Every Story Has Two Sides: Co-Production in the Financial Service Industry

Co-production is an important process that alters value creation and improves relationships between service providers and their customers. Much service research has emphasized the importance of service employees as boundary spanners that interact with customers by co-production. Service employees frequently engage in co-production requirements. Such practice allows customers and service employees to access and leverage resources residing in their relationships. Clearly, marketing literature focuses on the bright side of co-production. Nevertheless, the costs and potential negative consequences associated with the dark side of co-production must be further considered. Therefore, this study aims to present a conceptual framework that explores the relationships among co-production, co-production enjoyment, co-production intensity, service effort, job stress, and employee satisfaction, and their effects on customer satisfaction. Furthermore, this study seeks to propose how the effects of co-production on co-production enjoyment, co-production intensity, service effort, job stress depend on the self-efficacy of customers and self-monitoring by service employees. This study provides interesting theoretical insights and valuable managerial implications as regards the positive and negative aspects of co-production and encourage service employees to perform service effort while minimizing job stress. Most importantly, this study provides an understanding of the specific process of co-production to enhance customer and employee satisfaction.