LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
2.10. Conceptualizing Theoretical Insight into a Framework
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would be diminished. Therefore, this is an important challenge that should be taken care of by the organizations as this would directly impact the competitive role of the company in the market.
Hence, in order to manage this, it is important to reduce the gaps that have been identified after adopting the absorptive capacity theory. Furthermore, the identified beneficial role of the social media and the collaboration with customers for the VCC and value capture are creating new avenues for the development of organizational strategy (Kuzgun & Asugman 2015).
This finding opens the door for the definition of another proposition for the present research, related to the influence that the process of value capture through the social media platforms has on organizational strategy. This direction would contribute to filling the gap connected to the lack of empirical evidence created in the selected research context. After presenting an overview of concepts and the existing relations of VCC, the researcher in tends to extend and adapt the value co-creation concepts offered in SDL, ACT. Furthermore, the researcher will add the social media concepts with its sub-titles to provide a conceptual framework of value co-creation through social media.
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degree of perception, the existing frameworks do not provide the overall and holistic perspective our study is incorporating. Our framework is therefore designed by extending and adapting the value co-creating concepts presented in SDL, ACT and social media literature. The resulting framework is designed to refine and clarify the VCC and value capture applicable to the organization in order to answer the research questions:
1. How value is co-created and captured through social media platforms in the organization?
2. How does the social media platforms diversity enable the co-creation and value capture within the organizations?
3. How does the network platform affect organizational strategy towards its beneficiary?
4. How can organizations effective employ social media for enhancing their value co- creation and value capture capabilities?
The present literature review creates the foundation for the proposed research output, a comprehensive framework for value co-creation between the organization and the online interaction of customers through the integration of SDL with ACT, enabling co-creation and value capture process using social media. As illustrated below, the creation of this complex framework requires a step-by-step explanation to ensure that each component is defined, since each component plays such an important role in ensuring that the final theoretical framework is meaningful.
Due to the complex mechanisms associated with value co-creation in the digital arena, this study carefully evaluates each component before determining the importance of its functionality within the framework. Based on previous discussions of ACT, this study includes both internal conditions and external factors. External factors contain two important elements: the customer (as an online
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contributor) and the social media platforms (medium of integration). The internal is made up of three major elements: the organization, the value capture mechanism deployed and the theoretical views of ACT.
At this point, social media platforms serve as the link between the two conditions of internal and external conditions, and as discussed, the development of the framework is influenced by our detailed literature review regarding the organizational, online customer interactions, social media platforms, technology, value co-creation, value capture and theoretical research. The role of this work is to identify the social media capabilities that enabling co-creation and value capture with showing the different phases of co-creation towards organization beneficiary.
To summarize, the objective of the framework is to fill the research gaps in co-creation and value capture literature that are highlighted earlier in this chapter, establishing the role of the platform as a means to enable and promote a two-way engagement between the customer and organization and vice versa. A well-defined framework that is a complement to its analytical tools, can be a source of customer insights, motivations and behavior. With such co-experience, both customer and the organization are enabled to co-create and promote bilateral value benefits, and as such value creation (McColl-Kennedy, Cheung & Ferrier 2015).
Value co-creation and value capture begins with active customer participation in the organizational social media platform, it is the role of the platform to promote active participation, customer engagement and the sharing of experience through discussion. While theoretically, this is where an organization evaluates active engagement by the customer, analytically the organization is enabled to determine customer motivation and behavior. Thus, with co-creation, both customer and the organization can create value, promoting value capture.
The first part of the framework describes the basic elements that trigger and influence the co-
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creation process. In particular, the development the internet enables organizations to use social medial platforms and help customers interact extensively and easily with other agents and organizations to create new offerings. These new interactive spaces also support strong relationships and a sense of social community through easier, enhanced interactions with others, learning processes and social connections. The framework also includes motivational factors that may lead to customer participation in co-creation activities. Creative customers prefer to follow spiritual, social or moral motivations rather than simply achieving material or personal goals (Kotler et al. 2009). In this sense, customer participation in value creation activities is more likely to reflect beyond motivation to increase the usefulness of products or services and provide value to society. In a value-centric era, ethical values provide guidance to customers, such as sharing knowledge, experience, skills or contributions to the common good can be a transcendent motivation for customers to participate in joint creative activities.
The second part of the framework highlights the positive impact of the co-creation process by social media on customers and the organization. Thus, value co-creation is a process based on customer and organizational-promoted interactions in which valuable resources are integrated and value is distributed among agents. As a result, customers are part of a “workforce” that voluntarily adheres to the social media community in order to promote the organization. It is clear from these processes that the core outcomes for the customer are empowerment, transcending self-decision and customer participation, enabling them to build relationships and have a beneficial impact on themselves. These include shared customer learning and personalized experiences that are created together, establishing synergies and benefits such as trust, commitment and brand loyalty to the organization (Prahalad & Ramaswamy 2004).
Then ACT dictates how the external influencers affect how the organization acquires and
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assimilates the value into a useful form and the internal elements demonstrate how the organization transforms the value in order to exploit customer experience. These, however, are all functions achievable through the co-creation activities and are solely impacted by the organization’s managerial roles. To identify the full potential and the most effective and efficient internal processes of social media by the managerial roles, further research is needed.
The capability of the organization to capture VoE through social media is thus determined by the absorptive capacity of the organization in the application within the organization. The framework highlights the important the co-creation process and value captured that customers and organization generate within online interactions. Organizations should take advantage of the process that promotes customer empowerment and online participation in the co-creation process.
While continuous improvements to the framework would help drive the customer co-creation process, the framework would prove useless if customers do not continue to participate in future value co-creation activities. We brought the social media to take the traditional co-creation to new insights of having a fresh model assuring the need of having such tools if not a must.
To summarize the visualization of the conceptual framework for the present study, four major elements are determined. They are illustrated in Figure 2.17 below:
1. The online interactions by the customers towards co-creation concept 2. Social media concept as the integrated platform,
3. The organization employee as actors for co-creation to capture value 4. The value capture concept towards value creation