CO-CREATING KNOWLEDGE STRUCTURES FOR COLLABORATIVE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

摘要

There is abundant information available about the importance of company interactions with customers for improvingrnthe value provided by products and services. In this context, co-creation is a promising tool for creating a social processrnbased on collaboration between producers and users, in order to generate value for customers. Empirical testing and arnliterature review of co-creation methods show that further research is necessary to understand how to carry out suchrnwork, and how to transcend the aggregation of user inputs in order to achieve joint creation of meaningful value. Usingrnrecent empirical findings, this article contributes to the interaction processes in collaborative product development byrnproviding an analysis of three theoretical approaches: Collaborative Argumentation, Knowledge Structures, andrnReputation Systems.rnExperimental work was carried out, based on empirical findings. From this work, a set of hypotheses were developedrnconcerning the low level of collaborative interaction between participants. A literature review corroborates thernhypotheses. Then, based on expert advice and the literature review, three theoretical approaches were selected. Eachrnapproach provides elements for interaction process construction and analysis. First, collaborative argumentation addsrncollaboration, argumentation, and interaction protocols; second, knowledge structures add knowledge models, andrnknowledge integration process; and third, reputation systems provide norms and conventions. Currently we are workingrnon the modeling phase, which will be followed by a simulation; after that, an experiment with human agents will berncarried out.rnWe have found that co-creation as a social process requires norms, conventions, and appropriate use of the relevantrnresources, skills and productivity, in order to work properly. These elements can be incorporated and managed using arnreputation system. Furthermore, collaborative argumentation contributes by providing an approach oriented towardsrnobtaining well structured arguments that work as basic units of knowledge. Additionally, knowledge integrationrnprovides elements that are used to link different knowledge contributions. As a result, customer value, composed of usernvalue and hedonic value, and the components of customer experiences, can be identified, and then addressed by therncompany value offer.rnWork on understanding the interactions that take place in the social construction of knowledge structures helps tornadvance the state of the art of co-creation and contributes to the solution of empirically identified problems. Globalrnchallenges require joint work by different stake holders. In this situation, the theoretical approaches presented in thisrnpaper offer elements for constructing knowledge structures, based on arguments, that serve to make decisions about thernright kind of technology, or the elements of value that a particular technology must address in order to fulfill the needsrnof a community.