Serving yourself: value self-creation in health care service

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the concept of value self-creation and provides a formal definition for this concept. The paper suggests that it sits within an overall continuum of value creation that includes value delivery and value co-creation. Design/methodology/approach A proposed model of value self-creation was developed and empirically tested in a health care self-service, bowel screening. An online, self-completion survey was administered to Australian men and women aged 50 years and above, as this represents the primary target population for bowel screening. Findings The results of the structural equation modelling in AMOS suggest that consumers can self-create value, leading to desired outcomes of satisfaction with the consumption experience and behavioural intentions to engage with the self-service again in the future. The findings provide empirical evidence to suggest that consumers’ behavioural contributions represent the most important consumer contributions in self-service, followed by cognitive contributions. Originality/value The study provides an empirically validated model of value self-creation in health care self-service. Much of the existing research on value co-creation has concentrated on traditional service types and is ill-placed to explain the value creation processes in self-services. This study offers originality by addressing this gap and demonstrating to service managers how they can manage consumer contributions towards a self-service and facilitate value-self creation, even though they are not present during the consumption stage of the consumption process.