۱- Introduction

۲- Literature review

۳- Methodology

۴- Results

۵- Discussion and implications

References

Abstract

Hospitality research lacks an understanding of customer-driven innovation and the effects of customers’ psychological characteristics on the success of co-innovation. This paper aimed to examine the role of social exchange ideology in customers’ disposition to social exchange in hospitality co-innovation. The research employed a 2 (co-innovation initiation: customer vs. company) x 2 (disposition to social exchange: strong vs. weak) between-subjects design. Bridging relational aspects of service-dominant logic and social exchange theory, co-innovation contributed to relationship development between a hospitality company and customers through mutually beneficial relational outcomes, operationalized as satisfaction, loyalty and trust. As one of the first studies to examine customers’ disposition to social exchange, it established two dimensions: tangible and intangible. Disposition to exchange moderated the effects of co-innovation initiation on satisfaction and partially moderated paths to loyalty and trust. Hospitality providers should focus on customers with strong intangible social exchange disposition and, in most cases, initiate co-innovation to achieve strong relational outcomes of loyalty and trust.

Introduction

The tourism industry has enjoyed a rapid and uninterrupted growth period. According to UNWTO (2017) international tourist arrivals globally totaled 1235 million in 2016 compared to 278 million in 1980. This rising demand and increasing flexibility of modern travelers are powerful generators of competition in the global hospitality sector forcing firms to adapt and innovate to remain competitive (Chen, 2011; Hjalager, 2010). The shift of power to the consumer, manifested in the sharing economy of collaborative consumption (Heo, 2016) is explained by service-dominant logic (S-D logic) and value co-creation (Vargo and Lusch, 2016). S-D logic focused hospitality practitioners’ attention on the critical aspects of customer involvement in collaborative innovation or co-innovation (Li and Hsu, 2016; Morosan and DeFranco, 2016). According to S-D logic, the value co-creation process is the mutual, concurrent development of new value, both materially and symbolically, through the voluntary contributions of multiple actors resulting in reciprocal well-being (Vargo and Lusch, 2016). Within the broader scope of value co-creation, four types can be distinguished: collaborative innovation or co-innovation, co-creation of experience, co-creation of marketing, and co-creation of recovery or co-recovery (Shulga et al., 2017).