Co-creating sustainability-oriented innovation : a cultural creative industry perspective

Abstract

Research on sustainability-oriented innovation (SOI) recognizes that organization’s innovative capability benefits from collaborating with diverse partners, while changes to an organization’s philosophy and values are created to develop novel products, processes or practices which aim to create environmental and social value along with economic returns. Co-creation as a mechanism of open innovation is valuable during organization’s innovation activities, as it can foster organizational learning, fulfill customer need-recognition, develop capabilities as well provide opportunities for innovation. Consumer co-creation unfolds as consumers are involved, engaged, and participate in an organization’s innovation process and co-creation can take diverse forms, that depend on the phases of the process. The value of co-created knowledge can be assessed by considering the benefits, that are knowledge novelty and relevance against the costs that emerge from co-creation. Further, the communication channels used in co-creation influence the outcomes of the interaction.

While external collaboration for SOI has received research attention, the role of consumer co-creation has been neglected. Particularly, an understanding on applying co-creation for SOI within the cultural creative industries (CCI) has remained limited. This thesis aims to further the understanding of consumer co-creation for SOI by exploring the value dimensions of co-created knowledge, the role of communication channels in the process and the aspects of co-creation that influence sustainable innovation activities. The research is constructed as a single-case study on an organization operating in the cultural and creative sector using a qualitative research approach with semi-structured interviews.

The findings indicated that involving and engaging consumers for the Oulu2026 cultural program serve to create projects that generate environmental and social value. The contribution of co-creation for SOI was seen to be emerging from the consumer-organization interactions, through which both sides were able to combine their knowledge, complement their shared understanding and learn about the other’s needs. Co-creation produced both project-relevant and novel knowledge that contributed to innovation success. Costs were found to have a limited impact on co-creation and related innovation activities. Communication channels were seen to influence the value dimensions of co-created knowledge, hence affect development for SOI. Further, the findings presented different aspects – reasons, barriers and success factors with respect to co-creation for SOI that influenced the related results.

Particularly, co-creation for SOI in the CCI context was seen to advance initiatives related to social sustainability. CCI was viewed to possess a key opportunity within SOI, as their offerings can influence consumer attitudes toward sustainability matters. Products, services and experiences that consider sustainability were seen to enhance the prominence and perception of sustainability within individuals and beyond.