“We’re Not Designing with the Same Brain”: How Tattoo Artists Navigate Authority-Expertise Asymmetry to Sustain Creator-Client Co-Creation

Co-creation between creator–client dyads is becoming increasingly common in creative service work. In these settings, clients hold authority over creative decisions, while providers possess the necessary expertise to evaluate and execute the work, resulting in authority–expertise asymmetry. Yet, little is known about what unique challenges arise from authority–expertise asymmetry and how creative service providers navigate them to sustain co-creation. We address this question through an inductive study of 51 tattoo artists who collaborate with clients to create permanent, highly personal tattoos. Our analysis reveals that creative service providers experience authority-driven inputs as straining co-creation, specifically through strained visioning, feasibility, and participation. To sustain co-creation in the face of these challenges, the providers engage in facilitating co-creation practices, which we define as the set of deliberate practices through which providers shape how authority-driven client inputs enter and function in the interaction under conditions of authority–expertise asymmetry. This facilitation involves three interrelated practices: facilitating ideation, implementation, and coordination. Together, our findings advance a model of how co-creation can be sustained when authority and expertise are structurally decoupled, with implications for theories of co-creation, coordination, and creativity.