• Identify and define relevant ethical perspectives to brand co-creation processes and outputs and critically discuss their implications
• Identify and discuss practical and ethical implications and limitations of brand co-creation processes
• Apply the theoretical knowledge of brand co-creation processes and their ethicality to real brand cases

This advanced course confronts students with and prepares them for a complex branding reality in which customers and other stakeholders are every day more involved in various brand co-creation processes (i.e., co-creation of brand value, identity, experience, knowledge, meaning, products and services). Nowadays, brands face a socioeconomic scenario that is characterized by online communities, decentralized organizations, fast and flexible new production facilities, and a rapid evolution of information technologies. This evolution has led to an improved brand-stakeholder interconnectivity, which has provided brands with the opportunity of involving their key stakeholders in brand co-creation processes. The management potential is enormous as evidenced by the emergence of new business models that integrate customers (e.g., AirBnB & Uber) and the rest of stakeholders (e.g., Amazon) into their core business processes. However, the current enhanced brand-stakeholder interconnectivity has also turned the environment into a more transparent one, giving rise to ethical concerns in business. In such environment, a host of ethical issues arise that are not always well considered. For example, who owns intellectual property rights of the co-created outputs? What about the processes? Where does responsibility lie when things go wrong? Who is culpable? What is the proper division of labour? Can we talk of “working consumers” or is this just free labour? What reward systems are equitable and relevant? Should there be limits of involving vulnerable stakeholders? Furthermore, what are the expectations on brands involved in co-creation? Are they different from brands not involved in co-creation?

In this course students will be confronted with the most renowned theoretical brand co-creation perspectives and will learn how brands ought to be managed in an ever more interconnected environment where ethical brand behaviours are a must. The theoretical discussion will be complemented with input from brand academics and practitioners as well as with hands-on applications of different brand co-creation approaches to actual brand cases. The course will prepare students who want to work in brand-building projects in different contexts in their future career. It provides the basis for development of knowledge and understanding of how brands are co-created and maintained in relation to multiple stakeholders in dynamic environments where ethicality is every day more demanded, and thereby prepares students for a challenging career in branding.

This course is designed for students from a range of Masters’ programmes in branding, communication, innovation and business ethics.

Indicative reference list:

Lise-Lotte Lindfelt Jan-Åke Törnroos, (2006),"Ethics and value creation in business research: comparing two approaches", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 40 Iss 3/4 pp. 328 – 351

McColl-Kennedy, J. R., Hogan, S. J., Witell, L., & Snyder, H. (2017). Cocreative customer practices: Effects of health care customer value cocreation practices on well-being. Journal of Business Research, 70, 55-66.

Nysveen, H., & Pedersen, P. E. (2014). Influences of co-creation on brand experience The role of brand engagement. International Journal of Market Research, 56(6), 807-832.

Payne, A. F., Storbacka, K., & Frow, P. (2008). Managing the co-creation of value. Journal of the academy of marketing science, 36(1), 83-96.

Ranjan, K. R., & Read, S. (2016). Value co-creation: concept and measurement. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 44(3), 290-315.

Roggeveen, A. L., Tsiros, M., & Grewal, D. (2012). Understanding the co-creation effect: when does collaborating with customers provide a lift to service recovery?. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 40(6), 771-790.

Santos-Vijande, M. L., López-Sánchez, J. Á., & Rudd, J. (2016). Frontline employees’ collaboration in industrial service innovation: routes of co-creation’s effects on new service performance. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 44(3), 350-375.

Schau, H. J., Muñiz Jr, A. M., & Arnould, E. J. (2009). How brand community practices create value. Journal of marketing, 73(5), 30-51.

Stanislawski, S. (2011). The Service-Dominant Logic of Marketing and the Ethics of Co-Creation.

Williams, J., & Aitken, R. (2011). The service-dominant logic of marketing and marketing ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 102(3), 439-454.