Marketing Managers' Perceptions of Value Cocreation

Cocreation of value is a key construct in service science and the service-dominant logic. Little is known about how practicing managers perceive their own value cocreating activities. The paper is one of the first to gather manager perceptions of value cocreation activities and categorize them in terms of marketing logics. The paper offers insights on how marketing managers perceive value cocreation based on an analysis of examples of its application in practice. It responds to pleas for studies on how organizations can manage the cocreation process. Fifty-one managers of public and private sector organizations in Albania, Kosovo, Serbia, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, and Macedonia were asked to provide examples of how their organizations cocreate value with customers through marketing activities. The resulting 99 examples were classified according to perspectives contrasting the goods- and service-dominant logics. Many examples concerned marketing communications, market research, or new product development, which fit more closely with goods-dominant logic. The examples incorporating cocreation of value as espoused in the service-dominant logic involved reciprocity, high levels of trust, and knowledge sharing. Managers who are keen to adopt the notion of cocreation of value are advised to focus on the metacompetencies of education, knowledge sharing, and capacity building.