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Initiating value co-creation: Dealing with non-receptive customers

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Abstract

Scholarly emphasis on the significance of integrating customer and supplier work processes to co-create customer value is increasingly important. While suppliers and customers working closely is imperative for the success of the value co-creation (VCC) process, customers’ reluctance at times to allow suppliers into their environments has not been fully explored. The present study is an expansive qualitative inquiry consisting of 114 in-depth interviews across 57 business-to-business evaluations that aims to understand both the nuanced nature of customer non-receptivity to specific VCC initiatives and those strategies suppliers may adopt to successfully manage it. Findings elicit three potential kinds of customer non-receptivity: apathy, ambivalence, and annoyance. Furthermore, conclusions propose six strategies suppliers may use to manage customer non-receptivity: intrinsic initiative, inspiration and implementation, complexity absorption, value alignment, credibility building, and objective centrality.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank and acknowledge JAMS' editorial team and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback and contributions. We appreciate the guidance and support provided by the entire review team.

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  1. Avinash Malshe and Scott B. Friend contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Opus College of Business, University of St. Thomas, 1000 LaSalle Avenue, Minneapolis, MN, 55403, USA

    Avinash Malshe

  2. Farmer School of Business, Miami University, 800 E. High Street, Oxford, OH, 45056, USA

    Scott B. Friend

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  1. Avinash Malshe
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  2. Scott B. Friend
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Correspondence to Scott B. Friend.

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Michael Ahearne served as Area Editor for this article.

Appendix A

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Table 4 Case, customer, and informant sample
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Malshe, A., Friend, S.B. Initiating value co-creation: Dealing with non-receptive customers. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 46, 895–920 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-018-0577-6

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