It's Mine! Participation and Ownership within Virtual Value Co-creation Environments

Interpretations of value and the processes of value creation are rapidly evolving from product and firm centric perspectives to personalised consumer experiences. However, whilst much of the literature in this area advocates the role of the firm as that of ‘enabler’ and ‘community leader’, relatively little empirical based research exists on ‘post product’ manipulations by consumers and the resultant ‘blurring’ of the boundaries of ownership between consumer and firm. Drawing on the consumption community and cocreation literature, this paper reports on a study which examines the nature and characteristics of a virtual co-creation context. Findings suggest consumers are able to take ownership, define and create their own post product consumption experience and through a collaborative [often implicit] process between firm and consumer, continually modify and ‘co-evolve’ the product in an ongoing and iterative process. This in turn, has implications for post product ownership within such contexts