Value co-creation practices and capabilities: sustained purposeful engagement across B2B systems

Abstract

The paradigm of value co-creation in business markets is now well established in the marketing literature. However, the practices and capabilities for collaborative value co-creation are less understood, particularly in increasingly boundary-less interorganizational, network and ecosystem relationships. This paper describes sets of practices that organizations in business markets adopt to co-create value. We provide a theoretically-grounded, empirically-informed classification of value co-creating practices, identifying the underlying capabilities needed to realize value in B2B systems. We adopt a case study approach utilizing various methods of data collection to explore co-creation practices from four organizations. The analysis reveals that ‘sustained purposeful engagement’ underpins the organizations' ability to co-create and capture value. Implications for organizations willing to develop co-creation capabilities and practices are discussed.