Cybernetics of Value Cocreation for Product Development

Abstract

In marketing theory, the shift from the paradigm of value creation to value ‘cocreation’ calls for a deeper grasp of the interactions between producers and customers. Marketing studies have widely focused on the value cocreation concept, but so far, the mechanism through which consumers can be involved in the process of value cocreation through product development had found little space in marketing studies. In this theoretical paper, we aim to fill this gap and pave the way towards a better understanding of the mechanisms of value cocreation for product development through second-order cybernetics. We conceive the market arena as a physical or virtual place where communications of value propositions produce eigenforms driving the eigenbehaviours of producers and customers towards shared meaningful objects. Based on these assumptions, we offer a framework based ont he viable systems model and the law of requisite variety to shed light on processes of interaction between producers and consumers in the market arena. The proposed framework can be an effective tool for the managers involved in product design and marketing to contribute to a firm’s policies by supplying a clearer picture of the systemic relations involved in the value cocreation for product innovation and product development.