Conceptual fragmentation in marketing science: insights from the value co-creation literature

Purpose – The concept of value co-creation occupies a central role in marketing and service research, yet its usage has often been fragmented and inconsistent. This study aims to examine value co-creation as a case of conceptual fragmentation, offering a large-scale reassessment of its conceptual development. 

Design/methodology/approach – Analyzing 2, 960 articles published between 2004 and 2019, the authors conduct an integrative literature review and statistical analysis. The authors introduce analytical comprehensiveness (AC) as a systematic measure to evaluate how thoroughly the foundational dimensions of value co-creation – value proposition and value-in-use – are engaged. 

Findings – The longitudinal analysis reveals both intuitive and counterintuitive patterns. While integration has generally increased, trajectories differ across article positioning, journal types and rankings. These findings indicate that integration is not simply a function of time but reflects mechanisms of scholarly learning, diffusion and institutionalization. 

Research limitations/implications – To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first quantified, large-scale review of value co-creation, clarifying its foundational dimensions and advancing conceptual fragmentation as an actionable research construct. It opens pathways for future work on conceptual stewardship and cumulative knowledge building. 

Practical implications – This study enhances practical understanding by refining value co-creation into actionable dimensions – value proposition and value-in-use – that can guide managerial application. 

Originality/value – This paper contributes by elaborating conceptual fragmentation as a central phenomenon in marketing, introducing AC as a replicable measure, showing its contingency on structural contexts and refining value co-creation’s conceptual core through the first large-scale empirical analysis of its fragmentation dynamics.