Boosting Co-Production through Fantasy

Managers and researchers have recently identified customer participation in production (coproduction) as the new frontier for competitive effectiveness even in mass markets (Chan et al 2010). However, customers often do not engage into these complex processes. Process complexity is the barrier preventing customers to start co-production processes. In this paper, thanks to two experimental studies, we show that an individual trait, fantasy, by boosting customers’ cognitive abilities, makes perceive complex processes as effortless. Customers when stimulated with their fantasy, perceive coproduction processes as simpler and hence show a greater outcome satisfaction