A matter of time: Phases of customer co-creation community participation and their impact on customer behavior

Despite the growing relevance of co-creating customer communities only little scientific evidence is available on their impact on transactional behavior of participants. Previous research has mostly used self-reported data or distinguished only between during and pre-community phases obtaining mixed results. However, the author proposes that co-creating community activity takes place in five distinguishable phases and changes in transactional behavior are limited to certain phases. Using 33 months of transactional data of a Dutch online auction provider a study was conducted covering all five phases of the community co-creation process from community planning over community set-up, co-development and co-testing to post-launch. The overall results indicate mixed effects of community participation on the different transactional variables during the co-creation process. Community participation had positive effects on auctions listing behavior at the community set-up, co-development and post-launch phases, whereby the number of auctions listed peaked during the community set-up phase. These results suggest that the impact on transactional behavior differs between co-creation phases and different psychological mechanism limited to certain phases might trigger the respective changes.

Mental health and the crisis: Evidence from share

Mental health constitutes a significant share of the global burden of disease. It is shaped to a great extent by socioeconomic factors and is vulnerable to external shocks. The recent financial crisis brought about stressors prone to trigger and aggravate mental illnesses. This project presents a micro analysis of the effect of the economic crisis on mental health in eleven European countries, through the estimation of individual health production functions accounting for socioeconomic controls and macroeconomic indicators. We find that mental health has deteriorated since 2007, even though the development of depression episodes is unchanged. Additionally, his variation can be partially attributed to economic recession and budgetary cuts in health spending.

Mental health and neuroscience. A perspective from the magazine market

Mental health awareness has been rising worldwide, motivated by its social and economic costs. Despite the investment in research in neuroscience in the recent years, little is known about the underlying mechanisms in the brain that are correlated with psychiatric conditions. This project, through two feature articles suitable to be published in magazines, provides perspectives onto mental health research. First it presents an example where psychiatry joins forces with neuroscience and computer science in an interdisciplinary effort to improve the life of those affected by mental disorders. The second article gathers opinions which claim that mental health research priorities should be set by patients themselves, or even that people with lived experience of mental health issues should have an active role in that research. This project was planned and researched while I was an Erasmus student at Nottingham Trent University, in the United Kingdom.