Value Co-creation or Value Co-destruction? the Role of Negative Emotions in Consumer-Firm Interaction in the Social Media Platform

Frau, Moreno

;Frigau, Luca;Cabiddu, Francesca;Mola, Francesco

2023-01-01

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Abstract

Companies use social media as a medium of interaction to advertise and sell their products and services, while customers use the medium to seek information before buying. However, despite the proliferation of social media platforms, there is scant research on how customers sharing negative emotional messages in online brand communities can destroy value. To address the disadvantages of the previous approaches, this chapter (1) detects the negative comments; (2) pinpoints the periods characterized by significant peaks of negative comments; (3) clusters the identified periods by topics; and (4) characterizes each topic with emotions. These points allow the portrayal of customers’ negative emotions (such as anger, dissatisfaction, disgust, fear, and sadness) and detect their value co-destructing effects in the customer-firm interaction. The chapter concludes that value co-destruction in the social media context can be understood as an exchange of negative comments. Customers’ mix of emotions and the firm's responses determine the magnitude of value destruction.