طراحی و تبیین مدل پارادایمیِ هم‌آفرینی در صنعت گردشگری پایدار روستایی (مطالعه موردی: شهرستان دامغان، استان سمنان)

Designing and Explaining the Paradigm Model of Co-creation in the Sustainable Rural Tourism (Case Study: Damghan Township, Semnan Province)







A B S T R A C T



A R T I C L E I N F O





Co-creation is a new business strategy resulting from effective interaction between organizations and customers. By influencing the production of tourism services according to the tourist's idea, this approach leads companies to produce innovative competitive products. By offering products that are more compatible with tourists' preferences, they reduce the risk of failure of new products. The current research has been conducted to design the paradigm of co-creation in the sustainable rural tourism of Damghan Township. The research method is exploratory and fundamental in terms of its purpose. The statistical sample was 15 specialists in rural tourism. The participants of this research were selected non-probably using the snowball method. The grounded theory method was used to analyze the data, and in-depth interviews were used to collect the data. The results of this research, which is the identification of categories, are: In terms of causal conditions, educational factors, structural factors, and communication factors; in terms of the main phenomenon, co-creationism; about intrusive conditions, formalism, cost orientation; in the context section, brand orientation and about the main strategy, the categories of market orientation, innovation orientation, futurism, and competitor analysis. The implementation of the process of value co-creation with tourists in the rural tourism industry can help to effectively exploit the capacities of tourists to achieve competitive advantage and positive economic, social-cultural, political, and environmental consequences. The result of this can be tourism sustainable development, which is the most important result of this research.









Extended Abstract

Introduction

Tourism is one of the most important business sectors in the global economy. Therefore, paying attention to co-creation as a basic source of competitive advantage and one of the most important concepts of modern marketing science becomes doubly important. The current research was conducted to design and explain an efficient model with a multifaceted view of co-creation innovation in the rural tourism industry of Damghan Township. This research seeks to respond to the nature, manner, and description of the characteristics of co-creation from different aspects and the point of view of experts. The paradigm model has been chosen because it is a desirable and flexible implement to evaluate immeasurable facts in co-creation and its role in rural tourism development. In this regard, the main questions of this research are: What is the main phenomenon in the field of co-creation in the development of rural tourism from the perspective of experts? From experts' views, what are the components of causal, intrusive, and context conditions? What are the consequences of co-creation in the research field? What are the strategies that help to substantiate the main phenomenon?



Methodology

From a natural point of view, the current research is in the category of applied research, and from a methodological point of view, it is in the qualitative research group. The grounded theory was chosen as a suitable method in the present study because the researcher intended to scrutinize the experts' experiences to formulate a theory on co-creation's role in rural tourism development in Damghan Township. According to the subject area, the statistical community includes experts in the field of rural tourism, and in this research, a problem-oriented and in-depth interview was conducted with 15 experts in this field. The interviewees' perceptions' mentions of co-creation in the development of a sustainable rural tourism industry were investigated to provide a paradigmatic model.



Results and discussion

Based on the open and axial coding results, the final paradigm model was presented at this stage. The related categories were examined in the previous stages, which led to the discovery and emergence of the theory. In data analysis, the causal conditions were explained in the form of three concepts as educational factors (learning culture and pedagogy), structural factors (strengthening of infrastructure), and communication factors (attention to tourists). Brand orientation (brand creation and brand image) was extracted from the counted codes as contextual factors. Based on the concepts obtained, formalism and cost-orientation are the two basic and general axes that intervene in the effect of co-creation on the development of rural tourism in the studied area. According to the counted codes, the category of co-creationism was chosen as the main phenomenon. In the field of strategies, there are four categories as market orientation (determining the ability of companies to anticipate, react, and capitalize on environmental changes), innovation orientation (cognitive orientation that overvalues the benefits of a new service and does not pay attention to limitations), futurism (functional perspective, program orientation and co-creative policies) and competitor analysis are introduced. Based on the obtained codes, the resilience category, with the characteristics of risk-taking and empowerment, was identified in the consequences section.



Conclusion

This research showed that co-creation is a joint action for the formation and development of a new product in the field of rural tourism, during which tourists determine the path of product innovation by participating in an active dialogue. The transfer of information, knowledge, and awareness at micro and macro levels in society and organizations depends on the people facilitating and accelerating this transfer. Therefore, communication and interaction between people have a decisive role in expanding and applying knowledge and awareness. Suppose the companies providing rural tourism services in the studied area can increase the effective interactions between employees and tourists; they can be sure of the effectiveness of advertising and marketing to loyal tourists through co-creation. The findings of the current research showed that co-creation can accelerate the process of achieving sustainable development by facilitating innovation, marketing and the use of social platforms, institutionalism, education, awareness raising, human resource development, and skill development, creating new mechanisms to produce new methods of attracting tourists and Production of knowledge in this field.