Value co-creation and social media: A systematic literature review using citation and thematic analysis

The purpose of this paper is to deliver a summary of the influential work regarding value co-creation in the context of social media. Although, research on the role of social media in co-creation and new product development is growing field; the extant literature is still in developing stage, which needs systematization and categorization to comprehend its current stage and previous research.

For this purpose, existing literature on social media and co-creation was studied. Initially, a citation analysis was conducted of influential papers correlated with the topic to identify three streams of research. Later, thematic analysis was carried out to explore specific themes within these categories.

Through citation analysis three research streams namely customer’s co-creation on new product development, firm specific capabilities for knowledge sharing, absorption and processing and new opportunities were identified. Later, total four categories were identified through thematic analysis which contains different sub-themes such as test of theories, proposed theoretical frameworks, lead users characteristics, customer’s motivation and experience regarding co-creation, online communities of customers and open innovation.

This study also categorizes and systemizes the extant literature exploring role of social media in value co-creation. Such systematic review of the extant literature will help the academicians to understand the previous stream of work and pursue a particular line of enquiry in furthering the understanding of interaction between social media and co-innovation.

This work is particularly useful for practitioners as more firms are moving the business online. These firms are actively using social media and user-generated content to gain insight into customer’s preferences. By increasing the participation of customers and lead users through online communities, firms can also increase customer’s commitment.

The paper adds to the extant literature by identifying research streams and themes in the extant literature on the role of social media in value co-creation. Later, these themes are abductively linked to develop a theoretical framework.