Refereed article in conference proceedings (A4)
Prestige value co-creation through virtual community practices and participation
List of Authors: Hakala Henri, Nummelin Laura, Kohtamäki Marko
Editors: Hartman Thomas, Steinþórsson Runólfur
Publication year: 2013
Journal: NFF Conference proceedings
Book title *: 22nd Nordic Academy of Management Conference proceedings
ISSN: 2298-3112
The world of consumers has changed over the past decades bringing forward new patterns of consumer behavior, and new practices that organizations utilize in encounters with consumers. Currently, as individuals seem to pursue alternative social arrangements, new types of consumer communities emerge and present a potential means of generating high levels of customer loyalty and economic returns. The notions of co-creation also suggest that certain values are co-created through the relationships that customers have in their social circle of acquaintances however, the value generated in these horizontal relationships is rarely studied. To address this, this paper focuses on the prestige value that is co-created in specific community networks with data from selected case virtual communities operating in social media platforms. The paper contributes to the existing literature on communities, prestige and the value co-creation by studying how consumers communicate their motives to participate in virtual communities and how they manifest their subjective prestige value components through the processes of the collective customer-to-customer value creation within virtual communities. The findings suggest that internet communities are creating numerous subjective conceptions of prestige that are shared and debated among the community members. The legitimization of uniqueness, status and reputational value appears as key motivator for participating in the community.