Os custos elevados de aquisição de conhecimento, a intensificação da concorrência e a necessidade de aproximação do consumidor vêm estimulando empresas a buscar formas alternativas de aumentar seu potencial de inovação pela integração de usuários. No entanto, a literatura e o senso comum convergem ao afirmar que nem todo usuário está habilitado a trazer conhecimentos que sustentem a vantagem competitiva das inovações. Nesse contexto, emerge a figura do lead user que, por definição, é capaz de sentir necessidades de produtos e serviços ainda não expressos por usuários regulares. Esses conhecimentos, quando adequadamente absorvidos, trazem benefícios expressivos às empresas que os incorporam ao DNP. Sabendo que as formas de incorporação de usuários apresentam variações, este estudo se destina a entender como empresas de diferentes setores absorvem conhecimentos de lead users por diferentes práticas de integração. Para tanto, foi escolhido o método de estudo de casos múltiplos incorporados, observados em três multinacionais de grande porte: Natura, Whirlpool e Microsoft (Bing). Ao todo foram avalidados cinco modos de integração distintos, escolhidos a partir de duas formações: individual (conhecimentos isolados de usuários distintos) e coletivo (conhecimentos articulados em discussões em grupo), analisados pelos métodos de indução analítica com síntese cruzada de dados. Os resultados mostraram que as categorias teóricas utilizadas para observação inicial do fenômenol: parâmetro de identificação e técnica de seleção (aquisição); mecanismo de interação (assimilação); mecanismos de socialização (transformação) e sistema de formalização (exploração) apoiaram parcialmente o entendimento das atividades do processo e, por esta razão, precisaram se complementadas pelas categorias emergentes: criação de contexto, motivação (aquisição); estímulos, parâmetro de observação, interpretação (assimilação); definição de papéis, coordenação de processos, combinação de conhecimento (transformação) e gestão do conhecimento (exploração), coletadas na fase empírica Essa complementação aumentou a robustez do modelo inicial e mostrou como a absorção de conhecimentos pode ser avaliada pelas dimensões absortivas. No entanto, as análises intra e intercasos que se seguiram, mostraram que esse entendimento era insuficiente para explicar a capacidade de absorção por diferentes práticas, uma vez que o fenômeno é influenciado por fatores contextuais associados tanto à prática de integração quanto ao modo como cada empresa se organiza para inovar (tipo de acesso ao colaborador). As reflexões teóricas realizadas a partir desses resultados permitiram contribuir com a teoria existente de duas formas: I) pelo entendimento estendido das atividades de absorção necessárias para incorporação de conhecimentos de lead users e III) pela proposição de um modelo conceitual amplo que abarcou diferentes práticas de integração considerando também os antecedentes de inovação, as atividades absortivas e os fatores adjuntos, inerentes a cada prática. Esta pesquisa objetiva contribuir para o conhecimento teórico sobre inovação e motivar reflexões que possam ser úteis para gerentes e executivos interessados em aprimorar suas práticas e processos de captação de conhecimentos de lead users. / The high costs of acquiring knowledge, the increased competition and the need for consumer approach has stimulated companies to seek alternative ways to increase their innovation potential by integrating users. However, literature and common sense converge to say that not every user is able to bring knowledge to support the competitive advantage of innovations. In this context, the picture emerges of the lead user that, by definition, is capable of sensing needs for products and services not yet expressed by regular users. This knowledge, when properly absorbed, bring significant benefits to companies that incorporate the DNP. Knowing that the forms of incorporation users have variations, this study aims to understand how companies from different sectors lead absorb knowledge users for different integration practices. Thus, it was chosen the method of multiple case study incorporated, observed in three large multinationals: Natura, Whirlpool and Microsoft (Bing). In all, we avalidados five distinct modes of integration, chosen from two configurations: individual (individual knowledge of different users) and collective (articulated knowledge in group discussions), analyzed by the methods of analytic induction cross-synthesis of data. The results showed that the theoretical categories used for the initial observation phenomenological: identification and parameter selection technique (acquisition); interaction mechanism (assimilation); socialization mechanisms (transformation) and formalizing system (exploration) partially supported the understanding of the process activities and, therefore, had to be complemented by emerging categories: context of creation, motivation (acquisition); stimulus parameter of observation, interpretation (assimilation); definition of roles, coordination processes, combination of knowledge (processing) and knowledge management (holding) collected empirical phase This supplement increased the robustness of the initial model and showed how the absorption of knowledge can be assessed by the absorptive dimensions. However, intra- and intercasos analysis that followed showed that such an approach was insufficient to explain the absorption capacity for different practices, since the phenomenon is influenced by contextual factors related both to the practice of integration as to how each enterprise is organized to innovate (type of access to the employee). The theoretical reflections made from these results allowed to contribute to the existing theory in two ways: I) by understanding extended the absorption activities necessary for incorporating lead users of knowledge and III) by proposing a broad conceptual model that encompassed different practices Integration also considering the innovation history, the absorptive activities and deputy factors inherent to each practice. This research aims to contribute to the theoretical understanding of innovation and motivate reflections that might be useful for managers and executives interested in improving their practices and lead users knowledge capture processes.

Companies are dependent on continuously provide the market with new products to keep its market position and profitability level. The companies examined in this thesis are two bigger Swedish enterprises that have a long history in a mature business-to-business context providing industrial goods to the market. This work examines how users are involved in the different innovation and product development activities. The problem is to understand how business-to-business companies co-operate with stakeholder and users, when in the product life cycle that is done, and who are the ones doing the actual innovation. The methodological approach for the work was deductive, building a theory including innovation, strategy and user theories that was empirically tested and followed by an analysis and conclusion of the found evidence. Key findings: Most if not all innovations in mature market are routine ones. There is lack of strategic focus due to micromanagement that shifts focus rapidly. Innovations are often found in the beginning and in the end of the product life cycle. Mature markets tend to utilize a more closed innovation model as opposite to an open model. Users are not heavily involved in the actual innovation process. Stickiness and tacit knowledge is quite big in large corporation event though there is said to be a strategic focus on the customers. Implications: More involvement of users, especially lead users, will lead to more innovations. Utilising strategic buckets of different sizes for spreading the resources on different innovation types (routine/disruptive/discontinuous) to become successful

User groups have been recognised as one of the most important coupling mechanisms between users and vendors. There are hundreds of such groups around the world attached to complex technological artefacts and systems. Innovation scholars have referred to these groups as the new sites of innovation and gone as far to suggest that vendors may struggle to survive without the user-led innovation that derives from these forums (von Hippel, 2005). This is particularly the case for software products. However, despite their growing academic and policy importance, and notwithstanding the fact these communities have been in existence for more than three decades, the Information Systems literature has not yet explained the complex workings of such groups. This study produces one of the first ethnographic studies of a major software user group linked to a complex packaged enterprise system. It describes and characterises the range of functions carried out by this group, which includes their internal workings and organisation, how members relate to each other, how the group links to the vendor and other intermediaries, and the group’s attempts to shape the development of its technology. A key focus of the work is the various tensions and barriers found in these communities. To analyse this group the study adopts and extends the Social Shaping of Technology (SST) and its recent offshoot, the ‘Biography of Artefact’ (BoA) framework. This thesis contributes to these approaches by showing the importance of multifaceted time dimensions and heterogeneity of spaces in examining users groups. Whilst existing studies using these approaches have looked at the evolution of technology over extended periods, this thesis contributes by considering the coevolution of the technology and the community attached at the same time. This allows us not only to gain a better conceptualisation of the user group but as a result see new forms of innovation invisible to more dominant perspectives. It challenges economist led understandings of user-led innovation which tend to give only a rather superficial understanding of the process by which users create new innovation. In particular, and through arguing for the need to take into account both ‘success’ and ‘failure’ in the process of user-led innovation, the thesis offers the concept of ‘artification’ to explain further complex outputs originating from the interaction of these actors in multiple spaces and over long periods of time. The thesis also extends theories of the Social Shaping of Technology by depicting innovation as an arena where different actor spaces act collectively, but also compete, and as a result wield influence on different stages of the technology lifecycle. This leads to a further contribution of this thesis in the field of Information Systems research by suggesting that enterprise software innovation is a community achievement. In particular, the research proposes the concept of ‘unification’ to show the collective acts of users in aggregating their needs to participate in the development of technology. The study concludes by offering insights and recommendation to practitioners and policy makers for deploying user communities for better technological outcomes, both in terms of design and development as well as implementation and use.

This dissertation explores the conditions and the extent to which innovations, by both users and by firms, can originate in developing countries and diffuse to the rest of the world. The primary setting for these studies is the mobile financial services industry. Additionally, this dissertation looks at the overall significance of user innovation at the country level in order to discern drivers of user innovation diffusion. Finally, it investigates implications for innovation policy. These topics are addressed in three studies. The first study examines two main research questions. First, to what extent can users play a role in innovation in developing countries? Second, what is the global relevance and diffusion of innovations that originate in developing countries? This study finds that users pioneered over half of mobile financial services and that 85% of the services originated in developing countries. A comparison between all innovations in this industry shows that user innovations diffuse at more than double the rate of firm innovations. Additionally, three-quarters of the innovations that originated in developing countries diffused to OECD countries. This study also proposes a new methodology to analyze the sources of service innovations, which can be used in future research. The second study tries to answer the following research question: Under what conditions can industries emerge in the economic ‘South’? In addition, what firms are successful at entering in the South? This study uses a hand-collected dataset from the mobile financial services industry. We find that latent demand is an important driver for firm entry in developing countries, as is market share. Furthermore, previous entry in the industry leads to industry-specific knowledge accumulation, which spills over within firms and increases the likelihood of subsequent entry into other countries. The third study examines the characteristics of diffusion of user innovations using data from a large-scale national survey conducted in Portugal. It looks at differences between market and non-market channels of diffusion for professional-user innovators as well as end-user innovators. The main findings are that although most user innovators are willing to share their innovations for free, they do not actively inform other people about their solutions, which negatively affects diffusion. Furthermore, this research concludes that professional-user innovators are significantly more likely to protect their intellectual property than end-user innovators, which increases the likelihood of commercialization of the innovation.

The need to economically identify rare subjects within large, poorly-mapped search spaces is a frequently-encountered problem for social scientists and managers. It is notoriously difficult, for example, to identify "the best new CEO for our company," or the "best three lead users to participate in our product development project." Mass screening of entire populations or samples becomes steadily more expensive as the number of acceptable solutions within the search space becomes rarer. The search strategy of "pyramiding" is a potential solution to this problem under many conditions. Pyramiding is a search process based upon the idea that people with a strong interest in a topic or field tend to know people more expert than themselves. In this paper we report upon four experiments empirically exploring the efficiency of pyramiding searches relative to mass screening. We find that pyramiding on average identified the most expert individual in a group on a specific topic with only 28.4% of the group interviewed - a great efficiency gain relative to mass screening. Further, pyramiding identified one of the top 3 experts in a population after interviewing only 15.9% of the group on average. We discuss conditions under which the pyramiding search method is likely to be efficient relative to screening.

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Companies are increasingly drawing on their user communities to generate promising ideas for new products, which are then marketed as "user-designed" products to the broader consumer market. We demonstrate that nonparticipating, observing consumers prefer to buy from user-rather than designer-driven firms because of an enhanced identification with the firm that has adopted this user-driven philosophy. Three experimental studies validate a newly proposed social identification account underlying this effect. Because consumers are also users, their social identities connect to the user-designers, and they feel empowerment by vicariously being involved in the design process. This formed connection leads to preference for the firm's products. Importantly, this social identification account also effectively predicts when the effect does not materialize. First, we find that if consumers feel dissimilar to participating users, the effects are attenuated. We demonstrate that this happens when the community differs from consumers along important demographics (i.e., gender) or when consumers are nonexperts in the focal domain (i.e., they feel that they do not belong to the social group of participating users). Second, the effects are attenuated if the user-driven firm is only selectively rather than fully open to participation from all users (observing consumers do not feel socially included). These findings advance the emerging theory on user involvement and offer practical implications for firms interested in pursuing a user-driven philosophy. Data, as supplemental material, are available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2014.1999. (authors' abstract)

We test our hypotheses on 186 participants designing their own scarves with an MC toolkit. After completing the process, they submitted binding bids for "their" products in Vickrey auctions. We therefore observe real buying behavior, not merely stated intentions. We find that the subjective value of a self-designed product (i.e., one's bid in the course of the auction) is indeed not only impacted by the preference fit the customer expects it to deliver, but also by (1) the process enjoyment the customer reports, (2) the interaction of preference fit and process enjoyment, and (3) the interaction of preference fit and perceived process effort. In addition to its main effect, we interpret preference fit as a moderator of the valuegenerating effect of process evaluation: In cases where the outcome of the process is perceived as positive (high preference fit), the customer also interprets process effort as a positive accomplishment, and this positive affect adds (further) value to the product. It appears that the perception of the self-design process as a good or bad experience is partly constructed on the basis of the outcome of the process. In the opposite case (low preference fit), effort creates a negative affect which further reduces the subjective value of the product. Likewise, process enjoyment is amplified by preference fit, although enjoyment also has a significant main effect, which means that regardless of the outcome, customers attribute higher value to a self-designed product if they enjoy the process. The importance of the self-design process found in this study bears clear relevance for companies which offer or plan to offer MC systems. It is not sufficient to design MC toolkits in such a way that they allow customers to design products according to their preferences. The affect caused by this process is also highly important. Toolkits should therefore stimulate positive affective reactions and at the same time keep negative affect to a minimum. (authors' abstract)

The primary argument in favor of mass customization is the delivery of superior customer value. Using willingness-to-pay (WTP) measurements, Franke & Piller (2004) have recently shown that customers designing their own watches with design toolkits are willing to pay premiums of more than 100% (DWTP). In the course of three studies, we found that this type of value increment is not a singular occurrence but might rather be a general phenomenon, as we again found average DWTPs of more than 100% among customers designing their own cell phone covers, T-shirts, and scarves. Building on this, we discuss the sources of benefits that are likely to explain this tremendous value increment. We argue that compared to conventional standard products, a mass-customized product might render the following utilitarian and hedonic benefits: (1) First, the output might be beneficial as self-designed products offer a much closer fit between individual needs and product characteristics. In addition to this mere functional benefit, extra value might also stem from (2) the perceived uniqueness of the self-designed product. As the customer takes on the role of an active codesigner, there may also be two general 'do-it-yourself effects': (3) First, the process of designing per se is likely to allow the customer to meet hedonic or experiential needs (process benefit). (4) Customers may also be likely to value the output of self-design more highly if they take pride in having created something on their own (instead of traditionally buying something created by somebody else). This is referred to as the 'pride of authorship' effect. (author's abstract)

Due to the current, global challenges such as resource depletion and economic crisis, and international societal mega-trends such as multi-internationalisation, we are in transition from conventional methods of production to relatively novel methods that strives to be competitive, satisfy customer needs and have a lower environmental impact. Product-Service System (PSS) method is deemed to be a solid alternative towards this vision. To do that, we are in need of novel approaches to re-envision the current system. Therefore, Innovation methods are the backbone of PSS. Since PSS highly emphasizes the customers' needs and co-creation with them, user-innovation methods are required in order to boost PSS Innovation. Among user-innovation methods, Crowdsourcing seems to be valid option which would enable us to attract a large, undefined network of people to the innovation process. In this research, a success model for crowdsourcing practice is proposed and validated by literature and expert interviews. As a follow-up, based on the success model, a strategic guideline for innovation using open modes of collaboration is proposed. Moreover, we discuss the implication of PSS and sustainability and how these concepts can be empowered by crowdsourcing.