Some theoretical perspectives of co-creation and co-production of value by customers

Abstract

Orientation: The initial introduction of co-production and co-creation in the marketing literature in all likelihood was in 1986 when Kotler used the term ‘prosumer’ (initially coined by Toffler in 1980) to refer to customers who produce some of the goods and services they consume. Kotler also noted an increase in people’s propensity to act as a prosumer of some of the goods and services they bought.

Motivation for the study: No real attention was paid to the concepts of co-production and co-creation by marketing academics after the initial introduction of the concepts. Only after the year 2000 did co-production and co-creation begin to receive the attention of marketing academics, with a substantial increase in publications over the past few years.

Contribution/value-add: The objective of this article was to present an overview of the origin and development of co-creation and co-production in marketing, to draw a distinction between the two concepts and to address the implications of these concepts for various decision areas in marketing.