Organizational Challenges of Customer Co-creation

Abstract

Many firms are facing challenges by applying customer co-creation approaches. While recent research provides extensive insights on the formal methods and theoretical concepts, there is still a research gap concerning the difficulties in the intra-organizational implementation of customer co-creation projects. This piece of work attempts to close the gap by exploring the organizational challenges in customer co-creation projects based on an analysis of twenty interviews with innovation managers and intermediaries. As a result, a framework with three distinct categories of organizational challenges, i.e. structural, procedural and communicational challenges is developed. The paper closes with recommendations for actions to meet these co-creation challenges successfully.