Happiness and co-creation of value: Playing the blues

Hughes, Tim; Vafeas, Mario

Abstract

Little has been written about co-creational aspects of happiness. Happiness is generally treated in the marketing literature as an individual outcome of exchange. However, the notion of value in exchange has been challenged by service-dominant (S-D) logic. To stimulate the research discovery process, an account of co-creation of happiness is offered, based on the experience of the lead author, in playing blues music. We propose value is co-created in a context when it is perceived by an individual to be adding to their happiness/subjective well-being (SWB). Thus, the concepts of value and happiness/SWB are closely linked and interconnected. The contribution to S-D logic is in recognising the interconnectedness between value co-creation and happiness/SWB. In particular, this article draws attention to the co-creative role of the artist, in cultural ecosystems. This is relevant to the development of the field and has potentially significant implications for policy in allocating society’s resources.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 9, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Jul 19, 2021
• Publication Date: Dec 1, 2021
• Deposit Date: Jun 30, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 12, 2021
• Journal: Marketing Theory
• Print ISSN: 1470-5931
• Electronic ISSN: 1741-301X
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 21
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 579-589
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/14705931211032255
• Keywords: Service-dominant logic; happiness; subjective well-being; resource integration; institutional logics; service eco-systems.
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/7481129