RESPONSIBLE ENTREPRENEURSHIP VISION DEVELOPMENT AND ETHICS

238 RESPONSIBLE ENTREPRENEURSHIP
uct has to be made affordable to the poor as well. This all requires a collaborative network of
big and small players. As the organizations expand across the globe, the diversity of languages,
customs, and norms must be matched with the sheer scale of operations.
Another principle refers to the approach of understanding the nature of the resource base
of large firms and learning how to access high-quality resources at low costs. Historically,
firms accumulated all the resources they needed in-house. Today firms have moved away from
this model of vertical integration and have initiated programs to access specialized, global
suppliers. This goes along with speed and the need for the continuous scaling and downsizing
of operations, requiring the building of new infrastructures.
Recognizing individuals as unique in all their roles (consumers, employees, investors, suppliers,
and citizens) will become a prerequisite for success in value creation. Similarly, recognizing
that resources are highly distributed – within the global firm, among suppliers, in
customer communities, and among people at large – is critical. Managers must build systems
that selectively pull together teams that are uniquely capable of providing high-quality, lowcost
solutions rapidly. This transformation is about the centrality of the individuals, their
choices and their co-created experiences.
Social entrepreneurship and co-creation for sustainable business
Although co-creation has interesting antecedents in literary theory, organizational development,
and software design, the modern idea of co-creation derives from three areas (Ind
et al., 2013). First, the emergence and widespread adoption of digital communications from
the 1990s onwards has enabled individuals to connect themselves in networks and communities.
Second, in an attempt to become close to customers and to understand better their
behaviour, organizations have recognized that they can become part of the customer experience.
Third, the increasing emphasis within marketing thinking on the exchange of intangibles
has changed the focus from the act of purchase to usage. When individuals approach a
co-creation process, they do so with an existing perception of the brand that frames their expectations,
and as the process develops, it influences how they create and evaluate ideas.
According to Ind et al. (2013), the emphasis on community leads to a working definition
of co-creation as “an active, creative, and social process based on collaboration between organizations
and participants that generates benefits for all and creates value for stakeholders.”
This definition builds on the description of co-creation as something that “aims to provide
an idea, share knowledge, or participate in the development of a product or service that can
be of value for other customers” (Witell, Kristensson, Gustafsson & Löfgren, 2011).
Ind et al. (2013) claim that co-creation is not purely an organizational opportunity or simply
a place where consumers interact, but instead it is a way of organizations and individuals
working together in a process of discovery that delivers benefits for participating individuals
(such as fulfillment and socialization) and for the organization (such as insight, idea generation
and development, and marketing platforms). This idea of co-creation is distinct from
some other terms such as mass collaboration, crowdsourcing, and mass customization that
get conflated with it. Co-creation is different from mass customization (such as NIKEiD),
because it involves the participant in a process that creates value not only for the individual,
but also for others. Co-creation is different from the crowdsourcing of ideas (such as competitions
and polls) because it implies an active intellectual participation in a process, and it