Contents lists available at ScienceDirect International Journal of Hospitality Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhm Customer value co-creation and employee silence: Emotional intelligence as explanatory mechanism Evans Asante Boadi a, *, Zheng He a , Eric Kofi Boadi b , Samuel Antwi c , Joy Say a,d a School of Management and Economics & Center for West African Studies, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, No.2006, Xiyuan Ave, West Hi-Tech Zone Chengdu, Sichuan, 611731, China b Department of Accountancy, Koforidua Technical University, Koforidua, Ghana c Faculty of Accounting and Finance, University of Professional Studies, Accra, Ghana d Department of Economics Education, University of Education, Winneba, Ghana ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Customer value cocreation Employee silence Emotional intelligence Hospitality ABSTRACT Although there seems to be maximum attention to co-creation for value addition, dearth of research exist about how customer co-creation might not always serve the interest of firms. . Base on the servicedominant logic, transactional stress and coping theories, we examine the effects of customer participation in value co-creation (CPVC) on employee silence (ES) andemotional intelligence (EI) as mediator to comprehend the CPVC-ES link.Using a sample of 528, comprising customers and subordinate employees from upscale hotels in Ghana, we test the proposed hypotheses. The structural equation modelling results indicate a positive influence of CPVC on ES and a significant negative effect of EI on ES. Also, there is indirect effect of CPVC on ES through EI. These findings imply that the lack of employee emotional intelligence inhibits customer co-creation with firms. 1. Introduction The concept of cocreation continues to receive maximum attention in academia and among practitioners for its ability to generate value for firms (Opata et al., 2019; Frempong et al., 2020). Vargo and Lusch (2016) referred to co-creation as the active partnership of stakeholders including the firm, individual customers, employees, investors, and suppliers in a business through the exchange of operand and operant resources. To this end, firms gather innovative ideas from stakeholders within and beyond the workplace to propose value on goods and ser- vices to the stakeholders (Ettabaa et al., 2019). Oftentimes, customers are the main source of firm’s resources to redesign and add value to products. This is identified in the findings of studies that linked cus- tomers to value cocreation. For example; Rather et al. (2019) used a sample of 310 customer's from different tourist destinations in India and found that firms engagment with customers related positively to value cocreation. Opata et al. (2019) sampled 532 customers from 30 car dealer shops in Ghana and revealed that their perceptions of price fairness moderate the positive links between value cocreation inten- tions and satisfaction as well as loyalty with firms such that favourable perceptions of price fairness strengthens the links. Hence, firms can consider customer perspectives in the pricing of cars. Dowell et al. (2019) used a combined sample of 941 passers-by at two cultural events in Wales to establish that attendee’s word-of-mouth varies from the type of cultural value derived from events. As well, attendees attained value from multifaceted sources within the context of events beyond the performers at the cultural events. Although there have been significant studies on value co-creation, it is broadly based on its antecedents and outcomes from customer per- spectives with minimal consideration to other stakeholders such as employees and suppliers in the cocreation process. Echeverri and Skålén (2011) draws from empirical study on public transport and as- serted that not all customers have the requisite knowledge to cocreate with firms. This resonates with the concept of the goods dominant logic (GDL) that customers can be value destroyers (Vargo and Lusch (2016) and concurs with the conclusion of Chathoth et al. (2013) that our understanding of cocreation will remain limited if research continues to focus on customers as a single aspect of management practice. Chathoth et al. (2013) recommended that researchers and practitioners integrate different actions of firms to effectively manage resources comprising human capital to acquire the benefits of cocreation. For these reasons, we define co-creation as a decisive action of firms, policymakers and program designers to enhance performance with stakeholders perceived to be capable to ideate and solve problems (Rill and Hämäläinen, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2020.102646 Received 25 August 2019; Received in revised form 8 July 2020; Accepted 29 July 2020 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: e.asanteboadi@yahoo.com (E.A. Boadi), hezh@uestc.edu.cn (Z. He), boadikofieric@gmail.com (E.K. Boadi), antwi.samuel@upsamail.edu.gh (S. Antwi), j_say@yahoo.com (J. Say). International Journal of Hospitality Management 91 (2020) 102646 0278-4319/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T