CO-CREATING KNOWLEDGE STRUCTURES FOR COLLABORATIVE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

摘要

There is abundant information available about the importance of company interactions with customers for improving the value provided by products and services. In this context, co-creation is a promising tool for creating a social process based on collaboration between producers and users, in order to generate value for customers. Empirical testing and a literature review of co-creation methods show that further research is necessary to understand how to carry out such work, and how to transcend the aggregation of user inputs in order to achieve joint creation of meaningful value. Using recent empirical findings, this article contributes to the interaction processes in collaborative product development by providing an analysis of three theoretical approaches: Collaborative Argumentation, Knowledge Structures, and Reputation Systems. Experimental work was carried out, based on empirical findings. From this work, a set of hypotheses were developed concerning the low level of collaborative interaction between participants. A literature review corroborates the hypotheses. Then, based on expert advice and the literature review, three theoretical approaches were selected. Each approach provides elements for interaction process construction and analysis. First, collaborative argumentation adds collaboration, argumentation, and interaction protocols; second, knowledge structures add knowledge models, and knowledge integration process; and third, reputation systems provide norms and conventions. Currently we are working on the modeling phase, which will be followed by a simulation; after that, an experiment with human agents will be carried out. We have found that co-creation as a social process requires norms, conventions, and appropriate use of the relevant resources, skills and productivity, in order to work properly. These elements can be incorporated and managed using a reputation system. Furthermore, collaborative argumentation contributes by providing an approach oriented towards obtaining well structured arguments that work as basic units of knowledge. Additionally, knowledge integration provides elements that are used to link different knowledge contributions. As a result, customer value, composed of use value and hedonic value, and the components of customer experiences, can be identified, and then addressed by the company value offer. Work on understanding the interactions that take place in the social construction of knowledge structures helps to advance the state of the art of co-creation and contributes to the solution of empirically identified problems. Global challenges require joint work by different stake holders. In this situation, the theoretical approaches presented in this paper offer elements for constructing knowledge structures, based on arguments, that serve to make decisions about the right kind of technology, or the elements of value that a particular technology must address in order to fulfill the needs of a community.