According to many scholars, customers have always been an important asset to the firms, particularly service firms (Rust et al. 2004; Srivastava et al. 1998). The significance of customers has become more important, as they become more knowledgeable and show greater interest in participating and controlling the service provision process (Büttgen et al. 2012; Prahalad and Ramaswamy 2004). The content
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analysis of the literature on CCSP undertaken here sought to discover what researchers have done to explore the customer role in the service provision process. The content analysis focused on identification of general characteristics of studies, the focus of studies, type of respondents, the type of market, and method of data analysis (Sections 2.4.1 to 2.4.4). The analysis also focused identifying the terms used to address/examine CCSP, their definitions, their measurements, and the antecedents and consequences of CCSP (Sections 2.4.5 to 2.4.10). The underlying reason for this focus was to identify and clarify potential ambiguity around terms applied in CCSP as has been alluded to in previous literature (Brodie et al. 2011; Kumar et al. 2010).
The content analysis shows that the number of articles on CCSP has been increasing (Section 2.4.1, Figure 2.1) over the period the content analysis examined (2000 to 2013). Further, studies were published in several journals that are devoted to specific topics supporting the multidisciplinary nature of CCSP (Section 2.4.1, Table 2.1). Moreover, the review of the literature indicated that most of the research on CCSP is in the B2C context and from the customer perspective, while less attention is given to B2B and from the service firm’s perspective (Section 2.4.2). Furthermore, the review of the literature suggested the geographical expansion of the research on CCSP and multicultural research on CCSP is needed (Section 2.4.2), because different people from different cultures may react to drivers of CCSP differently.
Given that CCSP is all about the service firm working with the customer, firms that provide high contact, customised service (e.g., professional service firms) are a more suitable context to examine and study CCSP (Section 2.4.2). The underlying reason for this conclusion is that in high contact service firms, such as professional service firms, the quality of the service depends on both sides, thus to get the best result both sides need to play their role with extra attention. Building on the findings drawn from the content analysis of CCSP it appears that studying high contact service firms provides knowledge that assist firms to achieve a better understanding of what the most necessary processes and mechanisms are in order to develop the ability to cooperate with customers. To achieve more accurate results and biased free multiple informant study design is the most appropriate approach (Section 2.4.4).
The content analysis provides a better view about the significance of relationships between CCSP and its antecedents and consequences. The findings of all studies examined in the content analysis did not provide a consistent result between the relationship between CCSP and some of the consequences of CCSP (e.g., financial performance). The inconsistency in the result might be due to the type of proposed relationships between CCSP and the probable consequences. For example, all studies proposed linear relationship between CCSP and the probable consequences (Section
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2.4.4). While focusing on more than simple linear relationships between CCSP and its consequences would indicate that at which level cooperating with customers is beneficial and at which level it is detrimental for the service firms.
After obtaining a general view of the research on CCSP, the second part of the content analysis directed the attention toward identifying different streams of research in CCSP, where results are presented in Figures 2.4 and 2.5 and Table 2.4. Different streams of research on CCSP from different angles provided interesting results through content analysis of the literature on CCSP. The stream of research at the macro-level discussed firm versus customers. At the micro-level the other stream of research was identified based on terms researchers used to explain CCSP, such as engagement, co- creation, co-production, participation, and integration. Based on the definitions presented in Table 2.5, it appears that the lowest level of customer cooperation is involvement, which is about the customers’ state of mind (e.g., Cheung and To 2011; Wu and Lo 2012; Hunt et al. 2012; Ashley et al. 2011; Lundkvist and Yakhlef 2004). Further, the highest level is engagement, which goes beyond the purchase and includes customers’ post purchase behaviour (e.g., Van Doorn et al. 2010).
The review of the literature showed that co-creation, co-production, and participation mainly explain the customers’ role as labour during service process based on the definitions provided in Table 2.5. Even though some researchers have tried to distinguish these three terms, overlap among them is high. For instance, researchers argue that co-production is different from co-creation and participation, because in co- production the customer cooperates with the firm within predefined parameters (e.g., ATM). However, co-production can be applied mainly to standardised services, because the expectations from customer cooperation is pre-defined and pre-designed by firms (e.g., check in at the airport). Further, researchers try to distinguish co-creation by specifically focusing on value creation. However, defining co-creation led to the conclusion that co-creation and engagement are not much different. Customer integration is another term applied in CCSP literature, which is considered as resource sharing and resource integration between a firm and its customers. However, the analysis showed that overlap among definition of different terms in CCSP is considerable.
One key issue identified in the content analysis (Section 2.4.7) is the extent that researchers use one of the terms identified in the CCSP literature to define another term used in CCSP. For example, researchers used the term participation to define the involvement construct or used term involvement to define engagement or participation construct. Employing one term to define another term shows that both terms are the same. This point is further supported through analysing the content of measurement
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used to examine these terms in the literature (Table 2.6 and 2.7). The content analysis of measurements revealed that there is a lack of consistency in the literature between items that measure a specific term in CCSP and the definition of that specific term in the literature used by other researchers. For instance, some researchers consider no after purchase behaviours in their definitions of participation, co-creation, and co-production. However, some researchers use items in their measurements that focus on customers post purchase behaviour (Sections 2.4.9.1 and 2.4.9.2).
Further, the content analysis revealed that some researchers argue engagement is the best practice for firms as it is active cooperation and includes emotion, cognition and behaviour of customer, which extend beyond the duration of cooperation between the service firm and the customer and should last after finalising the purchase. Defining customer engagement in this way blurs the borders between customer engagement and customer co-creation in different studies. Some researchers apply the same dimensions for both co-creation and engagement, but distinguish customer co-creation by focusing on co-creation of value. However, some researchers argue co-creation is different from co-creation of value and co-creation of value only happens in customer sphere. Applying these terms in the way they are in the literature increases the confusion around different terms in CCSP literature.
Another important finding of this content analysis relates to the identifying antecedents and consequences of CCSP from the customer and the service firm perspectives. The findings revealed some contradictory results in different aspects. The contradictory results provide some support for the view that the effect of CCSP is context dependent or the relationship between CCSP and some of the consequences such as performance may not be linear. The premise of nonlinearity of the relationship between CCSP and the consequences of CCSP (e.g., different types of performance) strengthen the premise that service firms should consider the extent of CCSP.
Analysis of the antecedents and consequences of CCSP from firm perspectives showed that researchers place considerable attention on the effect of innovation on CCSP (Table 2.8), while other organisational antecedents of CCSP are largely ignored (e.g., knowledge, leadership, branding activities etc.). It is notable that the service firm should facilitate and encourage customers to cooperate in the service process. Thus, identifying facilitating mechanisms of CCSP in the service firms is as important as identifying customer motivation to cooperate with the service firm.
The content analysis presented here attempts to provide a foundation for empirical research to advance knowledge on CCSP in the context of PSFs. As noted by Brodie and Hollebeck (2011, p. 3), “Knowledge .… will not advance unless the circle of scientific enquiry is used in the process of theorising, where middle range theory
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provides the bridge between general theory and empirical enquiry”. As such, the
findings of this chapter provide a foundation to theorise the effect of CCSP on organisational attributes and assist to connect theory to empirical enquiries in an effort to develop a theory applicable to PSFs and service solution.
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