Abstract

Background: Value co-creation emerged at the beginning of the 21st century as a new way of understanding of value and its creation which occurs around individualized experiences of co-creation, leading to the creation of value that is exclusive to every person. In the essence of the concept of value co-creation lays the service-dominant logic of marketing. The investigation of value co-creation within brand communities has been emphasized in recent years. The practices of brand community members play a significant role in the value co-creation. Since Airbnb has never been looked as a brand community in the value co-creation literature, it remained unclear how value can be co-created through the practices of Airbnb community members.

Purpose: How value is co-created between brand community members of Airbnb (between hosts and guests and guests themselves) through their practices in their experiences within the corporeal world?

Method: In order to meet the purpose of this study, authors applied a qualitative method. Further, a netnographic strategy has been employed which led us to collect online-posted reviews of Airbnb guests from Airbnb website. Authors used purposive sampling by selecting the only guests who had the previous experience of stay in Airbnb accommodations in cases of on-site hospitality. 155 reviews of different guests from 31 accommodation profiles were collected in three waves of data collection. Moreover, a grounded theory coding was employed in order to analyze the data.

Conclusion: We identified 14 sub-categories of value-creating practices that emerged under four major categories, namely: practice of sharing, practice of communicating, practice of saving, and practice of authenticating. Further, in the process of elaboration of main elements of practices (i.e. objects, doings, and meanings), we found general connections of these elements within the practices of hosts and guests (i.e. Airbnb community members) that helped us to understand how value is co-created in their experiences within the corporeal world.