Value co-creation processes in circular entrepreneurship: a problematizing review of value co-creation and a mixed-methods study.

The present doctoral research addresses value co-creation processes in a timely context, i.e., circular entrepreneurship, and it relies on a mixed-methods research design including an exploratory qualitative study and a subsequent quantitative one. The thesis is composed of three interrelated chapters, each of which constitutes a paper with its structure. The entire work is rooted in the value co-creation theory, which has been developed in service marketing literature with the seminal work by Vargo and Lusch (2004) and it has influenced many research streams in other disciplines such as strategic management. The theory evolved over time, and it has been further revised and improved in service marketing by the authors themselves. However, the concept of “value co-creation” still appears blurry and it is one of the most elusively used concepts in Management. the first chapter of this thesis proposes a review about value co-creation based on the problematization approach, with the aim to improve the value co-creation theory and at offering a better conceptualization of value co-creation encompassing diverse research fields in Management. The second chapter consists in an empirical work aimed at investigating value co-creation within dyads of actors through an ecosystem perspective. More precisely, this paper contributes to the entrepreneurship literature as for the empirical analysis of the mechanisms through which circular small and medium-sized enterprises co-create value with their key actors. The unit of analysis is represented by the dyadic co-creation processes including forms, mechanisms, and process output. This chapter represents the exploratory and qualitative step of a mixed-method study, and its final output consists of an empirical model of value co-creation and in a set of research propositions. The third chapter departs from the empirical model developed in the second chapter, and it aims to verify whether the emerged findings are generalizable, by testing the formulated series of hypotheses concerning the relationships among the variables of the theoretical model. To this end, we employed data collected through a survey administered to a representative sample of 80 European-born circular firms, and we tested the relationships among the variables by adopting the PLS-SEM technique. This dissertation presents a twofold contribution, both theoretical and managerial. From the theoretical perspective, we advance the co-creation theory by offering assumptions with the potential to open on new ways of thinking about co-creation in Management. We also contribute to the growing literature about circular entrepreneurship. From the managerial perspective, this dissertation aims at making circular entrepreneurship and managers reflect upon the value creation stemming from the establishment of value co-creation processes with key actors within and for the ecosystem. Involving actors in a circular business through co-creation processes can represent the path to transition towards the circular economy paradigm.