controlled by the organisation. Significantly, this research
considers co-creation of the services as a combination of the different stages of production, Co-creation of
design and evaluation by actors in an online network system. digital services
To facilitate co-creation, it is important to understand actor behaviour during
co-creation interactions. Actor psychological states influence the interactive co-creation
process and the way actors interact and behave (Finsterwalder, 2018), and their experience
within their social construction (Ranjan and Read, 2016). Since actors are the active players
in the co-creation process, it is critical to focus on the behaviour they exhibit (Xie et al., 2008).
Given that the co-creation of services in a network environment occurs via the dynamic 901
contribution of actors, it means that the network environment, the setting for co-creation
and the direct and indirect actor interactions, can all play a significant role in the formation
of co-creation behaviour.

2.3 Theoretical perspective: stimulus-organism-response (SOR) model

The SOR model (Mehrabian and Russell, 1974) serves to investigate SCB and how it is
influenced by actor value perception, and the drivers in the service ecosystem as
preconditions of actor co-creation behaviour.
The SOR model provides an explanation of how environmental stimuli affect individual
cognitive reactions that lead to specific behaviours, and has been used mostly to investigate
online shopping behaviour (Eroglu et al., 2003; Sheng and Joginapelly, 2012) and to explain
the major impact of the service system environment on customer behaviour. Stimuli (S)
refers to external or environmental cues associated with objects or social-psychological
characteristics surrounding a purchase (Arora, 1982), such as design features of sales
websites (Eroglu et al., 2003) and the web environment (Wang et al., 2011). Organism (O)
refers to internal cues based on the individual’s experience, perceptions and beliefs (Jiang
et al., 2010), such as hedonic and utilitarian shopping values (e.g. McKinney, 2004).
Response (R) represents the behaviour that is shaped by external cues and internal
cognitions.
The SOR model is appropriate to focus on the different factors that stimulate actors to
co-create services, which is important for the enrichment of collaboration in co-creation
activities. The model helps to better understand co-creation behaviour through the effect of
environmental factors in the service ecosystem and the cognitive perspectives of actors.
Considering the important role of technology (e.g. online platforms) in affecting customer
behaviour, the SOR model offers a structured approach to understand consumer co-creation,
considering the role of technology as a facilitator (Roy et al., 2019), and actor value perceptions
such as hedonic and utilitarian values (McKinney, 2004).
A few studies have used the SOR model in the co-creation context to explore customer
co-creation in brand communities (Kamboj et al., 2018; Roy et al., 2019), and to investigate
customer participation in co-creation through social media (Zhang et al., 2015; Jiang et al.,
2010). This research is significantly different. Firstly, the research focus is on the
co-creation and delivery of services by a network of actors rather than product marketing
and using user experience to improve a product (i.e. B2C). Secondly, value formation is
considered to occur through the creation of services and yielding innovation to services and
service-based problem-solving (new ideas/solutions), based on specialised knowledge
rather than through general information diffusion. And the third key difference of this
research is that the SOR model has been applied extensively in exploring customer
behaviour in the online shopping and e-commerce context, confirming it as a pertinent
model for investigating SCB as the response to environmental stimuli and actor value
perceptions. Therefore, in this research, the stimuli are the service co-creation environment
characteristics, the organism factors are user value perceptions, and SCB represents the
response in the SOR model.
INTR 3. Research methodology
32,3 Since co-creation of services in an online network organisation is a new area of research, and
the concepts of value perception and stimuli in co-creation environments are not well defined,
an exploratory qualitative research with in-depth investigation of phenomenon is
appropriate (Neuman, 2007; Yin, 2013). Interviews enable an exploration of in-depth
co-creation experiences (Yin, 2013), and it is the use of the SOR model that facilitated the
defining of the problem space and overarching research questions to guide a thematic analysis.
902
3.1 Study setting and recruitment
GitHub and Stack Overflow were selected as service co-creation systems, in order to analyse
actor service co-creation behaviour. GitHub is a software repository and source code
management portal for developers (i.e. actors in the GitHub network). Actors can start a
software project and collaborate co-creatively on its development with other actors in the
community (Dabbish et al., 2012). Stack Overflow supports software developers in the
community to post questions, feedback and evaluate solutions through reciprocal exchange.
Actors in Stack Overflow “are not compensated, e.g. financially for their services, but users
gain reputation points when other users” up-vote “their questions and/or answers. This
reflects a co-creatively learning community with a strong reputation-seeking element
creating a valuable public good in the sense of a knowledge resource” (Salman et al., 2017,
p. 18).
The two networks are proven examples of network-centric systems in which actors are
empowered by the platform to contribute to the co-creation and exchange of resources. Both
networks represent the co-creation of knowledge and delivery of specialised competency (i.e.
programming competency) with knowledge sharing being a major pre-requisite for the
innovation process (Gr€onroos et al., 2015). Also, actors collaborate for services in relation to
their value artefacts, the services being software development and management tasks
entailing collaborations and information sharing, while the artefacts are the software-related
outputs (i.e. software, apps, libraries and information artefacts such as documents). The
actors seek support through the community in relation to their software development and
management tasks. However, the crucial difference between the platforms is that GitHub
provides services by way of software development activities and project management which
are transparent in the platform because the platform provides support for the artefacts, for
storing the software code, projects and associated activities. Stack Overflow, however, does
not make the value of artefacts visible through the platform. Aspects of the services, namely
the seeking of information, judgements, expertise, and partial solutions (e.g. algorithms or
code fragments) made in relation to the value artefacts are not exposed through the platform.

3.2 Data collection and analysis

Semi-structured interviews were identified as the most effective method to collect data.
Investigating the SCB of actors is a complex phenomenon that requires an in-depth
investigation which can be achieved by semi-structured interviews that elicit participants’
own voice and viewpoint. The extant literature on co-creation was used to develop a semi-
structured protocol to guide how the interviews were conducted and the data collected. The
guidelines established by Flick (2014) were used to ensure the reliability and validity of the
data collection process.
A total of 17 interviews were conducted with GitHub and 19 from Stack Overflow.
Participants were from different countries. Each interview lasted 30–60 min, was audio
recorded with an MP3 Skype Recorder and coded in NVivo (V.11). All interviews were then
transcribed by the researcher, which enabled rigorous coding and analysis (Rubin and Rubin,
2011). Thematic analysis was conducted to analyse the data. Thematic analysis moves
“beyond counting explicit words or phrases and focuses on identifying and describing both Co-creation of
implicit and explicit ideas” (Namey et al., 2008, p. 138). The thematic analysis was applied as a digital services
two-stage qualitative data analysis process. First, in vivo (the words used by participants) and
latent (underlying meaning) coding (Flick, 2014), were used. Second, the themes were
identified by reviewing the codes and taking decisions on key themes. The coding process
was monitored by an inter-coding agreement to confirm the accuracy of themes. The inter-
coding agreement included revisiting codes to ensure alignment between coders (first author)
and reviewer (second author). Coding was successfully completed following a series of cross- 903
checking exercises, minimising errors or coding bias. Similar content and codes were then
grouped to a higher order theme to create the SCB model.
For robust qualitative studies, it is suggested that the sample size be determined by the
saturation point, that is, when nothing new emerges from the data collection and analysis
(Mason, 2010). Saturation is achieved in terms of richness in both data collection (data
saturation) and analysis (thematic saturation). Saturation was determined by how much data
was needed and the interviews continued until no new insights were apparent in the
responses, and a full understanding of participant perspectives was gained; namely, data
saturation was reached. Data analysis then started, using thematic analysis, and where
saturation was determined in terms of the non-emergence of new codes and themes across
participant stories.
The initial 101 codes were reduced to 41 codes with a further investigation revealing
relationships between the codes, resulting in six final themes. Analysis showed one identified
theme to be related to the environmental stimulus (S), two themes related to actor value
perception (O) and three themes to the response (R). The list of themes and relevant codes are
presented in Appendix.

4. Results: emerging themes in service co-creation behaviour (SCB) model

This section discusses the results and emerging themes that form the SCB model addressing
why actors co-create services (Figure 1). The developed SCB model is grounded in the SOR
model and demonstrates that co-production, supportive and administrative behaviours are
influenced by environmental factors and actor value perceptions.

Figure 1.
SCB model influenced
by environmental
stimuli and value
perceptions in an
online network
INTR 4.1 Themes of environmental stimuli
32,3 This section presents the results that address the first sub-research question: What are the
environmental stimuli that influence actor service co-creation behaviour? A service
environment refers to the infrastructure of a service co-creation system that includes
physical and virtual resources, and social-psychological characteristics. Similar to F€ uller et al.
(2019), our findings showed that environmental factors influence engagement in information
technology (IT)-based co-creation initiatives. In fact, we found that it is the collective
904 relationship among actors and the intensity of relational capital that strengthens the
co-creation environment and influences actor value perception, which results from the nature
of the actors’ relationships within the social structures providing an avenue for resource
integration perspective and embeddedness of resources in the social structure
(Laud et al., 2015).
4.1.1 Social influence. Social influence was established in our findings as the influence of
co-creators on each other’s value perception in the interaction process that consequently
guided their co-creation actions. Most participants claimed they were inspired by higher
ranked actors (the active users who gained a higher reputation through ranking systems), or
by gaining external confirmation about their capability (normative social influence). Some
participants claimed they learnt from people who provided good quality information and by
the style of coding of others (informational social influence). While normative social influence
represents conformity with other actors, informational social influence is conformity to follow
the correct information.
With regard to normative social influence, the actors interviewed followed a particular
co-creator as a role model because they believed the co-creator to be a “leader in their
language”, “have greater and interesting ideas” and “committed to their work”. They believed
others influenced their value expectation of learning where “by just looking at how much they
have contributed, they show me what I could do”. Actors’ social position and economic
perceptions can be influenced by high-ranked users: “If you are good enough and spend
enough time with high reputation experts it can to some extent be useful for job hunting and
your reputation as well.”
In informational social influence, actor conformity occurred because of quality
information and “quality projects” where “the idea and method” were more important than
who provided the information. Actors sought information and were inspired by “quality code
and style of coding of other people to improve mine”. In informational social influence, it did
not matter if providers “are experts, but it is important if they are interested and provide good
solutions or good code”.
Our research established that the strength of both normative (subjective-oriented) and
informational (quality-oriented) social influences on actors’ SCB was through their value
perception. Only Shamim and Ghazali (2014) found social influence to be a moderating factor
in customer value co-creation behaviour.
4.1.2 Trust. This research established that trust is an environmental factor that helps
decision making and was critical as an assurance of quality. Most participants said that trust
about quality depended significantly on the collective agreement about a solution and
identified two types of trust – subjective and objective.
Subjective trust is based on an actor’s psychological state regarding a subjective norm
and his/her subjective opinion of actors. Subjective trust in GitHub was based more on the
profile and background of the provider of the project. Participants preferred to collaborate on
a project maintained by well-known “companies such as Facebook and Google since they are
more reliable than personal projects”.
Objective trust meant trusting a collective agreement on the quality of a service provided.
Objective trust in GitHub was found to occur when an actor evaluated the quality of the code
provided with objective measurements through a platform aggregator or using tools to
measure the quality of offered code. Although actors considered the individual reputations Co-creation of
and profile as a parameter of trust in their offered service, the main elements of trust were digital services
based on objectively measured quality: “There is like an objective way to decide whether the
one thing is better than the other one [. . .]. In GitHub you rely a lot less on reputation and more
on an objective whether there is a better solution.”
Overall, actors trusted any potential provider who was interested in collaborating.
However, an actor’s level of trust about the quality of a provided service depended on an
evaluation of the quality of the offered service through collective agreement and tools, and 905
trustworthiness of the provider helped the reliability and decision-making (i.e. subjective
trust). Trust has been referred to as a major factor driving effective customer–provider
interactions to co-create value (Romero and Molina, 2011). The results from this research
suggest that actors’ value perception and co-creation could be improved by determining
strategies that promote subjective and objective trust on the design of co-creation platforms.

4.2 Themes of actor value perception

This section addresses the second research sub-question: what are the value perceptions that
influence actors’ service co-creation behaviour? Participant perceptions of value were found
to be the perceived benefits in relation to co-creation and were a key driver towards SCB.
The results identified an actor’s value perception comprises both primary and network value.
4.2.1 Primary value perceptions. Primary values exist prior to the collaboration and service
exchange and will continue after forming the SCB and actual use. Primary value is when an
actor’s intention was to achieve and/or improve their personal values, and comprises different
forms of values such as learning, usefulness, gamification and sense of competition and
economic gains. Enjoyment, learning and economic gain have been found to be predictors of
co-ideation for social actors (Abhari et al., 2019). These values enhanced co-production
behaviour in GitHub and Stack Overflow.
Learning through collaboration was claimed to be a key value for actors who wanted to be
“at the cutting edge”. Through learning they could build “future technologies such as
libraries or software through coding, design or documentation”. The majority of participants
said they learnt programming through collaborating with others which for some actors,
collaboration in co-creation activities was not just learning about a specific technology, but
learning “how to tackle a certain problem in general, in the working environment or real life”,
how to improve the way they “interact with others”, and enhance cultural attitude.
Usefulness was identified in this research as the specific usage co-creators expected to
attain from their contribution. Participants claimed their collaboration influenced the
efficiency and quality of their work. Collaboration helped participants “to do [the] work faster
and more efficient” and “cooperate better with colleagues and manage things better”. They
believed that co-creation in such platforms “dramatically accelerated writing code and
accelerated the quality of code”, saving time for actors.
Gamification was found to be a primary value where the majority of participants reported
that part of their collaboration was for entertainment and fun, and the nature of puzzle
solving and competition. For example, for some participants, the flow of gaming matters, and
“means constantly thinking about [the problem] all the time, having some competitor to
compete against”. The environment should be gamified in a sense that collaborators “gain
points when they solve a problem, and this brings a sense of achievement”. The nature of
playfulness and providing a challenging task were suggested to be the major drivers for
participation in the virtual co-creation system (Kohler et al., 2011).
Finally, participants believed that GitHub’s co-creation environment aggregated
professionals and “like a bridge connected you to other developers and the potential
projects”. They believed their collaboration on projects could be extended to “external
INTR collaboration and real working relationships”, for economic gain. Building a strong
32,3 professional portfolio to represent their expertise was claimed to be a reason for actor
collaboration in GitHub where “part of contribution can be making a profile or future
opportunities”. Both GitHub and Stack Overflow participants believed that while
collaboration was not based mostly on monetary transactions, they were willing to
enhance their contribution in order to invest in future economic values.
4.2.2 Network value perception. We refer to network value as the value perception that is
906 constructed through actor connectivity and reciprocal interaction within the network of
co-creators. Network value develops over time when the primary value is addressed through
subjective opinions of others in the network. Network values reflect the reaction of an actor’s
collaboration in service co-creation activities and their perceived value to contribute at the
community level. Social position and quality of resource/service were found to be two
network value perceptions.
Social position refers to a co-creator’s professional identity developed through gaining
reputation and credibility. Building a reputation or gaining recognition from other co-
creators was the purpose for most actors to collaborate in service co-creation activities.
Actor status was empowered by their active collaboration and support of the platform. A
higher social status created more reliability in the community and a rich environment for
professional relationships and job offers. Participants mentioned they engaged in co-
creation activities to achieve an online status that enabled them to gain credibility,
reputation and recognition through other actors in the network. Reputation in GitHub was
mostly based on popularity of projects or actors’ levels of contribution in projects.
Reputation was an indicator for actor trustworthiness in the community or in quality
projects: “I can truly judge the correlation between how much someone contributes and how
good they are.”
Consistent with the literature, we found that reputation enhancement specifically leads
actors to collaborate in co-creation activities to attain credibility and a higher social status
(Park, 2016). However, social status may not always have a positive outcome. When
reputation becomes the centre of attention in preference to the service growth, it results in
poor quality outcomes.
Perceived quality was found to be a shared value for co-collaborators to improve the overall
quality of co-created services at the community level. For some participants, the perceived quality
was “to make the project grow and be better”. Participants’ ideas about improving quality in
GitHub were to make a “user-friendly user interface (UI)”, make the program more powerful and
effective, and add more functions and features to the project to empower the user. Another
characteristic claimed as improving quality by Stack Overflow participants was “providing clear,
logical, readable and precise code”. The majority of participants believed projects needed “some
level of quality assurance and future maintainability for future people to build on top of that”.
That is, motivation for co-creators who are collaborating to improve projects “to keep on top of
technologies out there and build something that is going to last long”.
Quality has been discussed in the co-creation literature in terms of its importance in
information sharing quality and interaction quality (Yi et al., 2011), improving product
quality (F€ uller et al., 2011), and mostly as a benefit of a product or service (Ulaga, 2003), but
not as a perceived quality. A new finding established here in this paper is that quality in
network-centric co-creation relates to an actor’s perception and judgements about how to
enhance the quality of contributions to influence quality outcomes at the community level.
While “good questions make us feel that we are co-creating a resource of high quality and that
can encourage collaboration”, providing “a low-quality material can put people off from
participating”. The lack of quality, related to both individual resources and joint process
resource integration, creates a barrier to future collaboration and reduces actor co-production
behaviour.
4.3 Themes of service co-creation behaviour Co-creation of
The findings revealed that actor SCB comprises the three types of co-production, supportive digital services
and administrative behaviours. While constructive feedback and an effective means of
communication enhanced collaboration and value outcomes (forming relationships), any
form of destructive communication reduced collaboration and overall outcome value.
Unmerged pull-requests [4], rejected code without explanation and a lack of communication
were found to reduce collaboration, resulting in reduced value. Participants believed “value
could be destroyed when the code did not work, or it was not maintainable”. Value destruction 907
related mostly to developers’ “time spent and effort”, which was rarely translated as a value.
4.3.1 Co-production behaviour. Co-production behaviour occurs from actor collaboration
in primary tasks such as creating code, designing code or any activity related to developing a
project online. Participants contributed directly to the application and shared innovative
ideas (co-ideation) and solutions (co-design, co-development) to build future technologies.
Co-creators were able to implement the integrated ideas of different professionals with
different skills to improve their project. Participants perceived there was a “synergistic effect”
between collaborators to “build on a project” benefiting each other and the community as a
whole. They believed that
We can rapidly build evolutionary software, which is consistently changing, it is amazing. So, within
that revolution we bring a peer reviewed answers revolution. The two come together and create an
acceleration in knowledge, how we assemble things and how we build things, how we critique things,
how we fix things, how we learn things and then thousands and thousands of projects work together
and engage in the community.
Co-production behaviour refers to the integration of all activities an actor contributes to in the
process of creating and delivering the service. Similar to participation behaviour (Yi et al.,
2011), co-production behaviour is the actor contribution to core activities and task
performance for service exchange and is a mandatory behaviour for successful service
delivery (Tsai et al., 2017). However, co-production behaviour comprises sharing operand
resources, exchanging operant resources and problem-solving, instead of information
sharing and personal interactions. While in GitHub actors can contribute directly to service
co-production (e.g. software development), actors in Stack Overflow contribute to the service
aspects of value artefacts (e.g. solution to a question). Co-production in the case of GitHub
ultimately entailed direct engagements in software projects or collaborations between
software projects, and was less the case in Stack Overflow.
4.3.2 Supportive behaviour. Communication and feedback were found to be the two key
components that reflected supportive behaviour and significantly influenced the outcome of
co-creation. Communication in GitHub refers to the way actors interact with comments to
encourage others, while feedback represents actor responsiveness to the code provider to
support their contribution, or to provide reasons for the code rejection. Both components
played an important role in encouraging collaboration and improving the value outcome:
“Encouragement and responsiveness mean everything. If there is a lack of any of two, it is not
likely that a first-time contributor will stick around.”
Most participants stated that other actors directed their engagement in co-creation
through support they received from feedback and comments, believing “that’s the biggest
motivation and helps improve myself”, and that when the owner responds to requests and
keeps the project active, it “makes you work even harder on it because the environment is
very important for professional people”. Participants stated that through positive
interactions co-creators could “solve and build a stronger software”. Actors tended to
encourage others with “upvotes than down-votes because they don’t want to make people feel
bad about their suggestion”. However, some actors were unfriendly “with new developers
and have a lot of strong arguments” and discouraged collaboration. While co-production
INTR behaviour was the active collaboration of actors in service co-creation, supportive behaviour
32,3 provided a more effective environment that improved co-production behaviour, resulting in
project success and increased value.
4.3.3 Administrative behaviour. The main activities showing actor administrative
behaviour were project maintenance, moderating and altering activities. At the maintainer
level, actors were responsible for reviewing codes, reframing and maintenance of the project.
The following example represents actor collaboration in software creation: “We collaborate
908 on software, and GitHub provides like all the necessities to do the project management, so you
have got issues and pulled request and obviously code hosting, so you can accept codes, you
can manage contributions from anyone else in the world easily.”
Administrative behaviour emerges in co-creation environments where the actors’ network
can now accomplish the required maintenance of activities traditionally conducted by the
firm’s employees. Moderation was found to be an administrative action towards other actors’
performance to improve actors’ collaboration and quality, and create a dynamic co-creation
environment. Administrative behaviour, as a new construct, was found to play a critical role
in the success of service co-production through facilitating effective communication and
moderation. Participants believed that platforms such as GitHub require more
communication tools “to control bad behaviours”.

5. Discussion and implications

This research has implications for co-creation studies, extending the understanding of
co-creation behaviour to the network-centric service co-creation, introducing the importance
of actor value perception and new behaviours in network-centric co-creation environments,
and extending the SOR theory.
This paper focused on the co-creation of services facilitated by online platforms and
orchestrated by communities of multiple connected actors (Finsterwalder, 2018), extending
earlier research that focused more on the B2C value co-creation system where the final
delivery of the service is by the organisation, and the customer is more a part of the value
co-creation (Hoyer et al., 2010; Zhang et al., 2015), and less the online network context. This
research is important, establishing that B2C and network co-creation systems differ
significantly in how the networked organisation is orchestrated and how power is shared in
service co-creation processes, level of participation, as well as where resource integration and
coordination occur through the actors’ network under the organisation’s facilitation.
The new conceptualisation of co-creation behaviour in an online network, established
here, is important since the co-creation concept moved from being part of an organisation’s
activities to that of actors collaborating in a joint intellectual effort and sharing assets to
create collective value. SCB is a combination of co-production, supportive and administrative
behaviour, the existence of each being necessary for the successful co-creation of services in
the online network organisation. This research identified that co-production behaviour is the
result of collaboration in core tasks, and creation and delivery of services rather than sharing
experiences with the organisation. Supportive behaviour and administrative behaviours, as
new constructs, were then identified as necessary behaviours in the network co-creation
context where constructive resource integration and coordination by a network of actors is
hard to achieve. These two behaviours support co-production behaviour, and the success of
co-creation systems. Our findings illustrated a relationship between the different forms of
co-design, co-development, co-production and co-consumption, as introduced by Oertzen et al.
(2018), and identified service co-creation behaviour in this paper. Co-production behaviour
reflects the actor’s contribution to activities in the co-development, co-design and co-ideation
phases. While administrative behaviours reflect activities in the co-evaluation phase,
supportive behaviour can occur during different phases to encourage the actor’s contribution.
 We found that actor interactions might cause a co-destruction of value (i.e. reduce or Co-creation of
destroy potential value) by providing low-quality service, having insufficient competencies digital services
and/or through destructive communication. The findings showed that actor interaction is not
only linked to positive outcomes, but its value can also be collectively destroyed or
diminished during the co-creation interaction process (Makkonen and Olkkonen, 2017).
Our findings revealed that the result of creative or destructive forces in the co-creation
environment can lead to decreased co-production behaviour and therefore, a negative
influence on the quality. Destructive behaviour may happen more frequently in less 909
structured organisations (i.e. open community co-creation). As this has not been thoroughly
discussed in Service-dominant (SD) logic (Echeverri and Sk alen, 2011; Ple, 2017), it is
important to examine the impacts of value co-destruction on cost reduction, customer loss
and negative word of mouth (Smith, 2013) in future research.
We have extended the current understanding of actor value perception in the co-creation
context. We introduced two categories of primary value perceptions and network values in
the online co-creation network. Although customer value has been discussed in the
co-creation literature as the customer’s experience with the co-creation system (Shamim and
Ghazali, 2014; Zhang et al., 2015), actor value perception in the network-centric context has
not been sufficiently addressed. Further, we empirically investigated and conceptualised the
actor value perception in the networked-centric co-creation context and introduced a
classification for actor value perception. Previous studies focused on the design experience of
the organisation with the customer, while we investigated the co-creation of services in the
online network. Damkuvien_e et al. (2012) investigated the customer perceived co-creation
value on their value co-creation behaviour. However, they conceptually investigated the B2C
context and the findings are not supported with empirical data. Edvardsson et al. (2011)
suggested the necessity of empirical studies on “how value is perceived by different
customers in different service contexts [. . .] as a basis for developing and managing value
propositions and resource configuration” (p. 334).
Co-creation models are fast becoming the basis of organisational strategy in industries
such as transportation, healthcare, hospitality and many more. However, Libert et al. (2016)
stated 98% of the organisations are based on non-networked business models and are
competing to update their strategy. Co-creation of services through a network of actors is still
a growing phase of adoption and lacks practical knowledge of how organisations should
implement and transition to it. The findings presented here are helpful for networked
organisations that seek to maintain a co-creation system, or improve their co-creation
strategy considering the identified co-creation behaviours. We suggest that organisations
can increase their co-production behaviour by facilitating the dynamics of effective task
distribution among actors through a design to motivate contributions. In the design of
co-creation platforms, practitioners should develop design principles based on the identified
actor value perceptions so as to achieve a higher level of co-creator collaboration and
performance. For example, practitioners may apply gamification to platform design so as to
diffuse positive behaviours and norms, concentrate on the principles of interactions, and
improve their best practices for managing the innovative outcome. Practitioners should
consider implementing social influence and trust strategies when improving platform design
so as to provide a healthy interactive environment and reinforce SCB by fostering actors’
value perceptions.

6. Conclusion
This paper presents a new SCB model which represents how actors in a network-centric
co-creation environment perceive value which is environmentally influenced, and result in
behavioural outcomes based on the experiences of co-creators in the collaborative networks,
INTR GitHub and Stack Overflow. By establishing a new model to understand the co-creation of
32,3 services in an online network environment, this paper contributes to the theory and practice
in three key ways. The SOR model introduces a new conceptualisation of SCB in the network
environment which can be used for the development of a scale that validates service
co-creation and can be incorporated into the assessment and development of the actual
business models. These results can improve online service co-creation, leading to the
successful implementation of co-creation platforms and optimised resource utilisation.
910 It is the scope of this research that can guide future work. For example, the data were
collected from two cases with the focus on software and project development. GitHub and
Stack Overflow were selected because they perfectly reflected the network interaction and
exchange between actors, and are innovation-centric. Future research could analyse more
cases with different contexts so as to provide generalisability of the findings presented here.
Secondly, actors in this study were considered to be individuals who could play different roles
(e.g. collaborator, owner, moderator) in the co-creation process. Further research might
consider other stakeholders in the service ecosystem, to capture co-creation from different
viewpoints. In the future, it would be interesting to gain additional insights about actor
service co-creation by observing participant collaboration in the co-creation activities. This
paper serves to encourage other researchers to enrich the SCB model for making sense of
their empirical data in the co-creation context, and to extend our view of network-centric
co-creation to other settings.

Notes
1. Such as customers, service providers, frontline employees, service facilitators and others.
2. https://github.com.
3. https://stackoverflow.com.
4. “Pull requests are proposed changes to a repository submitted by a user and accepted or rejected by a
repository’s collaborators” (https://help.github.com/articles/github-glossary/).

References
Abhari, K., Davidson, E.J. and Xiao, B. (2019), “Collaborative innovation in the sharing economy:
profiling social product development actors through classification modeling”, Internet Research,
Vol. 29 No. 5, pp. 1014-1039.
Achrol, R.S. and Kotler, P. (2012), “Frontiers of the marketing paradigm in the third millennium”,
Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 40 No. 1, pp. 35-52.
Arora, R. (1982), “Validation of an SOR model for situation, enduring, and response components of
involvement”, Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 19 No. 4, pp. 505-516.
Bidar, R., Watson, J. and Barros, A. (2017), “Classification of service co-creation systems: an
integrative approach”, 19th International Conference on Advanced Communication Technology,
IEEEXplore, pp. 333-340.
Bughin, J., Chui, M. and Johnson, B. (2008), “The next step in open innovation”, McKinsey Quarterly,
Vol. 4 No. 6, pp. 1-8.
Camarinha-Matos, L.M. and Afsarmanesh, H. (2005), “Collaborative networks: a new scientific
discipline”, Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, Vol. 16 No. 4, pp. 439-452.
Camarinha-Matos, L.M., Fornasiero, R. and Afsarmanesh, H. (2017), “Collaborative networks as a core
enabler of industry 4.0”, Working Conference on Virtual Enterprises, Cham, Springer, pp. 3-17.
Chang, W. and Taylor, S.A. (2016), “The effectiveness of customer participation in new product
development: a meta-analysis”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 80 No. 1, pp. 47-64.
Chen, J.S., Kerr, D., Tsang, S.S. and Sung, Y.C. (2015), “Co-production of service innovations through Co-creation of
dynamic capability enhancement”, The Service Industrial Journal, Vol. 35 Nos 1-2, pp. 96-114.
digital services
Dabbish, L., Stuart, C., Tsay, J. and Herbsleb, J. (2012), “Social coding in GitHub: transparency and
collaboration in an open software repository”, ACM Conference on Computer Supported
Cooperative Work, pp. 1277-1286.
unaitien_e, R., Petukien_e, E. and Bers_enait_e, J. (2012), “Customer perceived
Damkuvien_e, M., Tij
co-creation value: synthesis of the extant literature”, Socialiniai Tyrimai, Vol. 4 No. 29, pp. 59-68.
911
Durugbo, C. and Pawar, K. (2014), “A unified model of the co-creation process”, Expert Systems with
Applications, Vol. 41 No. 9, pp. 4373-4387.
alen, P. (2011), “Co-creation and co-destruction: a practice-theory based study of
Echeverri, P. and Sk
interactive value formation”, Marketing Theory, Vol. 11 No. 3, pp. 351-373.
Edvardsson, B., Tronvoll, B. and Gruber, T. (2011), “Expanding understanding of service exchange
and value co-creation: a social construction approach”, Journal of the Academy of Marketing
Science, Vol. 39 No. 2, pp. 327-339.
Eroglu, S.A., Machleit, K.A. and Davis, L.M. (2003), “Empirical testing of a model of online store
atmospherics and shopper responses”, Psychology and Marketing, Vol. 20 No. 2, pp. 139-150.
Finsterwalder, J. (2018), “A 360-degree view of actor engagement in service co-creation”, Journal of
Retailing and Consumer Services, Vol. 40, pp. 276-278.
Flick, U. (2014), An Introduction to Qualitative Research, 5th ed., Sage, London.
Frasquet-Deltoro, M. and Lorenzo-Romero, C. (2019), “Antecedents and consequences of virtual
customer co-creation behaviours”, Internet Research, Vol. 29 No. 1, pp. 218-244.
uller, J., Hutter, K. and Faullant, R. (2011), “Why co-creation experience matters? Creative experience
F€
and its impact on the quantity and quality of creative contributions”, R&D Management,
Vol. 41 No. 3, pp. 259-273.
uller, K., J€org, W., Markus, B. and Helmut, K. (2019), “Leveraging customer-integration experience: a
F€
review of influencing factors and implications”, Communications of the Association for
Information Systems (CAIS), Vol. 44 No. 1, pp. 81-128.
Gan, C. and Wang, W. (2017), “The influence of perceived value on purchase intention in social
commerce context”, Internet Research, Vol. 27 No. 4, pp. 772-785.
Geiger, D., Rosemann, M. and Fielt, E. (2011), “Crowdsourcing information systems: a systems theory
perspective”, 22nd Australasian Conference on Information Systems, AIS.
Gr€onroos, C. (2012), “Conceptualising value co-creation: a journey to the 1970s and back to the future”,
Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 28 Nos 13-14, pp. 1520-1534.
Gr€onroos, C., Strandvik, T. and Heinonen, K. (2015), “Value Co-creation: critical reflections”, in The
Nordic School: Service Marketing and Management for the Future, CERS, Hanken School of
Economics, Helsinki, pp. 69-81.
Hoyer, W.D., Chandy, R., Dorotic, M., Krafft, M. and Singh, S.S. (2010), “Consumer cocreation in new
product development”, Journal of Service Research, Vol. 13 No. 3, pp. 283-296.
Jaakkola, E. and Alexander, M. (2014), “The role of customer engagement behavior in value
co-creation: a service system perspective”, Journal of Service Research, Vol. 17 No. 3, pp. 247-261.
Jiang, Z., Chan, J., Tan, B.C. and Chua, W.S. (2010), “Effects of interactivity on website involvement
and purchase intention”, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Vol. 11 No. 1,
p. 34.
Kamboj, S., Sarmah, B., Gupta, S. and Dwivedi, Y. (2018), “Examining branding co-creation in brand
communities on social media: applying the paradigm of Stimulus-Organism-Response”,
International Journal of Information Management, Vol. 39, pp. 169-185.
Kohler, T., Fueller, J., Matzler, K. and Stieger, D. (2011), “Co-creation in virtual worlds: the design of the
user experience”, MIS Quarterly, Vol. 35 No. 3, pp. 773-788.
INTR Laud, G., Karpen, I.O., Mulye, R. and Rahman, K. (2015), “The role of embeddedness for resource
integration: complementing S-D logic research through a social capital perspective”, Marketing
32,3 Theory, Vol. 15 No. 4, pp. 509-543.
Libert, B., Beck, M. and Wind, J. (2016), The Network Imperative: How to Survive and Grow in the Age
of Digital Business Models, Harvard Business Review Press, Boston, MA.
Lusch, R.F. and Vargo, S.L. (2006), “Service-dominant logic: reactions, reflections and refinements”,
Marketing Theory, Vol. 6 No. 3, pp. 281-288.
912
Makkonen, H. and Olkkonen, R. (2017), “Interactive value formation in interorganizational
relationships: dynamic interchange between value co-creation, no-creation, and
co-destruction”, Marketing Theory, Vol. 17 No. 4, pp. 517-535.
Mason, M. (2010), “Sample size and saturation in PhD studies using qualitative interviews”, Forum
Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, Vol. 11 No. 3.
McKinney, L.N. (2004), “Creating a satisfying internet shopping experience via atmospheric
variables”, International Journal of Consumer Studies, Vol. 28 No. 3, pp. 268-283.
Mehrabian, A. and Russell, J.A. (1974), An Approach to Environmental Psychology, The MIT Press,
Detroit, MI.
Namey, E., Guest, G., Thairu, L. and Johnson, L. (2008), “Data reduction techniques for large
qualitative data sets”, in Handbook for Team-Based Qualitative Research, AltaMira Press,
Lanham, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 137-161.
Neuman, W.L. (2007), The Basics of Social Research: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches, 2nd ed.,
Pearson Education, Boston, MA.
Oertzen, A.S., Odekerken Schr€oder, G., Brax, S.A. and Mager, B. (2018), “Co-creating services—
conceptual clarification, forms and outcomes”, Journal of Service Management, Vol. 29 No. 4,
pp. 641-679.
Park, S. (2016), in Kim, K.K. (Ed.), “What attracts you to shopping malls?: the relationship between
perceived shopping value and shopping orientation on purchase intention at shopping malls in
suburban areas”, Celebrating America’s Pastimes: Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and Marketing?
Proceedings of the 2015 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference, Neverer, CO,
Springer, pp. 663-669.
Ple, L. (2017), “Why do we need research on value co-destruction?”, Journal of Creating Value, Vol. 3
No. 2, pp. 162-169.
Ranjan, K.R. and Read, S. (2016), “Value co-creation: concept and measurement”, Journal of the
Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 44 No. 3, pp. 290-315.
Romero, D. and Molina, A. (2011), “Collaborative networked organisations and customer communities:
value co-creation and co-innovation in the networking era”, Production Planning and Control,
Vol. 22 Nos 5-6, pp. 447-472.
Roy, S.K., Singh, G., Hope, M., Nguyen, B. and Harrigan, P. (2019), “The rise of smart consumers: role
of smart servicescape and smart consumer experience co-creation”, Journal of Marketing
Management, Vol. 35 Nos 15-16, pp. 1480-1513.
Rubin, H.J. and Rubin, I.S. (2011), Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data, Sage
Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA.
Salman, M., Mertens, J., Vu, B., Fuchs, M., Heutelbeck, D. and Hemmje, M. (2017), “Social network-
based knowledge, content, and software asset management supporting collaborative and
Co-creative innovation”, Collaborative European Research Conference, pp. 16-25.
Schallehn, H., Seuring, S., Str€ahle, J. and Freise, M.J. (2019), “Defining the antecedents of experience
co-creation as applied to alternative consumption models”, Journal of Service Management,
Vol. 30 No. 2, pp. 209-251.
Shamim, A. and Ghazali, Z. (2014), “A conceptual model for developing customer value co-creation
behaviour in retailing”, Global Business and Management Research, Vol. 6 No. 3, p. 185.
Sheng, H. and Joginapelly, T. (2012), “Effects of web atmospheric cues on users’ emotional responses Co-creation of
in e-commerce”, AIS Transactions on Human–Computer Interaction, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 1-24.
digital services
Smith, A.M. (2013), “The value co-destruction process: a customer resource perspective”, European
Journal of Marketing, Vol. 47 Nos 11/12, pp. 1889-1909.
Storbacka, K., Brodie, R.J., B€ohmann, T., Maglio, P.P. and Nenonen, S. (2016), “Actor engagement as a
microfoundation for value co-creation”, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 69 No. 8,
pp. 3008-3017.
913
Terwiesch, C. and Ulrich, K.T. (2009), Innovation Tournaments: Creating and Selecting Exceptional
Opportunities, Harvard Business Press, Boston, MA.
Tsai, C.Y., Wu, S.H. and Huang, S.C. (2017), “From mandatory to voluntary: consumer cooperation and
citizenship behaviour”, The Service Industries Journal, Vol. 37 Nos 7-8, pp. 521-543.
Ulaga, W. (2003), “Capturing value creation in business relationships: a customer perspective”,
Industrial Marketing Management, Vol. 32 No. 8, pp. 677-693.
Vafeas, M., Hughes, T. and Hilton, T. (2016), “Antecedents to value diminution: a dyadic perspective”,
Marketing Theory, Vol. 16 No. 4, pp. 469-491.
van Wijk, J., Zietsma, C., Dorado, S., de Bakker, F.G. and Martı, I.J. (2019), “Social innovation:
integrating micro, meso, and macro level insights from institutional theory”, Business and
Society, Vol. 58 No. 5, pp. 887-918.
Vargo, S.L. and Akaka, M.A. (2009), “Service-dominant logic as a foundation for service science:
clarifications”, Service Science, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 32-41.
Vargo, S.L. and Lusch, R.F. (2004), “Evolving to a new dominant logic for marketing”, Journal of
Marketing, Vol. 68 No. 1, pp. 1-17.
Vargo, S.L. and Lusch, R.F. (2008), “Service-dominant logic: continuing the evolution”, Journal of the
Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 36 No. 1, pp. 1-10.
Vargo, S.L. and Lusch, R.F. (2016), “Institutions and axioms: an extension and update of service-
dominant logic”, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 44 No. 1, pp. 5-23.
Wang, Y.J., Minor, M.S. and Wei, J. (2011), “Aesthetics and the online shopping environment:
understanding consumer responses”, Journal of Retailing, Vol. 87 No. 1, pp. 46-58.
Wang, Y., Hsiao, S.H., Yang, Z. and Hajli, N. (2016), “The impact of sellers’ social influence on the
co-creation of innovation with customers and brand awareness in online communities”,
Industrial Marketing Management, Vol. 54, pp. 56-70.
Williams, K., Chatterjee, S. and Rossi, M. (2008), “Design of emerging digital services: a taxonomy”,
European Journal of Information Systems, Vol. 17 No. 5, pp. 505-517.
Xie, C., Bagozzi, R.P. and Troye, S.V. (2008), “Trying to prosume: toward a theory of consumers as co-
creators of value”, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 36 No. 1, pp. 109-122.
Yi, Y., Nataraajan, R. and Gong, T. (2011), “Customer participation and citizenship behavioral
influences on employee performance, satisfaction, commitment, and turnover intention”, Journal
of Business Research, Vol. 64 No. 1, pp. 87-95.
Yin, R. (2013), Case Study Research: Design and Methods, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA.
Zhang, H., Lu, Y., Wang, B. and Wu, S. (2015), “The impacts of technological environments and co-
creation experiences on customer participation”, Information & Management, Vol. 52 No. 4,
pp. 468-482.
INTR Appendix
32,3

Underlying concepts
SOR Themes Category code (codes) Data sample

914 Stimulus Social influence Normative SI “I am specially influenced by highly

(S) Informational SI reputation people, [name] for example.
She influences a lot because she did a lot
of work and she was so passionate about
being a maintainer. So, I looked at her
way of doing things” (P12)
Trust Subjective trust “There is like an objective way to decide
Objective trust whether the one thing is better than the
other one by performing what you can
do. In GitHub you rely a lot less on
reputation and these stuffs and more on
an objective whether there is a better
solution” (P5)
Organism Actor primary Learning Learning through “I’ve learned a lot from contributions
(O) value collaboration things in the projects that I never
perception Personal development thought of, like ways of programming,
codes, files. There is a lot to get from
other people on GitHub” (P15)
Usefulness Being up-to-date “Collaboration help me to do [the] work
Self-presentation faster and more efficient and cooperate
better with colleagues and manage
things better” (P12)
Gamification and Puzzle solving “I feel much awarded because I
sense of competition Fun participated in a very complex project”
Competition and (P2)
achievement “Well for me personally I’m a little
competitive and if I see people doing
things I’ll be overshown I guess by
anybody. That’s a way of driving” (P15)
Economic gain Job seeking “There is also value in just being part of
Professional the community, you know getting to
engagement know people, I’ve gotten to know several
Project marketing cool and quality people just because of
my contribution on GitHub and
contributing to projects and then they
gave me like oh hey do you want to join
this project we are working on, and I had
contract work with them to complete
that project, and other similar things”
(P1)
Actor network Quality Project quality “The goal is to make the project better.
value Quality as a shared Of course, there are different aims for
perception goal projects, some want to make it more user
friendly, some want to add more
functions but on the bottom-line it’s to
make it work better and building
something greater. There is no end to it”
(P7)
Social position Role “There is a point in the project where
Status they collaborate more or work on the
Credibility project harder and they can be selected
Table A1. Reputation as an official position like maintainer or
Summary of themes the main team of the project” (P18)
and underlying codes,
and sample of data (continued )
 Underlying concepts
Co-creation of
SOR Themes Category code (codes) Data sample digital services
Response Service Co- Co-production Resource sharing “We collaborate on software, so you
(R) creation behaviour Exchange resources have got issues and pull requests and
behaviours Problem solving obviously code hosting, uploading code,
reviewing code, so you can accept codes,
you can manage contributions from
anyone else in the world easily” (P9) 915
Supportive Sharing experiences “Encouragement and responsiveness
behaviour Encouraging mean everything. If there is lack of any
of two, it is not likely that a first-time
collaborator will stick around” (P4)
Administrative Moderating activities “We collaborate on software, and
behaviour and communications GitHub provides like all the necessities
to do the project management, so you
have got issues and pulled request and
obviously code hosting, so you can
accept codes, you can manage
contributions from anyone else in the
world easily” (P9) Table A1.

Corresponding author
Reihaneh Bidar can be contacted at: r.bidar@qut.edu.au

For instructions on how to order reprints of this article, please visit our website:
www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/licensing/reprints.htm
Or contact us for further details: permissions@emeraldinsight.com