Consumer motives and willingness to co-create in professional and generic services

Purpose
Consumers’ underlying motives to co-create value are important when determining their willingness to engage in co-creation activities. However, the importance of their motives may vary according to different service contexts. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the value co-creation research by investigating how the service contexts shape consumers’ motives to co-create.

Design/methodology/approach
This paper is based on a survey of 284 consumers. By focusing on professional vs generic services (context), based on differences in knowledge intensity and workforce professionalism, the paper pinpoints the contextual nature of consumer motives to co-create.

Findings
The results show that in professional services consumers are positively influenced to co-create by developmental motives, whereas empowerment motives have a negative impact. In turn, the positive effects of individualizing and relating motives are predominant in generic services. Willingness to co-create is a strong determinant of intended co-creation behaviors, regardless of the service type.

Research limitations/implications
This study clearly shows the contextual nature of motives to co-create value, thereby questioning the generalizability of single-context studies.

Originality/value
This is the first paper to compare consumer motives to co-create across different service contexts.