What is co-creation? An interactional creation framework and its implications for value creation

The “co-creation” label has proliferated over the past decade. With little consensus on what “co-creation” is, we offer a novel, unifying perspective by anchoring its theorization in creation through interactions. We develop a definition of co-creation as enactment of interactional creation across interactive system-environments (afforded by interactive platforms) entailing agencing engagements and structuring organizations. Interactional creation is enacted by means of interactions of “agencial assemblages”, while agencing engagements and structuring organizations enable and constrain interactions. Interactive platforms, i.e., instantiations of agencial assemblages, are composed of heterogeneous relations of artifacts, processes, interfaces, and persons. Aided by digitalized technologies, interactive platforms afford a multiplicity of interactive system-environments that connect creational interactions with how experienced outcomes emerge from their underlying resourced capabilities. We apply our definitional framework to the practice of value creation as a co-creation, cutting across conventional “production”, “exchange”, and “use” activities. In doing so, we introduce the concept of value-in-interactional creation. We conclude by providing a summary of our conceptualization, explanation of terms in definition, and illustration in practice, while emphasizing the main contributions of our framework and its research implications.