The city involved an external facilitator to guide the process, which took a total of 1,5 years from start to finish. The aim of the process was to get different actors together to discuss the issue of use of forest in Jyväskylä and finally based on these discussions arrive to a collective decision about how to use the forest. The collaborative project ended May 2018.

Our task as researchers of the value co-creation team of the CORE project was to see what value this process created for the participants in their collaboration and if the final co-created outcome was valuable for them. Value co-creation, as a concept from marketing, has its origins in the understanding that customers are co-creating the value of a product or a service provided to them by the way the product or service is utilised.

In this particular case, value is not co-created by the customer or the provider, in the traditional sense, but by different stakeholders of a particular issue, the use of forest.

While previous literature has looked at value in the connection of a product or a service, our case looks at value co-creation around the issue of use of forest around Jyväskylä city. 

The values of forest sought by different stakeholders vary. As Pearce and Moran (1994)point out, there is a variety of ways to understand the value of a forest. There can be use-value (both direct and indirect), future value (future direct or non-direct value), and non-use-value (bequest or existence value). While forest use-value for e.g. bird-watchers and mushroom or berry pickers increases when the flora and fauna in a forest are flourishing, the use-value for the forest-harvesters grows with the possibility to efficiently harvest trees that are of the right size and quality.

Those that use the forest for upkeeping their condition, or doing sports, may have even have contradicting requests from a more cleared forest and well taken care of pathways, to more wild nature like and less intervention. Also the aesthetic value of the forest plays a role, for those using it for their walks. While these different values are pursued by different stakeholders, sometimes stakeholders themselves need to deal with conflicting demands from their different roles.

The process of value co-creation, including interaction and integration (Gummesson & Mele, 2010; Pera, Occhiocupo, & Clarke, 2016), is successful when stakeholders are able to find ways to increase the value and minimise the loss of value for the different stakeholders and the whole group. The collaborative project of Jyväskylä Forest Program produced a wealth of results.

Most of the participants of the collaborative effort thought that the process itself was heavy and time consuming. However, they also thought the result and outcome of the co-creation process was very good.

That is to say; the process of value co-creation was not as appreciated as the final outcome of the process. The outcome of the process was taken into the consideration when the city officially decided what to do with the forest.

From this case we can learn that from the point of view of value co-creation even if the process is not as satisfactory it is worth of its pains to get a solution that pleases all the parties involved. Despite the seemingly conflicting value premises of use of forest, the solution can be found in a collaborative and facilitated process and even if the process itself is not as much valued the final outcome is.

Sanne Bor and Pia Polsa

References

Gummesson, E., & Mele, C. (2010). Marketing as Value Co-creation Through Network Interaction and Resource Integration. Journal of Business Market Management, 4, 181–198.

Pearce, D. W., & Moran, D. (1994). The economic value of biodiversity. Earthscan.

Pera, R., Occhiocupo, N., & Clarke, J. (2016). Motives and resources for value co-creation in a multi-stakeholder ecosystem: A managerial perspective. Journal of Business Research, 69, 4033–4041.

Sanne Bor works as Researcher at Hanken School of Economics, on the CORE project, and at LUT University, on the PackageHeroes project. She studies collaboration among organizations, among others from the view of value co-creation, partial organization and accountability.

Pia Polsa works as Associate Professor in Marketing at Hanken School of Economics and leads the CORE project’s value co-creation work package. Her current research interests are value creation in environmental conflicts, poverty alleviation, and marketing in non-profit settings like health care in developing countries.

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The concept of value can be seen in terms of a trade-off between benefits and sacrifices. These benefits and sacrifices can be understood in monetary terms, but also as including non-monetary rewards, such as competence, market position, and social rewards. Non-monetary costs can include, for example, the time, effort, energy, and amount of conflict that has to be engaged in order to obtain the desired end result. In addition, value can be, for example, emotional, environmental or functional.

Essential to the current understanding of value is its subjectivity and the idea of perceived value. The value of something is in the end measured by the eye of the beholder.

For example, a bog that has potential in producing peat can hold very divergent values to different stakeholders. The landowner may regard the bog having emotional value (“my family has taken care of this land for decades”), financial value (the profit gained from harvesting or selling the bog), environmental value (conserving the bog as a nesting area of birds), aesthetic value (the beauty of the bog as it is), etc.

Again, an environmental protection organization may share some of these values, even if they probably emphasise the environmental value of the bog. On the other end, a peat industry company finds the most significant value of the bog to be financial as they endeavour to profit from its peat resources. However, in some cases they may also see PR value by promoting the conservation of some areas instead of harvesting the whole bog for peat. We may also define the birds and other animals that occupy the bog as stakeholders. Their value is existential (survival and prospering).

Taken it a step further we could even say that the bog itself may be a stakeholder in a same way. Other stakeholders in this kind of decision making situation may be, for example, local residents, tourists, political decision makers and society at large. The values of the stakeholders emerge in a situation where fundamental decisions about the use of bog are made, for example, whether the bog should be a conservation area or should it be used for peat production. In such a controversial setting, the stakeholders may be firmly standing in the different ends of the value continuum, thus hoping for dissenting outcomes. So, how can we enable the stakeholders to collaborate in a complex decision making situation in a sustainable way, that is, the stakeholders’ perspectives are equally being taken to consideration and that in the end value is, at some level, created for all?

Instead of being on the opposite sides, the stakeholders should co-create value by interacting with each other in a peer-like, collaborative way to create value for all (Galvano and Dalli 2014).

Value co-creation is dependent on the successfulness of the entire relationship between the stakeholders (see e.g., Lindgreen and Wynstra 2005), and interaction is the key issue in succeeding. Encounters between the stakeholders can be emotion supporting (such as stories and recognition), cognition supporting (such as scripts), and behavior and action supporting (such as trials and know-how communication) (Payne et al. 2008). These encounter types cover rather broadly the key aspects of value creation – symbolic, emotional, functional, and economic (see e.g., Rintamäki et al. 2007).

As in any relationship and interaction the optimal starting point is the willingness to listen and understand what others have to say.  Through open interaction and active support for dialogue we may find out what values different stakeholders appreciate and emphasize, and why. Understanding different stakeholders’ root causes and value drivers may pave the way to mutual understanding and provide a sustainable outcome that creates new value for all.

Vilma Vuori

Photo: Martins Krastins / Pexels.com

References

Lindgreen, A. & Wynstra, F. (2005). Value in business markets: What do we know? Where are we going?. Industrial Marketing Management 34(7), 732-748.

Galvagno, M. & Dalli, D. (2014). Theory of value co-creation: a systematic literature review, Managing Service Quality 24(6), 643-683.

Payne, A., Storbacka, K. & Frow, P. (2008). Managing the co-creation of value. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 36(1), 83-96.

Rintamäki, T., Kuusela, H. & Mitronen, L. (2007). Identifying competitive customer value propositions in retailing. Managing Service Quality 17(6), 621-634

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