External End Users and Firm Innovation Performance

Spyros Arvanitis, Barbara Fuchs and Martin Woerter

No 11-276, KOF Working papers from KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich

Abstract: Research about users as a source of innovation has been largely restricted to case studies exploring specific innovation projects at the firm level. This study assesses empirically the relationship between external end users' knowledge as an input factor to innovation and firms' innovation success. The results strongly support the hypotheses: (i) that external end users have the potential to essentially improve the innovative performance of firms; (ii) that the technique of interaction during the innovation process and the characteristics of involved external users matter as well. The more firms make use of emphatic design and select specific users to acquire hard-to-articulate customer needs, the stronger is the relationship between access to external end users' knowledge and firm innovation success measured in sales of innovative products.

Keywords: User innovation; User interaction; Lead user; Innovation performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2011-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-ino, nep-knm, nep-ppm, nep-sbm and nep-tid
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kof:wpskof:11-276

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