Value Co-creation through Early Warning Signs in a Project Setting

Value co-creation as a joint process between actors to extract benefits is becoming established as one the most significant shifts in contemporary business thinking. Value co-creation provides an opportunity for a balanced and enriched realisation of value amongst stakeholders such as clients, contractors and end users in complex projects. The success of complex projects, due to the large number of stakeholders and high uncertainty level, is highly dependent on the joint processes among clients and suppliers as the key creators of value. In particular, the management of communication, associated learning and conflict management are the main determinants of value co-creation. Although research studies have been conducted extensively to investigate ways to enhance performance of projects, little emphasis has been put on the importance of the value co-creation process for realising project benefits and impact. There has been scant attention paid to weak signals in theory and practice to defend value creation and encourage the conditions for co-creation early in the project lifecycle. Based on the theory of "weak signals", challenging situations and discontinuities do not emerge without warning. With hindsight, the most likely factors leading to undesired events are often signalled. The identification, evaluation and utilisation of these signals potentially improve learning and communication in the value co-creation process. This research aims to conceptually define weak signals of potential challenges in value co-creation processes, address the way they are identified and evaluated, and examine their use in improving value co-creation. In particular, we look at the processes jointly owned by contractors and clients in complex projects.