Theory and Analysis of Company-Sponsored Value Co-Creation
Authors: Chen, Li; Marsden, James R.; Zhang, Zhongju
Journal: Journal of Management Information Systems (2012)
DOI: 10.2753/mis0742-1222290206
In today’s dynamic business environment, companies are under tremendous pressure to become more innovative and maintain a steady stream of ideas that can lead to new and improved products and services. Companies have begun to explore the possibility of capturing consumers’ “collective intelligence” by establishing firmsponsored online brainstorming sites where individuals can share their ideas and offer comments on the ideas contributed by others. We term these sites “Company-Sponsored Online Co-Creation Brainstorming” (COCB). The value of this open and voluntary co-creation depends largely on members’ contribution levels, the quality of the contributions, and sustained participation. In this paper, utilizing Zwass’s taxonomy of co-creation value as a base, we structure a taxonomic framework of COCBs and an accompanying basic model of COCBs. We then present a series of hypotheses concerning the relationships between the model’s various factors and specific COCB activities. We validate the model using empirical data collected over two and a half years, starting from the initiation of a pioneering company-sponsored online brainstorming site. Our analyses demonstrate that the level o…