Online communities as a source of innovation

The perpetual quest for the next innovation remains a great challenge in today's fast-evolving business environment. In order to capture customer needs and to stay ahead of the competition, firms are increasingly integrating external information sources into their innovation processes. Since online communities and innovation platforms provide an excellent opportunity to access innovation-related information and complementary knowledge at comparatively low costs, they have become an important source for firms in search of innovative product and service ideas. Even though online communities and innovation platforms are based on web technologies, it is their members who create value by interacting and by sharing knowledge. Accordingly, it is the individuals who determine the success of these communities and platforms. A key prerequisite for utilizing and managing communities or platforms successfully, therefore, is the development of an understanding as to why some members are more productive and generate more valuable ideas and innovative concepts than others. This book consists of three quantitative empirical studies that address this topic by investigating the impact of intrapersonal and interpersonal factors on the participants' contribution performance in online communities and on innovation platforms.