Co-creation and engagement: maturing and broadening the horizon

Co-creation and engagement research is maturing as more empirical studies appear (e.g. the previous Co-Creation in Service and Customer Engagement (CCIS-CE) special issue; Conduit and Chen, 2017), a wider theoretical base is adopted (Ellway and Dean, 2016; Leo et al., 2019), context is accounted for (Chen et al., 2017; Chen et al., 2018; Dean and Alhothali, 2017), and technology continues to pervade all practice (Huang and Rust, 2017; Kunz et al., 2019; Ramaswamy and Ozcan, 2018). This special issue reflects these changes through building on the dual themes of micro-foundations of co-creation and facilitation in the engaging world. It continues to evolve from on the historical themes that have been evident in CCIS in the past. CCIS has the mission to foster research dialogue and collaboration on value co-creation in order to advance theory, understanding and practice in service.