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1. Introduction
Value co-creation has become a key concept within service marketing and business management (Saarijärvi et al., 2013) and a widely used term to describe a shift in thinking from organisations as definers of value to a more participative process through which people and organisations together generate and develop meaning (Ind and Coates, 2013).
This new vision of value creation is reflected in service-dominant logic (S-D logic), which considers value creation as a joint production process involving both the company and the consumer (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004a). This approach to value differs from traditional conceptions, which perceive the construction of value by companies within their corporate structure and for the consumer (Vargo and Lusch, 2004; Vargo and Morgan, 2005). Normann and Ramírez (1993) report that value creation can no longer be seen within the traditional value chain. Value creation should no longer be viewed as taking place during the manufacturing process but as something that consumers govern in their own consumption context (Vargo and Lusch, 2004, 2008; Grönroos, 2008). A product or service incorporates value through its actual usage (value-in-use) rather than through its sale price (value-in-exchange) (Vargo and Lusch, 2006); hence, such value is determined only by the end beneficiary (Vargo and Lusch, 2008). In this new approach, both the firm and the consumer create value (co-create), and this is the basis for value (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004b). Edvardsson et al. (2011) add that value creation happens within social systems in which actors assess resources and their value based on their social context.
Gummesson and Mele (2010) explain that the co-creation of value derives from the scope for interaction and the integration of resources. Interaction serves to generate dialogue, resource transfers and learning. In these interactive processes, participants not only exchange information but also make their operant resources (knowledge and skills) available and thereby foster new knowledge and resources. Such actors swap information and transfer resources to generate both explicit and tacit new knowledge through a continuous process of learning. In this new approach to value, the benefits perceived by consumers end up reaching beyond those obtained from the dyadic relationship between companies and consumers, with the corresponding need for beginning to include relationships with other entities (e.g. other consumers) as well.