| Summary: | Recent developments in the literature central to the Service-Dominant (S-D) logic perspective highlighted the importance of customer value. In this perspective, value is seen to be created, determined and perceived by the customer through use or `value-in-use' which directly highlights the importance of customer participation in the service delivery process. This study proposed a framework which tested the relationship between customer participation and the individual customer perceived value dimensions in an Internet-based selfservice technology (ISST) environment. Taking online travel service as the study context, the model incorporated two aspects of customer participation, i.e. objective and subjective, antecedents of customer participation, and the multidimensional-formative conceptualisation of customer perceived value.
Data were gathered from 175 respondents from the general public and 160 students in the UK. A confirmatory approach was used to validate the measurement model in LISREL 8.54 and the structural model was estimated in SmartPLS 2.0. The results supported the proposed conceptualisation which indicated that customer perceived value is determined by customer participation. The main theoretical contribution was demonstrated in the incorporation of the subjective aspect of customer participation and the multidimensional-formative conceptualisation of customer perceived value. By testing the causality between customer participation and customer perceived value dimensions, the findings highlighted that customers do include their participation as a determinant of value which further supported the concept of value-in-use. With the two sample groups found behaving differently in creating value from their participation on travel websites, it further supported the fact that value is uniquely and phenomenologically determined by the beneficiary. Understanding which value dimension is mostly affected by customer participation will provide managerial guidance in terms of enhancing or improving those dimensions that are poorly or highly valued by their customers. By understanding the antecedents of customer participation, online providers will benefit by setting appropriate strategies to enhance their customer participation on the website.
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