Summary

This dissertation explores emerging social interactions in relation to economic value, more specifically how social interactions at the organizational and individual levels may affect individual consumers and companies economically as well. To help shed light on this broad theme, it focuses on two recent phenomena in the marketing environment that potentially combine the creation of social value with consumers’ and companies’ economic interests: business-nonprofit partnerships, and online social networks. The dissertation suggests that, under certain conditions, value created for consumers can be integrated with companies’ economic interests as well as with society’s interests more broadly.