The gift of co-creation: what motivates customers to participate

Most organizations want to get closer to current and potential customers and to develop products and services that are relevant and desirable. One widely used approach to realize this is online co-creation which allows companies to work together with customers over an extended period of time. However, in spite of their widespread use, company-sponsored co-creation communities can fail to engage people. To better understand how communities can build participation and commitment, we looked at participants’ motivations to take part and contribute to three high involvement co-creation communities in private health, diabetes care and consumer brands. Our research, which builds on earlier studies, shows that participants are dominantly motivated by intrinsic rewards and that managers have to adopt a gift exchange perspective—rather than the normal transactional market exchange approach—if they are to nurture involvement. Further, we show the importance of supportive, but not controlling, moderation during the life of a community and the need to pay attention to building a community culture, where people feel they have sufficient freedom to express themselves. Interestingly it seems that the purpose of the community is not the main determinant of engagement, but rather the environment that is created. Properly managed a community can generate very high levels of passion and commitment.