Case Study Analysis on Value Co-creation through Positive Participation of Customers in Technology Application Services

The purpose of technology application services is often to pursue internal efficiency. In addition, when a service is provided by a non-human interface in a technology application service, the perceived service quality by the customers changes from the case of a human service, which affects external efficiency. In previous studies, it is said that internal and external efficiencies are interrelated to each other. In this paper, we examined the relationship between internal efficiency, external efficiency, and perceived service quality by analyzing the cases of technology application services. As a result, we found that even if the internal efficiency was pursued in the technology application services, the external efficiency was not impacted and the perceived service quality was maintained or raised. For that, new value co-creation was required through the “positive participation” of customers. In addition, in terms of external efficiency, new standards different from the conventional ones were adopted in some case. These are also considered cases of Blue Ocean strategy. This study contributes in the following points. Firstly, it clarifies the effect of applying IT on service quality from the viewpoints of both management theory and service theory. We explained the appropriateness of the perspective based on the prior research. There is only a few research of this perspective in the reviewed papers, whereas opposite viewpoint exists. Secondly, it focuses on service quality considering an entire company, not just the customer encounter part. Based on these, practically, we will provide a perspective that can be effectively used to build a service-oriented company.