Literature gaps. In general, there is a limited understanding of how two parties (customer and supplier) in a business relationship jointly co-create value. Although studies have previously been done on value in a business context, these studies tend to assume one party creating value for the other thereby taking one perspective such as the customer’s (Xxxxx and Xxxxxx 2006) or the supplier’s (Xxxxxx et al. 2001) and hence assuming value creation rather than value co-creation. Others are not empirical (Xxxxxxx et al. 2004; Xxxxxxxx and Xxxxxxxxx 2004a; Xxxxx 2001; Xxxxx et al. 2008) in their analysis of how cooperative interactions in a relationship yield value. Likewise, studies that have attempted to identify the collaborative areas fail to identify the associated value and how it is co-created. Other studies have used nomothetic research design (Xxxxx and Xxxxxx 2004; Eng 2005a; Eng 2007) which while useful for instance in the discovery of correlations, tends not to emphasize the process of interplay between contextual and organizational/dyad characteristics. The extant literature therefore suggests relatively little about how customers engage with suppliers in the co-creation of value. The few empirical studies on value co-creation have been in sectors such as shipping (e.g. Forsström 2005a) and forestry (Lefaix-Xxxxxx 2008), although it would be important to understand how the co-creation is taking place across other industries. Unlike in the past where firms tended to create value autonomously, increasingly firms are creating value jointly. However it is not well understood how firms, particularly customers and suppliers, are co-creating value. Early empirical attempts to investigate value co-creation (Forsström 2005a) have assumed a single case study strategy and in different industries from food and drink (shipping). Adoption of multiple case studies in investigating value co-creation and in a different sector such as organic food and drink would likely generate new insights. The organic sector would likely provide a rich case for studying this phenomenon considering its unique characteristics. This enquiry hopes to build on the extant knowledge on how two parties, a customer and a supplier, co-create value. There is no study that has been found which has investigated the co-creation of value in customer-supplier relationships in the organic food and drink sector. This sector would be interesting considering its unique characteristics including added value due to i...
