Value Co-Creation by Customer-to-Customer Communication: Social Media and Face-to-Face for Case of Airline Service Selection

Santi Novani, Kyoichi Kijima

Department of Value and Decision Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan..

DOI: 10.4236/jssm.2012.51013                

Abstract

One of the foundational of service science and of study of value-creation in service systems is service-dominant logic (S-D logic). S-D logic especially emphasizes the role of customers; that is, each customer is recognized as an active co-creator of knowledge and service value. Most studies on the value co-creation process have concentrated on the in- teraction between customers and providers. In contrast, this research is investigating co-creation of value and the notion of “value in use” that is central to the service-dominant logic by focusing on value co-creation from the customer per- spective, especially in terms of how customers are engaging in experiences by clarifying what different influences are produced by their exchange of information about the providers. The basic framework of the present research is a proc- ess model of value co-creation of service system, i.e., co-experience and co-definition. The main purpose is to investi- gate how new value is co-created by mutual interaction among customers by using Airline service selection as a typical case to clarify influences on the value co-creation process produced by different ways of customer-to-customer com- munication: social media and face-to-face communication. By agent-based simulation we compare learning efficiency and learning performance of the two communication styles of the customers. Learning efficiency is measured by the distance between the average payoff of the customers and that of the provider, while learning performance is measured by the average payoff obtained from Nash Equilibrium by the game played with the provider. The simulation results found that communication style influences the learning efficiency by customers as well as the learning performance. Social media is a good way when few customers know the provider correctly or have limited knowledge of the commu- nity, while face-to-face is a good way when quite a many customers know the provider correctly or trust on reputation of the provider in the community. The research results indicate that it is crucial for the provider, to establish trust with the customers.

Keywords

Value Co-creation; Co-experience; Co-definition; Customer-to-Customer Communication; Social Media; Face-to-Face; Agent-Based Simulation

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	R. F. Lusch and S. L. Vargo, “The Service-Dominant Logic of Marketing: Reactions, Reflections, and Refine- ments,” Marketing Theory, Vol. 6, No. 3, 2006, pp. 281- 288. doi:10.1177/1470593106066781
[2]	H. Chesbrough, “Toward a Science of Services,” Harvard Business Review, Vol. 83, No. 2, 2005, pp. 16-17.
[3]	IfM and IBM, “Succeeding through Service Innovation: A Service Perspective for Education, Research, Business and Government,” University of Cambridge Institute for Manufacturing, Cambridge, 2008.
[4]	P. P. Maglio and J. Spohrer, “Fundamentals of Service Science,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 36, No. 1, 2008, pp. 18-20. doi:10.1007/s11747-007-0058-9
[5]	J. Spohrer and P. P. Maglio, “The Emergence of Service Science: Toward Systematic Service Innovations to Ac- celerate Co-Creation of Value,” Production and Opera- tions Management, Vol. 17, No. 3, 2008, pp. 1-9. doi:10.3401/poms.1080.0027
[6]	J. Spohrer, P. P. Maglio, J. Bailey and D. Gruhl, “Steps toward a Science of Service Systems,” Computer, Vol. 40, No. 1, 2007, pp. 71-77. doi:10.1109/MC.2007.33
[7]	J. Spohrer, S. L. Vargo, N. Caswell and P. P. Maglio, “The Service System Is the Basic Abstraction of Service Science,” Proceedings of the 41st Annual Hawaii Inter- national Conference on System Science, Hawaii, 7-10 January 2008, p. 104.
[8]	S. Vargo and R. Lusch, “Service-Dominant Logic: Con- tinuing the Evolution,” Journal of the Academic, Market- ing and Science, Vol. 36, No. 1, 2008, pp. 1-10. doi:10.1007/s11747-007-0069-6
[9]	H. Chesbrough and J. Spohrer, “A Research Manifesto for Services Science,” Communications of the ACM, Vol. 49, No. 7, 2006, pp. 35-40. doi:10.1145/1139922.1139945
[10]	J. Galbrun and K. Kijima, “A Co-Evolutionary Perspec- tive in Medical Technology: Clinical Innovation Systems in Europe and in Japan,” Asian Journal of Technology Innovation, Vol. 17, No. 2, 2009, pp. 195-216. doi:10.1080/19761597.2009.9668679
[11]	L. Zailskait?-Jak?t? and R. Kuvykait?, “Internet Based Communication with Target Audience: Case Study of Higher Education Institutions,” Economic and Manage- ment, Ekonometrika, 2010.
[12]	S. Albert, “How Airlines Are Using Social Media,” 2008. http://www.dirjournal.com/articles/airlines-social media/
[13]	Michael, “Part 2: Airlines’ Social Media Success Sto- ries,” 2011. http://www.socialstrategy1.com/2011/04/28/part-2-airlines’-social media-success-stories/
[14]	R. Barkhi, V. Jacob and H. Pirkul, “An Experimental Analysis of Face to Face versus Computer Mediated Communication Channels,” Group Decision and Nego- tiation, Vol. 8, No. 4, 1999, pp. 325-347. doi:10.1023/A:1008621423120
[15]	K. A. Begley, “Face-to-Face Communication: Making Human Connections Intechnology-Driven World,” Thomp- son Place, Boston, 2004.
[16]	SCM, “Building a Two-Way Dialogue at Deloitte,” Stra- tegic Communication Management, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2008, p. 6.
[17]	H. Van der Meijden and S. Veenman, “Face-to-Face ver- sus Computer-Mediated Communication in a Primary School Setting,” Computers in Human Behavior, Vol. 21, No. 5, 2005, pp. 831-859. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2003.10.005
[18]	Y.-J. An and T. Frick, “Student Perceptions of Asyn- chronous Computer-Mediated Communication in Face- to-Face Courses,” Journal of Computer-Mediated Com- munication, Vol. 11, No. 2, 2006, pp. 485-499. doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2006.00023.x
[19]	K. Kijima, “Intelligent Poly-Agent Learning Model and its Application,” Information and Systems Engineering, Vol. 2, No. 1, 1996, pp. 47-61.
[20]	D. E. Goldberg, “Genetic Algorithms in Search, Optimi- zation and Machine Learning,” Addison-Wesley, New York, 1989
[21]	H. Dawid, “Genetic Algorithms as a Model of Adaptive Learning in Economic Systems,” Springer, Berlin, 1996
[22]	U. S. Putro, K. Kijima and S. Takahashi, “Adaptive Learn- ing of Hypergame Situations by Using Genetic Algo- rithm,” IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cyber- netics, Vol. 30, No. 5, 2000, pp. 562-572. doi:10.1109/3468.867863
[23]	S. J. Grove and R. P. Fisk, “The Impact of Other Cus- tomers on Service Experiences: A Critical Incident Ex- amination of ‘Getting Along’,” Journal of Retailing, Vol. 73, No. 1, 1997, pp. 63-85.