Author Description

This paper explores value co-creation and value co-destruction with a focus on the social practices embedded in the online brand community “My Starbucks Idea (MSI).” The objectives of the research are accomplished through a detailed explanation of the study’s stages, starting with the Research design/Planning, and followed by the Community Entry (Entrée), Data collection, Limitations, and Ethical implications. Since the study is exploratory in character, the qualitative research strategy was used. As Bryman and Bell (2011) note, qualitative research gives particular attention to words rather than numbers in the gathering and interpretation of data. This study applied a modified ‘netnographic’ approach, a new qualitative method devised specifically to investigate consumer behaviour vis-à-vis cultures and communities present on the Internet (Kozinets 1998). This study identifies three elements of practice: stalking, gossip, and exhibitionism. It also supports the idea stated by Echeverri & Skålén (2011) that there is no positive without a negative in interactive value formation...