Social media has evolved into a new era thanks to the convenience of internet 2.0. The proliferation of diverse social media platforms and the influence of social media influencers have opened opportunities for marketing innovation in the new media age. The emergence of influencers on social media platforms and the explosion of their numbers has stimulated companies and marketers to invest in a new, covert marketing strategy: influencer marketing.

Influencer marketing is a means of social media marketing and an emerging digital advertising strategy. Messages delivered through this marketing mode are more likely to reach the target audience quickly and spread easily through viral marketing. These influencers are often not perceived as driven purely by commercial interests and are easily trusted by their followers, giving them a natural marketing advantage. Recently, an increasing number of companies have begun using these influencers to endorse their products or services, believing they can influence consumers’ attitudes and decisions. Additionally, some scholars have turned their attention to this emerging marketing mode and strategy. Influencer marketing research has focused on advertising, brand or product promotion, source characteristics and sponsorship disclosure.

However, little research has been conducted on the value co-creation behaviour of audiences in influencer marketing. There are specific gaps in the existing literature. Based on service-dominant logic, this thesis proposes a research mechanism for audience value co-creation behaviour in influencer marketing with three dimensions: internal, external and peer effects. Framed by a post-positivist paradigm and quantitative methods, this thesis employs a research design featuring an online survey, experiment, and computer simulation. Through statistical analysis and mathematical modelling, this study examines the internal, external factors and peer effects that influence audience value co-creation behaviour. The research outcomes are presented in three individual papers, forming the core chapters of this thesis. Of these three papers, Study 1 and Study 2 were published in the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Marketing Intelligence & Planning, and Study 3 was submitted to Computers in Human Behaviour. [...]