Sustainable Value Co-creation Between Financial Services Firms and Microenterprise Customers: is Digital the Missing Link?

Abstract

This paper investigates how financial services providers (FSPs) can engage in value cocreation with their microenterprise customers (CMEs) for sustainable value cocreation. The potential of digital for value cocreation in inter-firm relationships is relevant because digital technologies such as mobile phone and internet platforms are rapidly transforming the business landscape. The research question addressed is how do financial services firms and microenterprises engage in sustainable value co-creation? It is a qualitative study (using phenomenological interviews and observations) of financial service providers (FSPs) and their microenterprise customers (CMEs) in Ghana. The study builds on the model of Selander et al., (2010) by making contributions to sustainable value co-creation determined through equitable growth supported by (1) entrepreneurial strategies, which are specified as the boundary definition and are directly related to the firm’s innovation; (2) continuous innovations, which are the locus of innovation ranging from process to product emphasis; and (3) monitoring, which is the mode of control used by the firm to capture value from its technology. Our study findings support the conclusion that digital is the missing link to sustainable value cocreation through collaborating.