Research on the Effect of Value Co-creation Interactive Behavior on Brand Equity

Sun Yongbo, Ding Yixin, Wang Yong

Foreign Economics & Management Vol. 40, Issue 04, pp. 125 - 139 (2018)  DOI:10.16538/j.cnki.fem.2018.04.010

Summary

The service is no longer a commodity but a foundation of value co-creation. Customers now try to play a role in each part of the business systems, use new methods and operational resources, and construct interactive relationship with the enterprises. Relevant stakeholders who play the positive role are needed in the enterprise brand value creation. Value co-creation interactive behavior can help design and manage innovative brand products. Therefore, this paper mainly explores the following three problems: first, do the knowledge sharing and relationship, which are the paths of value co-creation, affect interaction behaviors? second, does customer participation interaction affect brand equity in the industry service field? third, does perceived value play a mediation effect between customer participation interaction and brand equity? how is the mediating effect? Based on value co-creation theory, this paper researches the impact of consumer participation interaction on brand equity. First, this paper introduces the knowledge sharing and relation as the path variables, and discusses the impacts of the two paths on interaction behaviors in a value co-creation model. Then, it introduces the perceived value as the mediator variable, and analyzes the impact mechanism of customer participation interaction, perceived value and brand equity. We use 411 sample members as research subjects, using the method of descriptive statistical analysis, multiple regression analysis and Bootstrap to study. The results show that: first, knowledge sharing and relation can effectively guide customers to participate in interaction in the value co-creation model. Second, affective value can enhance the customers’ sensory pleasure by affecting customer preferences and evaluation, functional value is an external response to valuation and creation of the practicality and means of experience for customers, and perceived value can raise customer participation interaction, promote the brand value creation and enhance brand equity. Third, in the path of interaction behaviors on brand equity, affective value mainly influences this path. This paper studies the customers participating in value co-creation in the service industry and proves the effect mechanism of the value co-creation interaction behavior on brand equity, providing a new perspective for explaining the relationship between customer participation interaction and brand equity. It makes a better understanding of the concept of value co-creation by proposing a relational framework, which can help to promote future theoretical research and guide enterprises to explore ways to improve brand equity effectively. Otherwise, this paper guides customers to participate in value creation, stimulates customers interaction behavior with the enterprises, and provides brand value creation and brand equity appreciation of management implications and recommendations for service enterprises in China.

Keywords

value co-creation; interactive behavior; perceived value; brand equity; service industry