Dialogue as Co-Creation of Value

The communication perspective of the joint value co-creation process in sales is largely overlooked in marketing research. This paper contributes to the understanding and further development of value co-creation through dialogue as a joint action process. Moving from persuasive communication towards joint action, the paper investigates how dialogic communication affects the joint creation of value in B2B sales. The study is an Action research study based on the positive deviance approach, investigating the strategies of highly successful teams and individuals and disseminating knowledge to their peers and co-workers
about these strategies. Action research seeks to create change, monitor and analyze the events and thus create knowledge and change simultaneously. The participants are 81 salespeople from 31 B2B industries. The findings suggest that dialogic communication increase the number of opportunities for co-creation processes in sales and unfolds and extends the theoretical perspectives of dialogue as value co-creation.