Abstract This dissertation continues the critical engagement with the popular discourse of value co-creation. The research draws on Prahalad and Ramaswamy’s (2004) value co-creation paradigm and Hilton, Hughes and Chalcraft’s (2012)... more
Abstract
This dissertation continues the critical engagement with the popular discourse of value co-creation. The research draws on Prahalad and Ramaswamy’s (2004) value co-creation paradigm and Hilton, Hughes and Chalcraft’s (2012) resource- based view and explores the role of Cloud Services in value co-creation process. A qualitative research was conducted in Sweden with buyers and suppliers of 8 different companies actively using Cloud Services for collaboration with their business partners. The findings indicate that Cloud Services considerably affect the elements of value co-creation suggested by Prahald and Ramaswamy (2004) and serve as an encounter platform for mutual collaboration between business partners. Consequently, the study reveals recognition of Cloud Services as an efficient tool for collaboration in B2B, significantly improving customer-supplier interactions, experiences, customer engagement and resource integration. It has been also registered herewith that Cloud Services have a positive impact on customer-supplier relationships and can augment the level of trust between counter parties through incremented information sharing and transparency. It can, therefore, be concluded that Cloud Services facilitate the process of value co- creation in B2B.
Key words: Cloud Services (Cloud computing), value co-creation, S-D logic, customer experience, customer engagement, encounter.
Note: terms Cloud computing, Cloud Services (CS) and “Cloud” are used interchangeably throughout the dissertation.
This dissertation continues the critical engagement with the popular discourse of value co-creation. The research draws on Prahalad and Ramaswamy’s (2004) value co-creation paradigm and Hilton, Hughes and Chalcraft’s (2012) resource- based view and explores the role of Cloud Services in value co-creation process. A qualitative research was conducted in Sweden with buyers and suppliers of 8 different companies actively using Cloud Services for collaboration with their business partners. The findings indicate that Cloud Services considerably affect the elements of value co-creation suggested by Prahald and Ramaswamy (2004) and serve as an encounter platform for mutual collaboration between business partners. Consequently, the study reveals recognition of Cloud Services as an efficient tool for collaboration in B2B, significantly improving customer-supplier interactions, experiences, customer engagement and resource integration. It has been also registered herewith that Cloud Services have a positive impact on customer-supplier relationships and can augment the level of trust between counter parties through incremented information sharing and transparency. It can, therefore, be concluded that Cloud Services facilitate the process of value co- creation in B2B.
Key words: Cloud Services (Cloud computing), value co-creation, S-D logic, customer experience, customer engagement, encounter.
Note: terms Cloud computing, Cloud Services (CS) and “Cloud” are used interchangeably throughout the dissertation.
