Customer engagement in collaborative innovation: investigating consumer motivation for participating in value co-creation

Abstract

Firms engage customers to tap into product-related innovative ideas for future product development. This engagement of customers in co-creation activity provides unprecedented opportunities to create value offerings to customers. However, there is a dearth of understanding on what motivates customers to participate in co-creation activity. Based on the self-determination theory, this study proposes a model and investigates consumers' intrinsic and extrinsic motivators to participate in co-creation. The model was tested on a survey data from 235 respondents from Saudi Arabia. Results reveal that the intrinsic motivator, enjoyment, predicted attitudes towards co-creation as well as willingness to participate in co-creation. The extrinsic motivators, showcasing of personal ideas and monetary reward also predicted attitudes towards co-creation and willingness to participate. An interesting finding is that gaining knowledge is not directly associated with willingness to participate, unless it is also associated at the same time with attitude towards co-creation.