Deborah L. Roberts

Exploring consumers' motivations to engage in innovation through co-creation activities

Purpose – This paper aims to explore what factors motivate consumers to engage in co-creation innovation activities. The authors propose that motivations differ across types of activities, whether working independently, as part of a community or directly with the firm. They offer theoretical explanations as to why this might be the case. Design/methodology/approach – Adopting an exploratory research design, the study consists of a series of online interviews with participants in the gaming and video games industry. Findings – Motivations appear to differ across types of co-creation efforts. Innovating independently of the firm appears to be driven by egocentric motives; innovating as part of a community appears to be driven by altruistic motives; and innovating directly in collaboration with the firm appears to be driven by opportunity- (or goal-)related motives. Practical implications – Understanding the factors that motivate consumers to engage in co-creation activities enables firms to strategically ma...

Leveraging social network sites for new product launch

Purpose – The ability to make use of social network sites (SNSs) to promote new products and facilitate positive word of mouth around new product launch (NPL) presents an important opportunity. However, the mechanisms and motivations of SNS users are not well understood and businesses frequently fail to realize these opportunities. This paper examines some of the forces that motivate people to spend time on SNS sites and how these motivations are related with people’s propensity to engage in behaviours that can be beneficial for NPL.

Developing a visceral market learning capability for new product development

As customer needs become more sophisticated, often requiring new elements of psychological satisfaction, this poses the question of how innovation practices can be developed from the rational and mechanistic to take more account of the psychological, social and cultural needs of customers that are captured within successful products. This paper discusses the concept of visceralisation - the ‘gut feel’ and instinct associated with the tacit dimensions of managerial intuition - and develops a model of a visceral market learning capability. This concept draws on related ideas of design thinking and design attitude to improve innovation outcomes. While visceralisation has been discussed from both the consumer and research perspective, little progress has been made in applying the concept for market research and new product innovation purposes. The research methodology utilises an interactive, collaborative approach involving practitioners to assist in the development of the model and an understanding of the visceralisation process. This is further informed by two case studies that support this emerging concept. This paper helps to characterise the concept of visceralisation, and the market and organisational learning mechanisms needed to develop visceral insight, and provides suggestions for market researchers and managers involved in new product development. While further development is required, the paper provides a framework, process and guidelines for the application of this technique in different contexts.

UK Farming Post Reform

Abstract The 2003 reform of the Common Agricultural Policy largely replaced the European Unions production orientated system of price support with a decoupled, single farm payment (SFP) system that freed farmers to choose what to do with their land, be it crops, livestock or withdrawal from farming. The outcome is reductions in the levels of farm-gate prices and greater exposure to the vicissitudes of market forces. In justifying the reform, the authorities argued inter alia that a positive outcome would be the encouragement of a more market orientated and competitive farming industry. This paper examines the likelihood of this outcome for UK agriculture and how it might be achieved. The authors find the arguments that the reform will encourage extensive farming techniques, which will serve as the basis of a more market orientated industry unconvincing. We argue that the reform is more likely to achieve its objective of a more market orientated industry if the reform encourages farmers to collaborate in horizontal networks as user members of Farmer Controlled Businesses. Such businesses operate as vertical integrators and are particularly suited to developing a market orientation. The paper concludes by highlighting potential areas for further research that can aid an understanding of the marketing functions of Farmer Controlled Businesses and their influence on the economic returns to their user members.

Social Strategy to Gain Knowledge for Innovation: Social Strategy to Gain Knowledge for Innovation

Taking the knowledge-based view of the firm as its starting point, and acknowledging that knowledge can lie outside the firm, this research extends our understanding of how the growing social media trend can contribute to open innovation. We specifically focus on SMEs, which tend to be resource constrained and might benefit particularly from leveraging social media platforms. We bring forward the notion that people flock to social media because they are motivated by a desire for social interaction. Indeed, our findings suggest that SMEs that put effort into connecting customers on social media—which we refer to as having a social strategy—are likely to reap both customers’ involvement in innovation on social media and new knowledge of value for innovation. Examining differences between social media platforms used primarily for personal purposes and those used primarily for professional purposes, we find that a social strategy is more effective in the first category than the second. This likely reflects differences in the social identities that people adopt on these two types of social media platforms.

Consumer co-creation: an opportunity to humanise the new product development process

Based on findings from four in-depth case studies within global brand manufacturers in the fast moving consumer goods (fmcg) industry, this paper develops a framework for understanding the organisational processes that support consumer co-creation within new product development (NPD). A new perspective, that of co-creation, in which consumers are ‘active’ participants in the design and development of new products, is challenging the traditional model of NPD. Co-creation provides an opportunity for market researchers to develop a people-centric approach to research, thereby humanising the NPD process. Key to co-creation practices are: a culture supporting innovation and co-creation; a strategy for consumer selection; a focus on qualitative research methods; and training in business creativity and relationship-building skills.

Sharing the Pie in Open Innovation: Value capture in crowdsourcing from the solver perspective

A blind spot in the open innovation literature is the value capture process. This study examines value capture in an open innovation ecosystem dedicated to crowdsourcing technical needs from the perspective of solution providers (so called solvers). Through the lens of two-sided market theory and uncertainty reduction theory, we analyze how solvers are able to capture value from crowdsourcing and their barriers to equitable appropriation. Using a multimethod approach including a large scale study of more than 500 domain experts involved in crowdsourcing for technology needs, we highlight the solvers’ dissatisfaction and the need to develop relationship value. Our study shows that the predominant economic view of value should be complemented by social aspects and relational aspects of value such as trust and communication.