The nature and processes of market co-creation in triple bottom line firms: Leveraging insights from consumer culture theory and service dominant logic

Abstract

This paper contributes theoretical and practical understandings regarding market co-creation by cross-fertilizing insights from consumer culture theory (CCT) on the production of meaning with service-dominant logic (SDL) on the co-creation of value. Examining nine firms acting to achieve environmental, social, and economic sustainability, we suggest that cultural meanings are an important part of the value elaborated in SDL, and conversely that such value informs the meanings emphasized in CCT. Findings demonstrate three levels of meaning and value negotiated by multiple actors in markets: cosmological principles, norms and standards, and individual judgments and interpretations. Discussion deciphers key overlaps and distinctions between meaning and value, operand and operant resources, and economic, social and environmental domains as they converge in market co-creation. Contributions theorize asymmetries of value and meaning in the intricate interweaving of social and market domains characterizing contemporary market co-creation. We close with practical implications for consumers, firms, and public policy.