Final Discussion
The idea of co-creation has been widely accepted among placemarketing scholars. However, it is not entirely clear: (1) how much progress has been made to date in effectively incorporating the concept of co-creation in place marketing; or (2) what specific research avenues we could follow. This research takes a step forward towards covering these gaps by: (1) drawing on the value co-creation background to propose a baseline framework; (2) conducting a systematic review of quantitative placemarketing research that has attempted to incorporate the value cocreation perspective; (3) critically reviewing these research efforts; and (4) providing future research avenues. The paper therefore adopted a literature review-led conceptual approach. The paper's contribution is mainly theoretical and directed toward advancing in both value cocreation and place-marketing literatures. The first research question deals with the concept and measures of the co-creation process. The study found that the co-creation process has been mostly approached in a mixed, incomplete, and ad-hoc way. Thus, some authors refer to co-creation and implicitly assume that it occurs, but do not explicitly conceptualize and measure co-creation. Other authors explicitly measure co-creation but sometimes the metrics used are not accompanied by a proper definition, and when co-creation is defined, this is done in different ways. Authors usually identify cocreation with partial elements of the whole co-creation process such as core service co-production, customization, citizenship behavior of consumers, and consumer support for providers’ innovation processes. Most of these approaches are close to GDL as consumers are viewed as partial employees who may improve providers’ circumstances. Most papers tend to consider co-creation as a variable reflecting a new way for providers to extract value from customers; as a pretext, that is, for utilizing them as part-time workers or for internal processes, such as innovation.
