IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-01135360.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How competent are consumers? The case of the energy sector in Francei

Author

Listed:
  • Audrey Bonnemaizon

    (IRG - Institut de Recherche en Gestion - UPEM - Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée - UPEC UP12 - Université Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne - Paris 12)

  • Wided Batat

    (COACTIS - COnception de l'ACTIon en Situation - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - UJM - Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Étienne)

Abstract

This paper discussed the notion of value co-creation and the concept of customer competence as suggested by this notion. This led us to consider the competent customer as a social construction related to managerial representations. In order to examine this issue, a longitudinal exploratory research based on participant observation and in-depth interviews with employees of a French energy supplier was conducted to explore whether customers are perceived as competent or incompetent market actors. The data analysis revealed four categories illustrating customers' profiles coping with the new situation of the 'Utility X' group in the energy sector. 'Utility X' employees define their customers according to four profiles: myopic, ignorant, uncreative and organizer of company resources. Even if the marketing studies that share the Service-Dominant Logic point-of-view suggest that the customer would be competent at all times, our findings showed that customer competencies are in fact socially constructed and emerge partially from managerial representations. Therefore, the adoption by companies of a marketing philosophy ('market with' philosophy), in which the customer and supply chain partners are collaborators in the entire marketing process, seems only possible if they recognize customers' competencies and identify situations when customers do not activate their competencies or do not have the resources that enable them to develop their competencies.

Suggested Citation

  • Audrey Bonnemaizon & Wided Batat, 2011. "How competent are consumers? The case of the energy sector in Francei," Post-Print hal-01135360, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01135360
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1470-6431.2010.00937.x
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-01135360
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.science/hal-01135360/document
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1470-6431.2010.00937.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eric von Hippel, 1986. "Lead Users: A Source of Novel Product Concepts," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(7), pages 791-805, July.
    2. Amina Béji-Bécheur & Mathilde Gollety, 2007. "Lead user et leader d’opinion : deux cibles majeures au service de l'innovation," Post-Print halshs-02914427, HAL.
    3. Thompson, Craig J & Locander, William B & Pollio, Howard R, 1989. "Putting Consumer Experience Back into Consumer Research: The Philosophy and Method of Existential-Phenomenology," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 16(2), pages 133-146, September.
    4. Cova, Bernard & Dalli, Daniele, 2009. "Working Consumers: The Next Step in Marketing Theory?," MPRA Paper 36717, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Alba, Joseph W & Hutchinson, J Wesley, 1987. "Dimensions of Consumer Expertise," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 13(4), pages 411-454, March.
    6. Bernard Cova, 2008. "Consumer Made : quand le consommateur devient producteur," Post-Print halshs-02914385, HAL.
    7. A. Dietrich, 2008. "Management des compétences," Post-Print hal-00325719, HAL.
    8. Bernard Cova & V. Cova, 2009. "Les figures du nouveau consommateur: une genese de la gouvernementalite du consommateur," Post-Print hal-01822701, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Apajalahti, Eeva-Lotta & Lovio, Raimo & Heiskanen, Eva, 2015. "From demand side management (DSM) to energy efficiency services: A Finnish case study," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 76-85.
    2. Peter Morris & Desley Vine & Laurie Buys, 2018. "Critical Success Factors for Peak Electricity Demand Reduction: Insights from a Successful Intervention in a Small Island Community," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 33-54, March.
    3. Stuart Read & Stefan Michel & Jan H. Schumann & Kumar Rakesh Ranjan, 2019. "Pricing co-created value: an integrative framework and research agenda," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 9(3), pages 155-183, December.
    4. Herbes, Carsten & Ramme, Iris, 2014. "Online marketing of green electricity in Germany—A content analysis of providers’ websites," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 257-266.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Oleg Curbatov, 2013. "The 'Knowledge Marketing': A New Trend In A Management Science World," Post-Print hal-01509370, HAL.
    2. Wided Batat & Audrey Bonnemaizon, 2010. "Crossed Glances on the Perception of Consumer Competencies within the Energy Sector: The Case of a French Energy Supplier," Post-Print halshs-00527920, HAL.
    3. Audrey Bonnemaizon & Wided Batat, 2011. "Les représentations managériales des compétences du consommateur : la co-création de valeur est-elle toujours possible ? Le cas des consommateurs d'énergie," Post-Print halshs-00597672, HAL.
    4. Hajer Bachouche & Ouidade Sabri, 2019. "Empowerment in Marketing: Synthesis, Critical Review, and Agenda for Future Research," Working Papers 2019-001, Department of Research, Ipag Business School.
    5. Hajer Bachouche & Ouidade Sabri, 2019. "Empowerment in marketing: synthesis, critical review, and agenda for future research," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 9(3), pages 304-323, December.
    6. Oleg Curbatov & Marie Louyot-Gallicher, 2011. "The Knowledge Marketing and competencies of customer for the co-creation [Le Knowledge Marketing et les compétences du consommateur au service de la co-création]," Post-Print hal-01490066, HAL.
    7. Oleg Curbatov & Marie Louyot-Gallicher, 2017. "The 'Knowledge Marketing': a way of TCR « Transformative Consumer Research » through awareness of consumer's skills [Le 'Knowledge Marketing' : une voie de la TCR « Transformative Consumer Research," Post-Print hal-01422850, HAL.
    8. Bosul Yoo & Sotaro Katsumata & Takeyasu Ichikohji, 2017. "The Impact of Customer Orientation on Quantity and Quality of User-Generated Content: A Multi-Country Case Study of Mobile Applications," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 17-12, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.
    9. Paul Windrum & Koen Frenken & Lawrence Green, 2017. "The importance of ergonomic design in product innovation. Lessons from the development of the portable computer," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 26(6), pages 953-971.
    10. Ozer, Muammer, 2007. "Reducing the demand uncertainties at the fuzzy-front-end of developing new online services," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(9), pages 1372-1387, November.
    11. Florence Benoît-Moreau & Audrey Bonnemaizon & Sandrine Cadenat & Valérie Renaudin, 2011. "" Au boulot, cher client ! " Une approche interprétative de la participation ordinaire du consommateur," Post-Print halshs-00673120, HAL.
    12. de Bont, Cees J. P. M. & Schoormans, Jan P. L., 1995. "The effects of product expertise on consumer evaluations of new-product concepts," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 599-615, December.
    13. Benedict G. C. Dellaert, 2019. "The consumer production journey: marketing to consumers as co-producers in the sharing economy," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 238-254, March.
    14. Luigi Cantone & Pierpaolo Testa & Teresa Marrone, 2022. "Issues in defining and placing consumer brand engagement," Italian Journal of Marketing, Springer, vol. 2022(2), pages 135-172, June.
    15. Yimeng Jin & Fei Hu & Jin Qi, 2022. "Multidimensional Characteristics and Construction of Classification Model of Prosumers," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-21, September.
    16. Wang, Nan & Xie, Wenxuan & Tiberius, Victor & Qiu, Yong, 2023. "Accelerating new product diffusion: How lead users serve as opinion leaders in social networks," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    17. Elena Koriajnova & Renaud Garcia-Bardidia, 2012. "Modalités de la co-production des applications Android : une analyse par les fils de discussion," Post-Print hal-03029694, HAL.
    18. Linda Hamdi-Kidar & Cyrielle Vellera, 2012. "What drives lead users to become users entrepreneurs ? an exploratory study of motivations," Post-Print halshs-00851319, HAL.
    19. Cristina Longo & Avi Shankar & Peter Nuttall, 2019. "“It’s Not Easy Living a Sustainable Lifestyle”: How Greater Knowledge Leads to Dilemmas, Tensions and Paralysis," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 154(3), pages 759-779, February.
    20. Estelle Peyrard & Cécile Chamaret, 2020. "Designing for all but with whom? Three cases of codesign with disabled persons [Concevoir pour tous, mais avec qui ? Trois cas de co-conception avec des persones en situation de handicap]," Post-Print hal-03059691, HAL.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01135360. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.