6. Discussion and conclusions
This study seeks to assess the firm-level capability for efficiently and effectively facilitating value creation collaboration with customers and the mediating effect of innovation on the relationship between customer involvement capability and firm performance. The findings support the three hypotheses specified and therefore present significant implications for theory and practice.
The initial hypothesis posited that customer involvement capability would positively influence firm performance. This was supported at the general sample analysis level and thus confirms what existing studies have found. The finding confirms the assertion made by Srivastava et al. (1998) that customers are market-based resources and that firms with the right kind of capability (involvement) could exploit this resource to improve their performance. The positive effect thus found reinforces the assertions of Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004) and of Payne et al. (2009) that developing and utilising customer involvement capability enhances firm performance. It shows that involvement capability licenses service firms to create the needed platform for customers to engage with the firm in order to customise their own world (Chan et al., 2010). The disaggregated analysis at the specific country level, however, shows that the much-emphasised positive relationship can be context-specific and that the relationship is not positive at all times. While a positive relationship was found within the Ghanaian sample, a negative effect was recorded within the British sample. The findings clearly reinforce Youngdahl, Kellogg, Nie, and Bowen's (2003) warning that “we cannot assume that what holds true in one context will apply to another” (p. 110) and that it would be inappropriate to circumvent ethnocultural issues in communicating research applicability.
