Consumers as Co-developers: Learning and Innovation Outside the Firm
Year: 2003
Type: article
Abstract: This study describes a process in which a firm relies on an external consumer community for innovation. While it has been recognized that users may sometimes innovate, little is known about what commercial firms can do to motivate and capture such innovations and their related benifits. We contribute to strategy literature by suggesting that learning and innovation efforts from which a firm may benifit need not necessarily be located within the organization, but may well reside in the consumer environment. We also contribute to the existing theory on ‘user-driven innovation’ by showing what firms purposively can do to generate consumer innovation efforts. An explorative case study shows that consumer innovation can be structured, motivated, and partly organized by a commercial firm that organizes the infrastructure for consumers’ interactive learning in a public online domain.
Authors: Lars Bo Jeppesen, Måns J. Molin
Institution: Copenhagen Business School
Language: English
Subfield: Computer Science Applications
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1969338947