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Value co-creation (VCC) in public service provision has become increasingly influential in public administration and management research and practice, although empirical research reflecting on its proposed benefits is lacking. We address this lacuna through a study of social insurance services in Sweden. The findings are analysed based on the literature on VCC and by drawing on research carried out in the private sector, which suggests that exploitative consumer work ensues when citizens engage in service provision. The results show that public service provision entails a mix of VCC and consumer work with an emphasis on the latter.

This paper examines the strategic incentives to adopt sustainability measures within the positioning perspective on competitive advantage. While much of the existing literature emphasizes “win–win” opportunities, suggesting that a commitment to sustainability can simultaneously enhance economic, social and environmental performance, this study adopts a more critical stance. Drawing on the logic of trade-offs inherent in competitive strategy, it argues that the internalization of environmental and social externalities often entails costs that must be justified through price premiums. Integrating insights from strategic management and consumer research, the paper analyzes how demand-side conditions shape the viability of sustainability as a basis for differentiation, with particular attention to consumer involvement and information transparency across niche and mass markets. To capture these dynamics, the paper develops a conceptual 2 × 2 framework identifying how varying levels of involvement and transparency shape firms’ incentives for sustainability differentiation and greenwashing. The analysis suggests that sustainability is most viable as a differentiation strategy in niche markets characterized by high involvement and transparency, whereas its prospects in mass markets remain limited due to price sensitivity, low engagement, and imperfect information. These findings challenge optimistic assumptions about the scalability of sustainability through competitive market mechanisms and highlight the structural constraints that favor cost-based competition and greenwashing.

The concept of consumer responsibilization challenges conventional thinking around responsible consumption, draws attention to its political dimensions, and situates the emergence of responsible consumers within the realm of neoliberal governance. In this article, we critique and amend the theoretical anchoring of consumer responsibilization in the concept of governmentality and the Foucauldian theory of power that underpins it. We argue that governmental theorizing implies flattening the power relationship between the state, the market and consumers, and that it thereby marginalizes and eclipses the top-down exercise of power under neoliberal governance. This produces theoretical inconsistencies in the transformative consumer literature on responsibilization that risk impeding theory development and silencing critical empirical trajectories. At worst, it may end up reifying the neoliberal governance it sets out to scrutinize. We draw on Karl Polanyi’s writings to advance a critical political economy perspective on consumer responsibilization designed to address these concerns. We develop these ideas by introducing the concept of “embedded responsibilization” to the field of consumer research. Theorizing responsible consumption as being embedded in the Polanyian sense will solidify consumer responsibilization as a theoretically consistent transformative research project and encourage necessary trajectories for empirical research on responsibilization.  

Purpose - Critical studies within the economic and administrative sciences are increasingly paying attention to the way markets shift responsibility to consumers for societal and personal goals, referring to this process as consumer responsibilization. This article advances a new approach to responsibilization theory with the aim of overcoming some of its limitations.

Design/methodology/approach - A conceptual approach is used to critique dominant post-structural understandings of consumer responsibility and to advance alternative ways of thinking about responsibilization regimes that highlight the embodied and embedded experiences of responsible consumers.

Findings - The article suggests that responsible consumption is embodied and embedded within neoliberal social structures characterized by inherent tensions and will produce strained experiences rather than skilled and empowered neoliberal subjects. The authors underscore the need for an empirical focus on the adaptational responses of consumers to responsibilization processes. With a focus on the frictional relationship between the idealization pressures involved in responsibilization processes and the real-world consequences embodied in consumer experiences, the conceptual approach may provide new ways to advance the concept of responsibilization as a critique of neoliberal marketization.

Originality/value - While responsibilization theory has been gaining widespread attention, this is the first paper to critically examine its limitations and offer an embedded-embodied perspective on consumer responsibility.

Denna rapport redovisar Göteborgs universitets uppdrag att undersöka förutsättningarna för att utveckla affärsmodeller som är ekonomiskt, socialt och ekologiskt hållbara i pilotområdet Södra Bottenhavet. I detta ingår att beskriva och diskutera möjligheterna att skapa ekonomiska incitament och sociala villkor som stödjer ett ekosystembaserat sätt att förvalta de marina resurserna i Södra Bottenhavet och bidrar till en bättre havsmiljö. Rapporten har identifierat ett antal betydelsefulla verksamheter som genererar ekonomiska flöden i Södra Bottenhavet och/eller påverkar dessa flöden genom sin påverkan på ekosystemtjänster i området. I vår analys av hållbara affärsmodeller kan vi urskilja tre viktiga företagsekonomiska faktorer för ett regionalt medförvaltarskap av marina ekosystemtjänster i området, (1) tillgång till lokala och regionala råvaror i kombination med tillgång till lokal och regional förädlingskapacitet, (2)samverkan och varumärkessynergier samt (3) rådighet, ägande och regionalt medförvaltarskap.Gemensamt för de hållbara affärsmodellerna är att personligt engagemang är en viktig faktor i dessa affärsmodeller, där lokal verksamhet ofta bygger på eldsjälar som är engagerade både av affärsmässiga, sociokulturella och naturresursrelaterade intressen. Samverkan mellan mindre nätverk av aktörer är en central del av dessa hållbara affärsmodeller, där olika aktörer samarbetar för att stärka varandras värdeerbjudanden och öka attraktiviteten för besöksnäringen.Rapporten pekar på att hållbara affärsmodeller är sällsynta och svåra att upprätthålla på grund av hotade och begränsade lokala fiskeresurser. Resultaten av studien visar att hållbara affärsmodeller kräver samverkan mellan olika aktörer, inklusive företag, kommuner och ideella organisationer. Genom samarbete och paketering av kunderbjudanden kan varumärkessynergier skapas och gynna alla involverade parter. Författarna pekar på behovet av att hitta lösningar för att skapa en rättvis fördelning av ekonomiska fördelar som genereras av turism och besöksnäring samtidigt som man bevarar och främjar ekosystemtjänster och hållbarhet i regionen.