Co-creating value in entrepreneurship : an exploratory study of Lebanese women

Abstract

This study aims to amplify theory and practice at the marketing/entrepreneurship interface (MEI) by proposing a revision to the key concept of value creation. Advances in marketing research suggest that value is co-created by means of multiple actors, who integrate their resources within ecosystems. This study, therefore, investigates value co-creation from a MEI perspective. The study is based in Lebanon, a country encountering turbulence and disruption, providing a MENA context. In recognition of local conditions, the methodology is contextually congruent, using socially mediated interviews and panel discussions. Analysis of these data uncovers emergent practices of VCC that are captured in two dimensions of adaptive marketing and online interactions that take place within a digitally enabled but imbalanced entrepreneurial ecosystem. The study offers a revision to theory at the MEI by extending value creation to value co-creation and by showing how value co-creation may be adapted and reconfigured according to local circumstances.