Manifestation of customer value co-creation behaviour in the automobile industry: a perspective from Twitter analytics

As firms and customers seek new synergies, value co-creation emerges as an imperative that straddles almost all sectors. This paper corroborates the manifestation of customer value co-creation behaviour in the context of the automobile industry. Distinct from conventional studies based on survey instruments, this study examines Twitter data, using data mining techniques (content, sentiment, and descriptive analysis) to analyse 82,236 customer tweets to study customer value co-creation behaviour. Content analysis was used to identify distinct themes. Further, the themes were mapped to the existing literature on value co-creation behaviour and additionally validated and categorised by eleven industry experts into relevant dimensions. The study verified the existence of value co-creation behaviour comprising participation and citizenship behaviour in the context of the automobile industry. There was evidence of two distinct customer cohorts, one who exhibited positive sentiments and others who were more negative regarding participation and citizenship behaviour. These groups demonstrated significant differences in loyalty towards the firm or brand. This exploratory study contributes significantly to understanding customer value co-creation behaviour, especially in the less researched context of the automobile sector. Theoretically, the results are meaningful as they validate the two-dimensional nature of customer value co-creation behaviour. Second, the findings of this study offer a strong argument for recognising value co-creation behaviour as a significant precursor to loyalty outcomes and proposing a conceptual framework based on the identified relationship network. For the practitioner, the findings validate the need to understand and encourage customer value co-creation behaviour to enhance customer stickiness and, consecutively, the firm’s profitability.