CUSTOMER CO-CREATION IN THE PRINTING AND PACKAGING INDUSTRY: A STRATEGIC APPROACH TO VALUE CAPTURE
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.69980/3bj0x919Keywords:
customer co-creation, printing and packaging industry, value capture, sustainability, mixed-methods research, resource-based view, digital collaborationAbstract
The printing and packaging industry is being reshaped by digital production systems, sustainability expectations, shorter product life cycles, and growing demand for customised brand communication. Although customer co-creation is well established in service, innovation, and digital platform research, its role in the printing and packaging industry remains comparatively under-examined. This paper investigates customer co-creation as a strategic mechanism for value capture in printing and packaging firms. Drawing on value co-creation theory and the resource-based view, the study argues that customer knowledge becomes strategically meaningful when it is transformed into repeatable organisational routines for design, production, sustainability alignment, and customer relationship management. A mixed-methods design was adopted, combining 20 semi-structured interviews with executives, designers, marketing professionals, and selected customers, and a structured survey of 150 industry professionals and customers. The survey measured customer co-creation capability, digital collaboration, organisational support, sustainability orientation, operational efficiency, customer satisfaction, market differentiation, and value capture using five-point Likert-scale items. Reliability and validity were assessed through Cronbach’s alpha, content validation, exploratory factor checks and triangulation with qualitative themes. In addition to descriptive statistics and correlation analysis, the revised analysis reports regression, mediation and group comparison results. The findings show that customer co-creation has a positive and statistically significant association with value capture, and that operational efficiency partially mediates this relationship. Digital collaboration, organisational support and sustainability orientation further strengthen the value of co-creation. The paper contributes to theory by explaining how value co-creation can be converted into a valuable, difficult-to-imitate organisational capability in a manufacturing-service hybrid sector. It also offers managerial guidance for firms seeking to use customer collaboration as a disciplined route to innovation, sustainability and competitive advantage.
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