VALUE CREATION AND VALUE CO-CREATION IN PROFESSIONAL BUSINESS SERVICES: A CHALLENGE IN DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

The study assumes on the literature and the experts views on knowledge-intensive business services and their ability to provide knowledge and innovation to their customers. Drawing on the concept of the delivering highly expertise knowledge to create value, the professional business services, being large part of knowledge-intensive business services, are discussed from the perspective to value co-create through the relationship with their customers. This conceptual study aims to contribute to the understanding of value co-created processes in professional business services in social media environment. The importance of the content of communication in social media is suggested to be a prerequisite for adding value or participation in the co-creation process in professional business services in digital environment where the value co-creation the trust is strongly dependent from trust, dedication and reputation. The paper addresses that value co-creation in professional business services should be seen as a driver for customer-supplier relationship primarily from a management perspective and, to a lesser extent, from marketing point of view.