The purpose of the paper is to identify and describe the themes underlying four concepts: client orientation, client involvement, provider empowerment, and client empowerment, which have been reported in the literature as influencing service participant interaction in the formation of a service. The meaning that service participants assign to each of those themes is also to be examined.
Triadic studies were undertaken in two separate locations with three discrete community‐based service networks, purposively recruited from the same aged healthcare organisation. Using a phenomological approach, 29 individual semi‐structured in‐depth interviews with managers, providers, and clients were conducted. Inductive and deductive analysis was used to identify the emerging themes and their meaning for each participant category.
Key themes were identified for each concept, but the meaning ascribed to each theme was found to differ between the participant categories. It is suggested that these results reflect participant role differences in the service co‐creation process.
The findings are limited by the small sample and its relative homogeneity.
The findings offer service managers insights into how to engage clients in the service creation process, which in turn will affect the ultimate quality of the service that is created. They also provide information that will assist with service design, staff selection, training, and assessment.
This is the first study that investigates the four concepts, client orientation, client involvement, provider empowerment, and client empowerment, in the context of service co‐creation. It identifies associated abstract themes and the applied meaning differences of the service participants.
