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Examining the Value Co-Creation Mechanism of Channel System: From Customer Engagement to Actor
Engagement

how organizations change their structures or asset configurations to reduce the costs
associated with value co-creation activities.
(4) VCC market activities can be categorized into three types—linking, materializing, and
institutionalizing. Linking activities enhance network connectivity and mobilization,

and emphasize continuity and cyclicality, including knowledge-sharing and feedback
as non-unidirectional contributions (Ballantyne and Varey, 2008). Furthermore,
some activities are operational activities related to value provisioning, referred to as

materializing activities (Russo-Spena and Mele, 2012). Finally, there are activities
related to preserving value creation activities and organizational structure design,
referred to as institutionalizing activities.

4. Research Limitations

The present study has the following limitations. First, there is a lack of observation
regarding the “dynamics” of VCC activities. Since the case company is still considered

a developing entity, future research should include companies with longer operating
histories to compare how business partners engage in value co-creation at different
times. This comparison could shed light on whether the duration of collaboration leads to
different value co-creation activities or the development of distinct capabilities. Second,
this study employs only the single case method for phenomenon explanation, limited by

a small sample size. We recommend increasing the number of case companies to enhance
the diversity of research subjects, thus enabling more generalized findings. Finally, this
study extends the scope of vendor value co-creation and yet include only certain actors
(upstream and downstream vendors and customers), rather than all stakeholders. Future

research should adopt a stakeholder engagement perspective to further explore the VCC
context, thus making greater contributions to the field’s knowledge.

5. Originality/Contribution

The present study identifies critical drivers of VCC among actors and proposes a
value co-creation model based on AE for firms and actors. This model systematically
presents the types of VCC activities, design processes, and required resources and

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