Stoyan Tanev, Institute of Technology and Innovation University of Southern Denmark Odense

 Dimensions of customer value  Relationship between customer value and creativity  Some key aspects of activity theory  Method  Discussion

 Value built-in the product ◦ Built-in value is the view of the developer/designer and is reflected in the price  Value perceived by customers ◦ Perceived value is reflected in customers’ willingness to pay  Built-in value is usually higher than perceived value  This is especially true for technological products such as consumer electronics

t = 0 First encounter with new product Value V = $ Built-in value - “objectively existing” Appreciated value t = t F Finally appreciated value ΔVΔV t = t P Purchase ΔVPΔVP ΔVFΔVF V = V 0 V = V F

 ΔV is the result of customer efforts ◦ Value creation by customers  customer creativity  ΔV is function of time: ΔV = ΔV(t)  ΔV P is what makes a customer buy, OR  ΔV P is what makes an interested person a customer: ◦ Customer co-creation  customer self-creation ◦ Critical importance for technological product adoption  Finally perceived value has three components: V F = V 0 + ΔV P + ΔV F Initial value appreciation Purchase value appreciation After purchase value appreciation

ΔΔV emerges within the context of customer activities TThese activities are dialogical in nature DDialogue with ◦f◦friends and relatives ◦s◦store representatives ◦o◦other customers ◦W◦WWW ◦t◦the product itself

aactor-network theory ◦e◦emphasis on the power of technologies, their ability to “push-back” in activity ddistributed cognition ◦i◦importance of tools in cognition ◦c◦cognition as distributed across people & tools aactivity theory pphenomenology ◦f◦focus on everyday experience as part of a “being thrown in the world” perspective

AApproach in psychology and other social sciences that aims to understand individual human beings, as well as the social entities they compose, in their natural everyday life circumstances, through an analysis of the genesis, structure, and processes of their activities. AA framework for thinking about human activity as it is expressed in the use of technology by focusing on ◦h◦human intentionality ◦a◦asymmetry in the interaction between people and things ◦i◦importance of human development (change) ◦t◦the idea of culture and society as shaping human activity ◦c◦creativity, reflexivity, and resistance as a source of change Kaptelinin, V. & Nardi, B. Acting with technology – Activity theory and interaction design, MIT Press, 2006

 The concept of activity is most fundamental ◦ purposeful interaction of the subject with the world ◦ a process in which mutual transformations between the poles of “subject–object” are accomplished (Leontiev, 1978)  Primacy of activity over the subject & object ◦ analysis of activities enable understanding both subjects and objects ◦ no properties of the subject and the object exist before and beyond activities ◦ properties do not just manifest themselves in various circumstances; they truly exist only in activities, when being enacted ◦ analogies with complementarity in quantum mechanics

 Activity is considered the key source of development of both the object & subject  Activities may cause substantial changes in the subject’s properties  Traditional approaches consider first the subject and the object, and then focus on interaction  AT: using activity as the basic unit of analysis provides a way to understand both subjects & objects

 Creativity refers to an imaginative activity directed towards an object in which an original product emerges  Creativity manifests itself in personal insights  It is related to internal (personal) restructuring of the whole representation of a problem  Individual vs group creativity ◦ Zone of proximal development - difference between what one can do alone and what one can do in dialogue with others  The concept of mediation, combined with understanding creativity helps to conceptualize creativity in groups  Conversations with others help individual group members to frame problems in new ways and then contribute those new insights to the group  Creativity is by definition dialogical creativity

 Breakdowns, conflicts, and contradictions  Different levels of collaboration ◦ coordination  people work toward a common goal, but carry out individual activities basically independently ◦ cooperation  Relating individual goals to the objective of a collective activity and adjusting your actions to the actions of others ◦ co-construction  collectively redefine the object and the collective activity itself – the object may then be constructed anew, that is, co-constructed.

 Using the activity theory framework to study customer creativity as a source of new service development  Objective ◦ Monitor customer activities to demonstrate the value appreciation process

 Analyze customer activities to examine dialogical nature of value appreciation  Use customer struggle points to identify new services that could help the appreciation of value  Focus on both ◦ Pre-purchase customer experience ◦ Post-purchase user experience  Rapid ethnography technique + interview sessions at retail store exit with an arrangement of a second future interview in a week or so.

 Narrows down the focus of the field research appropriately before entering the field.  Zooms in on the important activities.  Uses key informants such as sales assistants.  Use multiple interactive observation techniques to increase the likelihood of discovering exceptional and useful customer behavior.  Use collaborative and computerized iterative data analysis methods.