An exploratory study of co-production and its outcomes in the South African do-it-yourself hardware market

Abstract

Customer retention has become a vital contributor to profi tability in f rms, with the impact thereof over the long term being acknowledged as carrying great weight. The co-production process offers numerous interactions that are valuable for the development of relationships with customers. Co-production offers various benefi ts to both customers and firms. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether customer information and skills, firm information and participation as well as risk relievers had a relationship with benefits and customer satisfaction, and whether customer satisfaction had a relationship with word-of-mouth (WOM) recommendations. Ruddock’s Role Theory (Ruddock 1969) was beneficial in shedding light on the roles adopted by customers and suppliers to undertake co-production. The Partial Least Squares (PLS) technique was used to estimate the strength of the relationships between the variables in the study. The study found a strong positive relationship between the benefits offered by co-production and customer satisfaction. This finding highlights the importance that a firm plays in co-production. Customer satisfaction also had a strong relationship with positive WOM.

Key words: co-production, DIY hardware, benefi ts, customer satisfaction, word-of-mouth