Abstract
There is a long-standing discussion on the positive interactions between enterprise value creation and business competitiveness. The corporate value can be seen as being created from three major sources within the cycle – from employees, from processes, and from customers or investors through reinvestment. To achieve competitive advantages, a firm must create more value than its competitors in the industry. Emphasizing that, firms should explore the positive drivers of customer value creation, allowing for a true value creation that will lead to increments in competitiveness. In reality, however, there are also barriers that hinder customer value creation. Targeting the above issues that have not yet been explored or analyzed, we have collected related literature at the first stage. Based on these presumable assumptions, this paper then conducts an empirical study by surveying and analyzing the relevance given by the investigated leading machinery measuring equipment firms in Taiwan, regarding the concerns as drivers and barriers in relation to customer value creation. This paper especially aims to answer several key questions: What drivers revolving around employees and processes can facilitate the organization to create more value for its customers? Conversely, what barriers block the organization from creating value for customers in examining the same dimensions? Does value creation direct an organization’s profitability and competitiveness? Our questionnaire survey results show that the most recognized and agreed drivers of customer value creation in consideration of employees are “distinctive skills”, “personal experience”, “learning and training”, and “team work”; and, in regard to the firm’s processes, the key drivers are “innovation and evolution”, “R&D capability”, and “capability for differentiation”. Conversely, the most recognized and agreed barriers to customer value creation in relation to employees are a “distrustful environment” and “inadequate knowledge”; and, in terms of processes, they are “short of core technology”, “poor resource support”, and “bad services and attitudes”. Furthermore, our in-depth interview outcomes reveal that “capital sufficiency” and “mergers and acquisitions” are in practice considered to be other important customer value creation drivers; in contrast, “cultural and structural barriers” and “short of mechanisms to measure customer value creation effectively” are viewed as additional critical barriers to customer value creation.
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Dr. Grace Tyng-Ruu Lin is currently Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Institute of Management of Technology of National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan. She earned her PhD degree from Judge Institute of Management, University of Cambridge, in 2003. Prior to joining the MOT, NCTU. Lin was Assistant Professor (from 2004 to 2005) at the Department of Business Administration, National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan. Her research interests involve international marketing, strategic management, international economics, and technology innovation.
Mr. Jerry Lin is currently the sales director of Renishaw Company. Mr. Lin has worked in the measurement machinery industry over 20 years. He has his B.S. majoring in mechanical engineering from National Taiwan University of Science and Technology. He is now doing his part-time PhD in marketing field at National Central University, Taiwan.
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Lin, G.TR., Lin, J. Ethical Customer Value Creation: Drivers and Barriers. J Bus Ethics 67, 93–105 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-006-9009-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-006-9009-5