Managing experience co-creation practices: Direct and indirect inducement in pop-up food tourism events

Abstract Consumers performing the role of value-creators in experience co-creation introduces idiosyncrasies that challenge experiential consistency. Taking ‘pop-up’ dining events as its empirical focus, and drawing on semi-structured interviews with participants, this study examines how organisations and consumers interact to negotiate ambiguity, variability and consistency. The paper questions how organisers try to prescribe normative rules governing events. It considers how consumers invest in preparing for events, and engage in socialised performances to create unique experiences. The data are also used to show how peer surveillance shapes consumer expectations, behaviours and interpretations. Consequently, this study contributes to knowledge on the practical management of co-creation by conceptualising different pathways through which organisations and consumers attempt to orchestrate behaviours. Moreover, in theorising from the data, this paper distinguishes between direct and indirect modes of inducement used to achieve experiential outcomes, identifying how ‘value-signalling’ practices engage event stakeholders and shape their co-creation.