Non-profit organization-business value co-creation: conceptualization and scale development

Abstract

The value co-creation strategy is adopted by companies in its relationships with stakeholders as a mechanism to improve the performance of its activities. Both from the perspective of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices carried out by companies, and from the approach of the mission that non-profit organizations (NPOs) must effectively fulfil, adopt the strategy of co-creation in activities, projects, programs, etc. that both entities jointly develop is essential to achieve the expected organizational and social value. However, although the value co-creation between companies and its stakeholders (mainly customers) has been substantially investigated in recent years, there is a significant gap in both theoretical and empirical research into the adoption by the NPOs of said management approach in its collaborative relationships with companies. Therefore, after reviewing the literature on co-creation, an NPO-business value co-creation scale is developed in the empirical part, consisting of four basic dimensions: participation, reciprocity, learning, and engagement. The proposed scale shows reliability and construct validity (convergent and discriminant). The main conclusions and practical implications that this management strategy has for organizations are presented.