The role of sustainable value co-creation in the supply chain: A research on the agricultural development cooperative with multi-dimensional perspective

Service design logic is an approach that states that customers and suppliers create value together within the supply chain. Value can be created together when customers and suppliers interact at every stage from product design to consumption. Today, with the interaction of the supplier network and the customer network, there is a tendency from sustainable marketing to creating sustainable value. In the research, the role of "sustainable value co-creation" in the supply chain was evaluated through an agricultural development cooperative operating in Izmir and selected as the "Exemplary Rural Development Model of the World" by the United Nations. In the research, mixed method and quantitative and qualitative approaches were used together in the creation of the value creation process, and it was aimed to create value together with the stakeholders in the supply chain. Within the scope of the qualitative research, semi-structured interviews were conducted with approximately 23 people consisting of agricultural development cooperative managers and cooperative members, and the results were analyzed in the MAXQDA program. Within the scope of the quantitative research, the data obtained from the questionnaire conducted with 478 participants were analyzed with the structural equation model using SPSS 22.0 and SMART PLS programs. In line with the findings, it was determined that the belief on the friendliness of organic products to the environment and the knowledge of cooperative organic food products affect the purchase intention of the consumer. In addition, the expectations of consumers for cooperative organic food products were determined in the research. This thesis makes an important contribution to the literature in scientifically proving that creating shared value is a team work in the supply chain. In this way, the research will shed light on local food producers and retail companies to improve themselves in sustainable value co-creation.