Purpose: The customer as an active and engaged value co-creator raises new challenges for theory and practice, especially in the hospitality industry. However, the connection between engagement and co-creation is little studied in the hotel/tourism literature. This paper proposes a connection between customer engagement (CE) and value co-creation frameworks to ascertain and depict the internal actors' activities and factors that foster or hinder guests' co-creation and destruction of value.Design/methodology/approach: The researchers used qualitative methods (35 in-depth interviews, document analysis and four observation sessions) in seven regions of Ghana to explore the customer's perspective. Data were analyzed with NVivo11 within a thematic analysis framework.Findings: The findings suggest that positive and negative engagement fosters or hinders guests' interactions, which lead to value co-creation or destruction. The research also discovered that negative interactions occasioned by any factor or actor trigger value destruction at multiple stages of the experience journey.Practical implications: Industry players can use the framework developed to assess their businesses, explore and reflect on the proposed value they aim to generate, and thus be more aware of how they can better facilitate value co-creation with their consumers and avoid value destruction.Originality/value: This research proposes a novel connection between customer interactions, engagement and value co-creation to ascertain and depict the internal actors' activities and factors that foster or hinder customers' experience in the hotel/tourism industry.

Purpose: By using the Triple Helix model, the purpose of this paper is to uncover the perceptions of nascent entrepreneurs about a university–industry–government collaboration program, in particular about the role of each agent to foster rural entrepreneurship; the value and effect of this collaboration; and their own contributions to local development. Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative case study method is adopted, involving semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs and secondary data. The text is analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Findings: The interaction of the Triple Helix partners is perceived as valuable both at the personal and the business levels. One of the most salient results is the value ascribed to the knowledge-rich environment created. Entrepreneurs are aware of their contribution to local development, identifying economic, social and cultural effects. Practical implications: The research strengthens the importance of the joint efforts of the Triple Helix partners by uncovering a number of outputs from their collaboration, which affect both the entrepreneurs and local development through entrepreneurship. Originality/value: Previous studies assume that the Triple Helix fosters technological innovation that favors regional development, mainly by adopting a macro-level perspective. This study makes a contribution by furthering the knowledge on the micro-level dynamics of the Triple Helix, through the view of low tech, rural entrepreneurs, considering their context.

The paper aims at exploring the antecedents of customers’ online purchase intention and behaviour, and at uncovering sources of heterogeneity. A sample of customers was surveyed to measure perceived risk and benefits, trust, online purchase intention and behaviour. The study confirmed the causal chain of perceived risks-trust-perceived benefits-online purchase intention-actual purchase. A Finite Mixture Partial Least Squares (FIMIX-PLS) was performed to uncover sources of heterogeneity. It found that the level of security of the payment methods is relevant to understand the relationship between purchase intention and behaviour, while the level of previous experience with the online medium clarifies the relationship between perceived risk and trust. The study contributes to understanding the antecedents of online purchase intention and their relationship with actual purchase behaviour. Additionally, it offers evidence of heterogeneity in the proposed causal relations, particularly, concerning the level of trust in the payment methods and the level of Internet experience.