Expanding understanding of brand value co-creation on social media from an S-D logic perspective: Introducing structuration theory

Brands are increasingly seen in light of collaborative, value creation activities of a firm and all of its stakeholders. This is strongly influenced by the emergence and dominant role that social media plays in societies globally. With challenges presented for brand management and marketing scholarship more generally, to understand and react to the social implications presented for brand value creation. Accordingly, this study builds on the principles of S-D logic to expand understanding of the co-creation of brand value on social media. We introduce social construction theories, focusing on structuration theory. A conceptual model and propositions apply a structuration perspective to provide new insights into how brand value is socially constructed by multiple stakeholders using social media. The focus is on how stakeholder-brand interactions play out across three dimensions of social structure: meaning; norms; and power. We consider how brand meaning (and thus value), emerges out of consensus and dissensus between various stakeholders – brand loyalists and brand rebels – using social media to interact with brands. And how norms of behavior and structures of power guide and legitimize their social media use to reinforce, or potentially transform, brand meaning. Importantly, we consider how brand management can recognize the interactive opportunities provided by different social media platforms and the positions and roles of stakeholders and their social context in considering the social construction of brand value.