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The role of the consumer as a participant in the production of goods and services has been acknowledged in many works using concepts other than prosumption such as co-production (Vargo and Lusch, 2004), co-creation (Grönroos, 2012; Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004), craft consumption (Campbell, 2005), democratising innovation (Von Hippel, 2005), convergence culture (Jenkins, 2006), mass collaboration (Tapscott and Williams, 2006) and collective innovation (Kozinets et al., 2008). An understanding of the differences among such concepts is required in order to set out expectations, responsibilities and opportunities for firms and consumers in marketplaces, particularly in terms of the creation of value with and for the firm as opposed to that which is not. Today many researchers use the terms consumer co-creation and co-production interchangeably (Dong et al., 2007; Payne et al., 2007; Pini, 2009) and some equate these terms with prosumption (Comor, 2011; Ritzer and Jurgenson, 2010; Zwick et al., 2008). For the purpose of this research, the focus on distinguishing prosumption (and co-prosumption) from co-creation as introduced in the previous section.

But many researchers have focused on consumers as partners and co-creators with firms.

Researchers pursuing this perspective often draw on studies by Bettencourt (1997), Bendapudi and Leone (2003), Vargo and Lusch (2004) and Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004), whose works focus on the role of the consumer as a value co-creator within a firm-to-consumer relationship. This field of research is focused on the advantages of involving consumers as co-creators (i.e. operant resources) for firm benefits including competitiveness (Claycomb et al., 2001), better service quality (Dong et al., 2007;

Lengnick-43 Hall, 1996) and help with new product development (O’Hern and Rindfleisch, 2009; Pini, 2009; Sawhney et al., 2005). Attention has also been given to the managerial aspects of consumer co-creation with firms (Grissemann and Stokburger-Sauer, 2012; Huhn, 2004;

Payne et al., 2007; Zhang and Chen, 2008). By reorienting consumers as co-creators, firms integrate consumers as competitive resources into their services and marketing systems (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2000).

The review above suggests that the marketing literature has largely focused on examining how firms plan and manage their joint activities in the process of co-creation with their consumers, while less attention has been dedicated to consumer-centred or collective practice of production among consumers. It also suggests that consumer co-creation is employed effectively by businesses through mobilising free resources for the benefit of firms.

Humphreys and Grayson (2008) argue that consumption often involves handling jobs that were previously performed by the firm, but this does not necessarily change what it means to be a consumer or a producer (i.e., consumers create use value, which can be used only by the consumer). However, they add that a fundamental change occurs when consumers participate as co-creators of exchange value, which can be exploited by firms. This implies that a form of exploitation of consumers as sources of human and capital labour is likely in situations of value co-creation in marketing. This approach is in line with Scholz’s (2012) critical ideas around what he acknowledges as the ‘social factory’, where value is increasingly produced outside the walls of the workplace and without a wage through peoples’ social practices. While Humphreys and Grayson (2008) refer to material products in their discussion, the invisibility and immateriality of the digital labour which is carried out by social actors as they generate online social content (and thus value) can be viewed as the type of labour that firms exploit (Scholz, 2012).

44 Prosumers engage in value creation activities which may sometimes require the integration of professional products or services into prosumers’ experiences (Xie et al., 2008). For example, while craft consumers follow their need for self-expression and employ knowledge, skills and passion to make and design their own products (Campbell, 2005), they also use materials acquired from the marketplace (Campbell, 2005). The role of the craft prosumer is, however, less likely to be exploited by firms. Similarly, in line with the understanding of prosumers they replace the role of professional companies when co-creating use value rather than work with firms to co-create exchange value. Prosumers as shown earlier often engage in creative acts such as crafting, car modifying and home remodelling. However, it is that prosumption represents a better type of valorisation of consumer labour built on use rather than exchange value. Therefore, distinguishing the role of the prosumer from roles such as consumer co-creator may help to resolve the growing debate that mistakenly situates the practice of prosumption as a synonym for consumer co-creation and, thus, problematic consumer exploitation (Comor, 2011; Cova et al., 2011; Ritzer and Jurgenson, 2010; Terranova, 2000; Zwick et al., 2008).

Wolf and McQuitty (2011) suggest that prosumption requires more involvement from consumers than creation or production. The authors argue that creation and co-production assume that consumers take partial responsibility for some tasks typically undertaken or proposed by the company, while prosumption assumes that consumers take full responsibility for the conception and production of their own products and services. To support this argument, others (Wolf and McQuitty, 2011; Holt, 1995) have demonstrated that consumers manipulate the use and meanings of objects in accordance with their needs rather than those intended by firms. Denegri-Knott (2006) and Marandi et al. (2010) also show how consumers work together and use online services in ways that are more

45 consistent with their own requirements rather than those proposed by service providers.

What the discussion above highlights is that although engagement with commercial firms is critical in consumers’ experiences of co-production and co-creation, prosumption does not necessarily require such engagement. Prosumers reconstruct the symbolic meanings of commercial products and services in their own way and for their own purposes. In this way, prosumers’ focus is not on their relationship with the firm, but rather on addressing their own needs or their relationship with co-prosumers.