Previous scholars have examined value co-creation and co-destruction processes that take place between customers and service organizations or employees. Despite most service consumption situations occurring in the presence of other customers, few studies have examined customer-to-customer value co-creation and co-destruction. This lack of attention is particularly prevalent in sport service research. The purpose of the current study is to examine how other customers’ value creation (i.e. passion) and destruction (i.e. dysfunctional behavior) factors influence focal customers’ perceived value (i.e. economic, social, emotional, and epistemic), which in turn leads to customer citizenship behaviors (i.e. helping behavior and word-of-mouth). By using a convenience sampling method, data were collected from 318 spectators of professional golf tournaments. The results of structural equation modeling indicated that other customers’ passion had a positive influence on focal customers’ economic, social, emotional, and epistemic values (i.e. customer-to-customer value co-creation). Other customers’ dysfunctional behavior was negatively associated with customers’ emotional value (i.e. customer-to-customer value co-destruction). Emotional and epistemic values positively predicted helping behavior. Social, emotional, and epistemic values had positive effects on word-of-mouth. Overall, the present study contributes to value co-creation and co-destruction literature by highlighting other customers as potential value integrators. Further, the current work indicates that customer behaviors can serve as a double-edged sword, and it offers golf event practitioners novel insights regarding the necessity of strategic management aimed at facilitating customers’ passionate behaviors while protecting against the deleterious effects of dysfunctional behaviors.

This study was designed to examine the structural relationships among tourists’ participation motivations, the value co-creation process (VCCP), and value co-creation behavior (VCCB) in terms of in-role and extra-role contributions. Based on a comprehensive review of literature, participation motivations were measured with four constructs, including need for uniqueness, need for self-control, need for social interaction, and need for leisure and entertainment. Research participants (N = 445) who had participated in two or more marathon events in China were recruited to respond to an on-site or online survey. Conducting structural equation modeling analyses, three motivational factors of need for uniqueness, need for social interaction, and need for leisure and entertainment were found to exert significant (p < 0.05) and positive impact on VCCP, which in turn had significant (p < 0.05) influence on in-role and extra-role contributions associated with VCCB. Discussions are centered on promoting specific areas of participants’ motivations in an effort to empower and energize the process of value co-creation and to ultimately activate and sustain participants’ in-role and extra-role behaviors.

The purposes of the study are to (1) conceptualize the push-pull-mooring (PPM) framework in the context of fitness centers and (2) empirically examine how factors of push, pull, and mooring effects predict switching behavior. In Study 1, a qualitative method is used to unearth factors of push, pull, and mooring effects pertinent to fitness centers. To this end, a higher-order reflective-formative PPM framework is developed. In Study 2, a quantitative approach using two-wave survey data is undertaken to examine the PPM framework in relation to switching behavior. The results show the significant positive direct influences of push and pull effects on switching behavior. Mooring effects are found to negatively predict switching behavior and negatively moderate the positive relationships of push-pull effects and switching behavior. The findings theoretically and empirically support the conceptualization of the PPM framework and its direct and indirect influences on switching behavior.

HIGHLIGHTS The concept of switching costs has been given increasing attention in the marketing and management literature. However, conceptual confusion in the literature has impeded applying the concept of switching costs to fitness centres. As such, the purpose of the study is to conceptualize switching costs in the context of fitness centres. Four sequential steps are employed to achieve the objective of the study. In Step 1, a qualitative method using open-ended questions (n = 98) identifies switching costs dimensions in fitness centres. The results show 11 multidimensional constructs, which are then conceptualized as a third-order fitness switching costs model (FSCM) in Step 2. In Step 3, the higher-order FSCM is specified as a third-order formative construct consisting of four second-order formative constructs with 11 first-order reflective constructs. Building on the three step s, Step 4 proposes a formal definition of switching costs as consumers’ perceptions of procedural, relationship, financial, and convenience costs when voluntarily considering switching to another fitness centre. Definitions for all lower-order dimensions are also proposed. The theoretically grounded conceptualization of switching costs in the present study enhances conceptual clarity and builds a foundation for further investigations in this area.