Dynamics of wellbeing co-creation: a psychological ownership perspective

Abstract

<jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Purpose</jats:title><jats:p>People are responsible for their wellbeing, yet whether they take ownership of their own or even others' wellbeing might vary from actor to actor. Such psychological ownership (PO) influences the dynamics of how wellbeing is co-created, particularly amongst actors, and ultimately determines actors' subjective wellbeing. The paper's research objective pertains to explicating the concept of the co-creation of wellbeing and conceptualizing the dynamics inherent to the co-creation of wellbeing with consideration of the influences of all involved actors from a PO perspective.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Design/methodology/approach</jats:title><jats:p>To provide a new conceptualization and framework for the dynamics of wellbeing co-creation, this research synthesizes wellbeing, PO and value co-creation literature. Four healthcare cases serve to illustrate the effects of engaged actors' PO on the co-creation of wellbeing.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Findings</jats:title><jats:p>The derived conceptual framework of dynamic co-creation of wellbeing suggests four main propositions: (1) the focal actor's wellbeing state is the intangible target of the focal actor's and other engaged actors' PO, transformed throughout the process of wellbeing co-creation, (2) PO over the focal actor's wellbeing state is subject to the three interrelated routes of exercising control, investing in the target, and intimately knowing the target, which determine the instigation of wellbeing co-creation, (3) the level of PO over the focal actor's wellbeing state can vary, influence and be influenced by the extent of wellbeing co-creation, (4) the co-creation of wellbeing, evoked by PO, is founded on resource integration, which influences the resources–challenges equilibrium of focal actor and of all other engaged actors, affecting individual subjective wellbeing.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Originality/value</jats:title><jats:p>This article provides a novel conceptual framework that can shed new light on the co-creation of wellbeing in service research. Through the introduction of PO the transformation of lives and wellbeing can be better understood.</jats:p></jats:sec>

Social distancing and wellbeing: conceptualizing actor distance and actor safe zone for pandemics

“…More recently, this notion of wellbeing as a state has also been applied to the TSR domain. Chen et al (2020) discuss the dynamics of wellbeing co-creation amongst actors, integrate Dodge et al's (2012) approach and coin the term 'resources-challenges equilibrium (RCE)' (see Table A1 for all definitions employed in this article). Finsterwalder and Kuppelwieser (2020a) build on this conceptualization and extend the perspective of individual wellbeing as a balanced state to service ecosystem wellbeing equilibria.…”

“…For example, this includes being free from abuse when extending one's personal lockdown beyond the peak pandemic phase and the government's imposed self-isolation. Figure 1, lower part, shows an actor's challenges as well as their resource pool depicted as a see-saw (Chen et al, 2020;Dodge et al, 2012). Especially during times of pandemic, an actor might strive but struggle to maintain a resources-challenges equilibrium when aiming at buffering challenges with resources.…”

“…Especially during times of pandemic, an actor might strive but struggle to maintain a resources-challenges equilibrium when aiming at buffering challenges with resources. However, an individual actor can also draw on resources from other actors (Chen et al, 2020), such as social connections as illustrated above.…”

“…repercussions of social distancing) and resources available (e.g. family support) (Dodge et al, 2012), a concept more recently infused into Transformative Service Research (Chen et al, 2020), also in connection with disasters (Finsterwalder & Kuppelwieser, 2020a). Further, this article introduces the construct of actor safe zone and suggests that it can be a crucial place of 'retreat' required during uncertain times which may pose numerous challenges.…”

“…This article aims to answer the research question of how an actor's perceived distance during a disaster can be overcome to improve individual wellbeing. In doing so, it contributes to service-related wellbeing literature as well as disaster-related publications by introducing the constructs of (a) an actor's distance; (b) an actor's safe zone; and (c) then embeds these concepts in the resources-challenges equilibrium (RCE) framework of wellbeing (Chen et al, 2020); to (d) advance more conceptual work to propel the service discipline (Vargo & Koskela-Huotari, 2020), but in particular the domain of Transformative Service Research (Anderson et al, 2013;Hepi et al, 2017;Kuppelwieser & Finsterwalder, 2016).…”