Customer Engagement and Value Co-Creation for Hospitality Open Innovation

While innovation has been a critical tool for the success of hospitality businesses, there has been little research concerning how hospitality service innovation is created. Focusing on knowledge development for service innovation, this dissertation examines hospitality open innovation processes by highlighting the critical role of customers as important external stakeholders for knowledge creation. More specifically, this research examines how hospitality brand community members engage in brand activities that co-create non-transactional knowledge value for open innovation.

To achieve the research purpose, the dissertation consists of four independent studies. The design of the four studies followed a theory development process focusing on bibliometric analysis (Study 1), exploratory analysis (Study 2), empirical analysis (Study 3), and experimental analysis (Study 4). Study 1 conducted bibliometric co-citation analysis to examine the foundation and evolution of the service innovation research in both hospitality and tourism and service management literature. Study 2 examined how hospitality (hotel) customers engage in an online brand community and what types of value are co-created from their engagement behaviors. Study 3 empirically developed a multi-dimensional measure of customer engagement behaviors for co-creating non-transactional value. Lastly, Study 4 examined how hospitality online brand community members participate in open innovation behaviors as a result of customer empowerment and social recognition.

Study 1 identified critical research opportunities for future hospitality and tourism research in terms of innovation creation, diffusion, and evaluation. Most importantly, open innovation via customer engagement was identified as a critical topic to understand hospitality innovation creation. In Study 2, customer engagement behaviors, motivations, and value co-creation were qualitatively analyzed in the context of an online hotel brand community. Using mixed-methods, including netnography analysis and qualitative written interviews, a conceptual framework of value co-creation via customer engagement was developed. Based on this framework, Study 3 developed a scale consisting of 15 items measuring customer engagement behaviors in terms of influential-experience value, C-to-B innovation value, relational value, and citizenship value. Lastly, Study 4 found a causal process that customer empowerment makes a positive impact on the intention of open innovation engagement and the creativity of ideas by mediating intrinsic motivation.