Online communities as a platform for user innovation

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Online communities as a platform for user

innovation

A qualitative analysis in a German online community

Emre Acar

S2731029 / 140674691

Msc. International Business & Management

University of Groningen faculty of Economics and Business

Msc. Advanced International Business Management & Marketing

Newcastle University Business School

Supervisors:

Dr. M.M. Wilhelm

Dr. H. Bahemia

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MASTER THESIS EMRE ACAR 3

Abstract

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Acknowledgements

I would like to use this opportunity to thank everyone who helped me during the process of this thesis and enabled me to conduct such a research. First of all, I would like to thank my supervisors Dr. M.M. Wilhelm from the University of Groningen and Dr. H. Bahemia from the Newcastle University. They have provided me with extensive

feedback and guidance which was beyond from what has been stated in the dissertation guidelines. Second, I would like to thank all the participants from the Jovoto community who took part in this research and helped me to conduct my research. Last, I would like to thank my family and friends who supported me emotionally during this process. A special thanks to some of my double degree fellow students.

Thank you,

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List of Abbreviations

Ideation Contest – IC

Social Exchange Theory – SET Participant – P

List of Figures

Figure 2.1: Configuration of the six resources classes………..22

Figure 3.1: Own illustration Participant characteristics………...28

Figure 3.2: Own illustration Participant statistics………....28

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1 Introduction

“Jovoto offers me the freedom to choose if I want to invest time in a contest and how much time I want to invest. Jovoto also provides the opportunity to work with a

great community and to gather valuable contacts and experiences as well.” DaHu, community member of jovoto.com

The quote above is from a user of one of the leading German online innovation communities. Users are people who participate in online innovation activities. There are online platforms where companies seek for innovative solutions and products from users in the form of ideation contests. These communities provide users a variety of different contest to choose from. Although, a contest involves competition, in online communities the idea of succeeding in a contest lies within people working together.

It is not a long time ago that customers have only been seen as buyers and consumers of services and products. This view has changed. It is not unusual that companies such as Dell (www.ideastorm.com) and Starbucks

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Chesbrough, 2003). A search on open innovation in Google Scholar reveals over 1 million hits in major journals on marketing, organizational behavior, computer science as well as information systems (Google Scholar, 2015). Open innovation is defined as follows: "use of purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge to accelerate internal innovation, and expand the markets for external use of innovation, respectively. […] firms can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths to market, as they look to advance their technology" (Henry Chesbrough and Crowther, 2006).

External ideas and knowledge can be obtained from different sources. One source is user integration (Henry William Chesbrough, 2003). Involving users in the innovation process, in which they create new innovations or take part is called user innovation (Hippel, 2005). The idea of firms collaborating with customers has been identified as co-creation (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004). As open innovation can be viewed in many different ways, it has been further defined involving four research streams: technology transactions, user innovation, business models, and innovation markets (Lichtenthaler, 2011). This thesis will focus on user innovation.

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participating in online communities (Füller et al., 2007). Belonging to a community and engaging with like-minded people are factors why users participate. Relating to

interaction in online communities, studies used the social network analysis to explain user interaction (Dahlander and Frederiksen, 2012). The idea of these studies is that certain users are in the center of a network surrounded by other users. In these networks users create and share content. This can be in form of knowledge, which is one of the most important aspects in user innovation. By means of innovative

competitions, also known as ICs, companies try to extract knowledge from users. Scholars state that the combination of competition and interaction makes ICs an

interesting field for theory and practice. It has been observed that users’ behaviour in an IC can be described as a balance of cooperation and competition. They provide useful comments and still try to outperform others (Walley, 2007). Hence, in a competitive setting, there is prove that users interact with each other but still with the aim to win this contest.

As one can observe, user innovation is not only a trend but rather a legitimate method of developing new services and products. Furthermore, the rapid developments in technology give users new possibilities to create and share content in form of

knowledge as well as companies to establish ICs to extract knowledge from these users. Hence, the importance of this topic does not only lie in practical matters but also in theoretical ones. Many studies have been conducted to explain user innovation in online communities. Most studies on user innovation in online communities have been of quantitative nature and focused on the sporting and gaming industry. Further, to explain interaction studies focused on quantitative studies using the social network analysis. In addition, scholars recognized that in competitive settings such as in an IC user interact with each other. Nevertheless, there has been no research in explaining the reasons for users interacting in a contest. There has been only few studies so far which studied elements of competition and cooperative behaviour of users in design contests and how an IC can benefit from this (Hutter et al., 2011). This research tries to contribute to the stream of user innovation in online communities and ICs with a

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study is different than for instance studies on motives to participate in user innovation which did not take into account competitive settings. This will be also the first study to consider the social exchange theory in explaining interaction in an IC.

1.1 Research Objectives and Questions

The aim of this study is to contribute to the user innovation stream. The interaction between users during an IC has been not explored to its full extent. Although it is known that there is interaction and competition, there are no studies which explain why users still interact with each other in an IC. Hence, this study aims to shed light on the social interaction of users. Furthermore, this study will be the first to analyze the social interaction between users in an IC by looking at why participants interact with each other in a competitive setting. Further, the aim is to find out why users share knowledge with each other when participating in an IC. Lastly, this study will try to find out winning factors in ICs and the benefits of interacting for users in an IC. This research will be of a qualitative nature and will directly interview participants. Most relevant studies used quantitative data or analyzed comments on the online platforms (Hutter et al., 2011). The research design will be an in depth case study analysis and the method to collect data will be structured interviews with case members. The foundation of the analysis is based on “grounded theory” approach” which is an analytical strategy providing an inductive analysis to develop theoretical propositions and models (Glaser et al., 1968).The explained objectives and the respective approach will try to answer the following research questions.

How does interaction benefit users in ideation contests in online communities? - Why do users keep interacting in an ideation contest?

- Why do users share knowledge in an ideation contest? - What are winning factors in an ideation contest?

1.2 Research Structure

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2 Literature

The following chapter will systematically review the literature on user innovation and user innovation in online communities. Further, the reader will be introduced to ICs. The review shows important studies conducted in the field of user innovation in relation to the research focus of this thesis. Besides, this chapter will discuss the SET to explain human interaction from a theoretical perspective. Lastly, the findings will be wrapped up and the research gap will be presented.

2.1 User Innovation

The idea of involving users in the innovation process is not a new one. In a study in the chemical industry, it was reported that 70% of innovations came from users (Freeman et al., 1968). The first study who assigned users a central role as innovators was the one by von Hippel, in which he showed that in a sample of 111 innovations, 80% were a result of user innovation (Von Hippel, 1976). Afterwards, scholars gave more attention to this concept. Recently, research on user innovation has extended into many areas such as industry dynamics, user entrepreneurship, firm boundaries,

innovation communities and policy1_{(Baldwin et al., 2006) (Shah and Tripsas, 2007)}

(Lüthje et al., 2005).

When reviewing the literature on user innovation, two types of user innovators can be identified: intermediate users and consumer users (Bogers et al., 2010). Intermediate users represent firms which use equipment and components from producers to develop products and services (De Jong and von Hippel, 2009). Many studies show intermediate users as sources of innovation in different industries. Examples are security software (Franke and Von Hippel, 2003) and commercial banking (Oliveira and von Hippel, 2011). Nevertheless, intermediate users represent only a small portion of the studies which have been conducted. The other type are consumer users (Lüthje et al., 2005). Consumer users can be individual end consumers (Bogers et al., 2010). Studies on consumer users are in the field of sports-related consumer goods and leisure-time activities. Important examples are equipment in extreme sports (Franke and Shah, 2003), outdoor sports (Lüthje, 2004), mountain biking (Lüthje et al., 2005 2005), kite

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surfing (Tietz et al., 2004 & Herstatt, 2005), sailing (Raasch et al., 2008), retail banking (Oliveira and von Hippel, 2011) and films in the animation genre (Haefliger et al., 2010). It can be observed that end users, mainly in extreme sports have certain needs which can be identified only doing these kind of sports. Hence, most user innovations stem from this field. A major contribution of research on consumer users is the dominant role of users in the innovation process and that users develop, share, and diffuse ideas on innovation within communities (Bogers et al., 2010). One of the most important scholars on user innovation believes that innovative users can be called lead-users as they recognize mainstream needs months or years earlier and thus expect to benefit from creating solutions for these needs (Hippel, 2005). In his work on user innovation von Hippel defines lead users as individual people who show two attributes regarding a new product or service development: (1) they recognize essential needs way before the majority of the market and (2) they have the capability to benefit from obtaining a

solution to those needs. Hence, users identified as lead users have to be in possession of certain knowledge to come up with ideas and solutions for a product or service (Von Hippel, 1994). The knowledge is tacit and embedded in a broad range of skills which is in relation to usage contexts (Marchi et al., 2011). As lead users possess this

knowledge it enables them to ‘‘to make sense of innovation-related information because it fits with their cognitive structure’’ (Lüthje and Herstatt, 2004). As a result, the lead-user theory has been accepted and used as a theory in quantitative studies.

Early streams of studies on user innovation have been quantitative studies which showed that many products and processes were developed by users due to possession of great expertise and high usage experience (Baldwin and von Hippel, 2011). (Füller et

al., 2007) for instance analyzed which factors characterize an innovative lead user in

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companies need to foster a sense of community among users to facilitate

communication which enables value creation (Baregheh et al., 2009). Consequently, companies established online communities for people who share the same passion for a brand. (Wu and Fang., 2010) conducted a research on user interaction, brand knowledge and idea generation in brand communities. It was found that human capital has a significant moderating effect and brand knowledge has a partial but significant effect on relationship the between user and user interaction and idea generation. A different stream of studies focused on driving factors which lead users to participate in innovation. Perceived benefit, personal innovativeness and social influence has been driving factors for user innovators (Bin, 2013).

The literature review on user innovation reveals that users can be identified as a source for innovation indeed. Most studies have focused on driving factors and motives to participate in innovation practices and traits of user innovators. These are perceived benefit, personal innovativeness, sense of community, high usage experience and product knowledge and social influence. Nevertheless, studies focused only on certain industries such as sports and gaming. These are industries which require high product knowledge and customer opinion. Even though, scholars revealed that users innovation takes place in communities, important factors such as user interaction within the

innovation process has been neglected and how it impacts the innovation process. Last, there are no qualitative studies, which could give more insight on user interaction within online communities.

2.2 User Innovation in Online Communities

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an essential factor for user innovation is the willingness to collaborate with other users and share knowledge. Research on online communities has identified knowledge sharing to depend on users’ motivations (Jeppesen and Frederiksen, 2006), expected benefit (Nambisan and Baron, 2009) and attitudes (Hsu et al., 2007). As on major motive is to freely share information with other users, the community perspective has been studied to a greater extent. The internet provides a platform which engages users to innovate together (Sawhney et al., 2005). Nevertheless, it was found that only few people account for most contributions in online communities (Lakhani and Von Hippel, 2003). This can be related to lead-user theory. This is also emphasized in the following study which states that the central position of a user within the social structures of the community is significantly related to his/her innovativeness (Dahlander and Frederiksen, 2012). Further, it is shown that members can choose for themselves with whom they collaborate and divide up the tasks (Dahlander and Frederiksen, 2012). Within a user community innovation outcome is not the result of an individual but rather the

achievement of collaboration between members (Franke and Shah, 2003). Since users freely participate in such communities, companies want to benefit from this. For

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recommendations or knowledge (Trusov et al., 2009). Additionally, social support which emerges from social networks is a huge factor in the learning process (Eden and

Heiman, 2011). The closeness of consumers in social networks affect their decision making whether they retain with a provider (Birke, 2013). Users depend on informational support they provide and receive in the network to make decisions (Bugshan et al., 2015). In terms of user interaction, studies used the social network analysis to explain it (Dahlander and Frederiksen, 2012). The idea of these studies is certain users being in the center of a network surrounded by other users. Recent studies show that user interaction in online communities increase knowledge about brand, which in turn leads to the generation of an idea (Tickle et al., 2011).

The review on user innovation in online communities illustrate that the majority of studies have been conducted on motives to participate. As in the previous section, these are product knowledge, experience ane the willingness to share and cooperate with other members. Further, the usage of online communities for companies has been researched. Companies use online communities to co-create with users, to excess product knowledge and to maintain customer relationship. Lastly, there has also been emphasis on the community perspective. Users freely choose with whom they

cooperate. Hereby, users interact with other users to receive and give informational and social support. Studies all have in common that they emphasize the importance of community and collaborative innovation. Nevertheless, they also emphasize that only certain users are responsible for most innovations. Although, the importance of collaboration is recognized, research still lacks in explaining what kind of an impact interaction has.

2.3 Ideation Contests

To benefit from online communities, companies establish ICs for users to

participate in innovation processes (Piller and Walcher, 2006). The aim of an IC is to generate new concepts and ideas (Angelika C Bullinger et al., 2010). In an IC a

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al., 2012). In these contests companies might ask for simple textual descriptions of

ideas or ask for concepts and prototypes of fully functional products or services (Leimeister et al., 2009). Depending on the organizer of the contest, participation is possible on an individual base or in teams (Carvalho, 2009). Studies show that the timeframe in which the contests take place can range from some hours up to more than four months (Angelika Cosima Bullinger et al., 2009). In terms of motivation to

participate in these contests, literature shows that monetary incentives, such as small awards or social motivation, such as positive community feedback play a major role (Vossen and Piller, 2013). Design patterns such as feedback and task description have been revealed as success factors of ICs (Ebner et al., 2009). Concerning the decision of which idea wins, there are three possibilities which can be used separately or in

combination. These are self-assessment, peer review and decision by jury of experts (Angelika Cosima Bullinger and Moeslein, 2010). Lastly, there is also research on cooperation and competition. Scholars state that the combination of competition and interaction makes ICs an interesting field for theory and practice. There has been literature revealing a positive relationship between competition and innovation (Ernst, 2004). Building on social network theory, a recent study analysed how cooperative orientation in actual competitive setting in terms of contests is correlated with innovativeness. It shows that high and low cooperative orientations results in high innovativeness (Angelika C Bullinger et al., 2010). Online communities enable users to present their ideas and at the same time to interact and collaborate with other like-minded people while communicating discussing and building social networks (Angelika Cosima Bullinger and Moeslein, 2010). It has been observed that users’ behaviour in an IC can be described as a balance of cooperation and competition. They provide useful comments and still try to outperform others (Walley, 2007). A recent study analysed if cooperative and competitive elements are required for successful co-creation in design contests. They found that different behaviours ranging from competitive and collaborative exist in design contests (Hutter et al., 2011).

The review on ICs illustrate that the number of studies compared to user

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most studies have been quantitative studies. Nevertheless, it is important to highlight although there is a positive relationship between cooperation and competition, literature still lacks in explaining reasons for this.

2.4 Social Exchange Theory

The literature review shows, above all other findings, that users innovate with other users. Hence, there is an interaction between users in online communities. Interaction of human beings in general stems from a behavioral and psychological approach. Many theories can be used to explain behavior. The theory which has been used in studies on network, social media and on behavior in online community studies is the SET. This theory aims to explain why people interact. As the aim of this study is to find out why users interact in a competitive setting, this theory can be used as a

theoretical lens for this study. It has to be proven very successful in user online communities (Hemetsberger and Pieters, 2001). The SET explains social human behavior, i.e. why humans behave the way they do (Emerson). It has its root in

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The Content

When engaging in user innovation, user can have certain expectations towards the task they contribute to (Füller, 2010). Each user has a different background in terms of education, profession and culture for instance. Hence, when working on a task, each user has a different way of completing the task.

The Process

This element describes how individuals would like to interact with each other (Füller, 2010). Hence, users look for tools which enable them to share their ideas easily, and to receive feedback from other users (Füller, 2010). Thus, the online community in which the IC takes place, needs to provide tools for easier communication to enhance interaction within users.

The People

When taking part in user innovation, users hope to collaborate with like-minded people (Füller, 2010). Thus, the relationships users establish during innovation process are important elements in the generation of an idea. This increases the sense of

belonging to a community which fosters innovation. Rules and Norms

According to SET relationships develop over time building trust and loyal, mutual commitments (Cropanzano and Mitchell, 2005). In order to achieve this, rules and norms play an important role. They are “a normative definition of the situation that forms among or is adopted by the participants in an exchange relation” (Emerson, 1976). To support this, social identity theory states that identification of a social group or the

belonging to a group of people influences the interactions of people (Ashforth and Mael, 1989). Users who believe that they have similarities with other members of the online community are more willing to pledge to norms and values of the online community (Algesheimer et al., 2005).

Resources

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exchanged: love, status, information, money, goods and services. In order to distinguish these resources based on differences and similarities following attributes are assigned: concreteness vs symbolism and particularism vs universalism. According to the authors, particularism expresses how much the value of a given resource is influenced by the persons who are involved in the exchanging and by their relationship. Concreteness indicates how tangible the exchanged resources are. Accordingly, the resource theory is not only about what is exchanged but also about the status of the relationship from involved parties. Most important for this study is the exchange of information, or in this context knowledge. In terms of concreteness and particularism information is less concrete and balanced in particularism. It is important to know that users in online communities exchange information rather than money or goods. This information, in this case knowledge is tacit and embedded in a broad range of skills which is in relation to usage contexts (Marchi et al., 2011).

Relationships

According to SET certain interactions within humans lead to interpersonal connections, which are called social exchange relationships (Cropanzano and Mitchell, 2005). Hence, the SET helps to explain interpersonal relationships which are established over time. There are three views on interpersonal-relationships in social exchange which are

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identified (Mitchell et al., 2012): relationship-formation paradigm, relational-attribute paradigm and relationship context paradigm. The first one says that exchanges which are beneficial for both parties can lead to creation of close relationships. The second one indicates that qualities of the relationship might turn into resources for exchange. The last one states that the closeness of both parties can balance the manner in which resources are exchanged and how people respond to them. Relationships are also an aspect in social capital theory. According to social capital theory relationships of

members in the community raises members’ sense of obligation to help other members in the group and thereby enhancing collective action (Putnam, 1995). In terms of online communities, users who perceive a sense of obligation are more willing to practice in helpful contributions (Wasko and Faraj, 2005).

The SET illustrates that human interaction depends on factors such as content, process, people, rules and norms, resources and relationships. This means that an interaction is not about only the people who are involved but also about the content they exchange and how they interact, i.e. in this case via the use of technology. Furthermore, by engaging in interaction, people develop certain rules and norms. This can be for example certain behaviors such as identification with like-minded people when interacting in an online community. The content which is exchanged during an interaction are resources such as information or feedback on ideas in online

communities. How this feedback is perceived in terms of value for the receiving partner depends on the relationship both parties have. These relationships can be developed over time.

2.5 Research Gap

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et al., 2009). Additionally, the research object and aim has always been the interaction

between producers (company) and the user. The interaction between users has been neglected although it is known that users share their experience and knowledge about certain products with other users (Hung et al., 2011). Till now, there is only formal research on collaborative innovation between users (Hung et al., 2011).Further, there have been only few studies on how the relationship and the interaction between users provide opportunities to innovate (Dahlander and Frederiksen, 2012). There is also a lack on studies on the dynamic nature of knowledge creation over time in online communities (Kim and Ko, 2012). Analyzing the process rather than the outcome can provide insight into discussion threads and how an idea is created and reshaped by the collaborative innovation approach of users (Hoyer et al., 2010). Lastly, in terms of interaction in competitive settings such as IC, research clearly fails to explain why users still interact in these settings. There has been only few studies so far which studied elements of competition and cooperative behaviour of users in design contests and how an IC can benefit from this (Hutter et al., 2011). Till now, studies only focused on

competitive behaviour on the firm level (Faems et al., 2010)

To sum up, user innovation studies focused only on the interaction between company and user as well as the outcome of innovation process. Hence, there is a need of a study about user interaction in the innovation process. In more detail, online communities have ICs in which the best innovations are chosen. Research shows that there is interaction between users in competitive settings. Thus, it would be interesting to see why there is interaction between users in these contests and how it impacts an ideation contest. Hence, the following questions are proposed.

How does interaction benefit users in ideation contests in online communities? - Why do users keep interacting in an ideation contest?

- Why do users share knowledge in an ideation contest? - What are winning factors in an ideation contest?

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theoretical insights will be used to select the right case study and to develop the

interview. Further, the theoretical contributions will also be used in analyzing the data as part of the grounded theory approach.

3 Methodology

The following chapter will illustrate the methodology which is applied for this

research. First, the research philosophy will be explained. Second, the research design and strategy will be explained. In the next step, the research method, i.e. the collection of data will be shown including data analysis. Lastly, there will be also a discussion on ethical issues and validity and reliability.

3.1 Research Approach

At first the epistemological and ontological position taken by the researcher will be presented. This helps to understand the relationship between theory and research. This study aims to explain social interaction in the innovation process in ICs. Thus, a

constructionist position is taken to consider reality as an outcome of perceptions and actions of actors (Bryman, 2012). As a result, this research is based on intersubjective constituted data which is “expressed in languages and practices […] in which we

experience ourselves and the actions and utterances of others (Schwandt, 2007). From this ontological point of view, the researcher accepts the investigated phenomena as a result of the social interaction by individuals (Bryman, 2012). Hence, an ontological position enables the researcher to study actions and perceptions of actors who are involved in user innovation activities in ICs. Taking an epistemological position, enables the researcher to be a social constructionist (Bryman, 2012). This means, that

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3.2 Research Design

Following the research approach, the appropriate research design will be

explained. In this research a case study design is used. In a case study the researcher chooses one or a small number of cases in which the results are analyzed based on qualitative techniques (Dul and Hak, 2007). The aim of a case study is to examine a contemporary phenomenon in depth and in its real-life context (Yin, 2009). Further, this design is valuable when the researcher tries to show abstract concepts in order to provoke new ideas or to establish the importance of a certain research question (Siggelkow, 2008). In this research a single case study design will be applied which is characterized by its uniqueness (Easterby-Smith et al., 2012). A single case study enables the researcher to study a phenomenon which has been considered only by a few (Saunders et al., 2011). In general, a lower number of cases increases the depth of observation (Voss et al., 2002). The selection of the case has been done based on theoretical (Eisenhardt, 1989) or also called purposive (Miles and Huberman, 1994) sampling. This is a process in which a case is chosen to get more thorough

understanding instead of capturing a representative sample of the whole population (Bryman, 2012). Hence, the case is chosen based on criteria which fit the purpose of this study and its respective research questions. Thus, for the purpose of study an online community is needed which provides a platform for users to participate in ICs. In addition, it has to provide projects from many areas to attract more users. Since user is the unit of analysis, the chosen online community has to give users the opportunity to communicate within the community. Further, when accessing the community it has to be observable that there is interaction of users.

3.3 The Case – Users at the Jovoto Community

In order to find users who participate in ICs and interact with each other, an online community had to be chosen. To find an online community, the internet has been

researched using following key terms: innovation communities, user innovation

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Hence, the list of results have been reduced to communities which also provide a platform for users to interact. The following three German communities provide a platform for users to innovate, to collaborate and to participate in different ICs: “UnserAller”, “Hyvecrowd” and “Jovoto”. In order to answer the research question Jovoto (www.jovoto.com) has been chosen. This company has established a crowd contest platform. Jovoto is headquartered in Berlin, Germany and was founded in 2004 at the University of Arts in Berlin. According to their website, Jovoto enables companies to brainstorm and to solve innovation challenges with creative minded people from all over the world. This online community has been chosen as it displays a great example of user innovation in online communities.

“Think 77.000+ like-minded creative talents solving real challenges together. We believe that solving today‘s complex problems requires interdisciplinary talent, deeper

insights and broader inspiration. This is why we established crowdstorming as innovation process. Imagine how powerful a creative process can get, fueled by thousands of architects, product designers, inventors and artists, all thinking about the same problem at the same time? Crowdstorming is the future of innovation, ideas and

solutions.”

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clicking on one member, one can see information such as ideas posted, evaluations made, and posts commented in contests. In addition all members can be sorted based on following criteria: idea submissions, latest activity and country. Besides, one can also see user achievements, such as the number of winning ideas or awards for best

collaboration. Users can participate in different ICs. Each contest is provided with a detailed description of the task. Within a certain time frame participants have time to submit their ideas. The ideas can be supported by visual designs. It is actually stated on the requirements of the task that pictures might help. Each contest has a project

timeline with a submission period, rating only period and project complete stage. After, the submission period there is a general feedback on ideas from the clients. During the idea submission stage users can give each other feedback and comment on ideas. After certain time has passed there is a jury meeting in which ideas are discussed. The jury contains of members from the client and the community workers. For a member of the community all current contests are listed and accessible and thus easy to

participate. All the contests are rewarded with monetary prizes. There is even an award for the user who gives the best feedback.

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illustrate the users chosen for this research. Figure 3.1 shows some general information about the participants. The ratio women to men is equal. Furthermore, participants range from 29 years to 41 years old. In terms of profession, everyone has a different background. Two participants are from Germany whereas the other four are from eastern European countries.

Interviewee Age Profession Origin Gender

Participant 1 41 Architect and designer of interiors

Russia Woman Participant 2 29 Graphic designer Rumania Woman

Participant 3 35 Architect Ukraine Men

Participant 4 31 Industrial designer Germany Men Participant 5 32 Machinery operator Poland Men Participant 6 37 Art director Germany Woman

Figure 3.2 indicates important statistics for each user. These are number of ideas, projects, and number of winning ideas, followers and follows. These numbers are very relevant as it shows that the chosen users generated a huge amount of ideas and have been involved in many ICs. These users are in the top 20 in terms of ideas at the

community. All in all, the participants are users which are very active in generating ideas and taking part in contests. As we will see in the result and conclusion section they are also very active in interacting with other users. One remarkable fact of this table is that the number of ideas does not guarantee winning the contest. Furthermore it is

interesting to see that all participants have both high number of followers and follows. As mentioned earlier, followers can be imagined as friends like in Facebook.

Interviewee Number of Ideas Number of Projects Involved Number of Winning Ideas Followers Follows Participant 1 246 87 18 436 618 Participant 2 176 95 35 326 285 Participant 3 128 52 21 304 91 Participant 4 135 58 17 285 190 Participant 5 189 89 48 487 329 Participant 6 229 78 26 344 248

Figure 3.1: own illustration Participant characteristics

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To have a better understanding on how interaction benefits users in an IC, the procedure of a contest will be described with a focus on the submission of an idea. The information was obtained from the Jovoto community and from what users have been told during the interviews. It all starts with users joining a contest. The community offers several contests to choose from. These are contests on for instance product design, marketing concepts or packaging designs. The user can basically choose what her or she prefers. When having joined a contest the submission period starts. Depending on the contest this can go on for several days. Mostly it ranges from 7 to 13 days. During, the submission period users create their ideas and once finished they submit them. During this period users are free to interact with each other and work to together. After this period, the halftime-feedback starts which can take up to 5 days. A general

feedback is provided by the client. Users can also give each other useful comments. Afterwards the modification period starts as users can modify their initial ideas.

Thereafter, the rating period starts. During this period, users can rate and vote on each other’s’ ideas. The rating scale goes from 1 to 10, the latter being the highest ranking possible. Based on user ratings and opinion of the jury, winning ideas are chosen. This is done in the contest complete stage.

3.4 Research Method

In order to systematically collect data, the chosen approach will be presented and explained.

3.4.1 Semi-structured Interviews

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formulated? Why this question at this position? (Flick, 2008) Nevertheless, themes and questions can vary based on the responses and how the interviewer reacts to them (Bryman, 2012). Based on these criteria and the theory the interview guide has been created. All in all, this guide serves to guide the participants through the interview. Based on the answers and the interview flow follow up questions can be asked. This is even recommended to do so (Bryman, 2012). Compared to a quantitative interview, the number of questions is reduced yet more open. Hence, leading questions or simply yes/no questions will not be asked to ensure the qualitative nature of the study. The interview guide has been developed using the theoretical insights gained in the

literature review. Since, this study is of qualitative nature, this method is appropriate. It will enable the researcher to find out what users think of interaction in ICs and how it impacts them. Further, it will be possible to find out relevant insights of users which could not be possible using for instance an online survey.

All interviews will be conducted by using Skype video call. An audio recording will be organized if there is permission. Thus, data collection and analysis will be easier to maintain. Recording enables a conversation which is unbiased (Easterby-Smith et al., 2012). To have a better overview of the interviews, after each interview, a record with time, date, duration, location and background information will be created (Saunders et

al., 2011). The researcher made sure that the Skype calls have been conducted in calm

and familiar surroundings. In terms of data processing, transcribing the interviews is very time-consuming (Bryman, 2012). Hence, one needs to make sure that enough time is planned.

3.4.2 Interviewee Selection

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contest, and people who have the most ideas in the community as well as highest number of votes for their ideas. All in all, 6 interviews were conducted.

3.5 Data Analysis

In the following, the data analysis process will be illustrated. Data analysis is important to gain insights from the collected data. As mentioned earlier this research is an inductive one and it is based on grounded theory approach. Data analysis in

grounded theory involves four stages (Glaser et al., 1968): codes, concepts, categories and theory. Hence, the data which is collected through interviews will be analyzed in terms of grounded theory. In order to do this each interview will be transcribed. In order to manage data, the coding process was done by using Nvivo 11 software which is a qualitative data analysis software. The license for this software has been obtained through Newcastle University. The coding can be found in the appendices. Coding involves three different steps. It starts with open coding. This step involves data to be broken down, examined, compared conceptualized and categorized (Corbin and

Strauss, 1990). Open coding results in codes or also called concepts which can be later grouped and turned into categories (Bryman, 2012). After the first step of coding axial

coding will be performed. This involves data being put back together by making

connections between the different codes (Corbin and Strauss, 1990). This helps the researcher to identify relations between the codes. In this step, initial codes which might not be relevant for the research questions will be eliminated. The last step is selective

coding. This is the process in which core categories are selected and are systematically

related to other categories in order to validate relationships (Corbin and Strauss, 1990). Codes and categories will be all processed into tables. This will be done for all

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3.6 Ethical Issues

In order to avoid ethical issues in this study, some ethical principles have been taken into account according to (Easterby-Smith et al., 2012). First, it had to be made sure that the aim of the study was communicated to all participants which can build trust between researcher and participant and avoid any confusions. In addition, consent has been obtained from all participants about the use of data. Information about participants have been treated confidentially. Hence, collected data has been processed by the author himself. Further, in order to protect participants from any harm and to respect privacy, the interviewees’ names have been anonymized.

3.7 Validity and Reliability

When conducting a research, one needs to make sure that it has a certain reliability and validity. However, in qualitative research this differs somehow. Hence, qualitative researchers have developed alternative criteria. These are credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). Relating to this (Bryman and Bell) argue that interviews which are conducted with a small number of people make it impossible to know how findings can be generalized. Taking this into account the findings of this study provide a reality in a certain time and specific context (Saunders et al., 2011). Hence, a similar case under the same circumstances might not necessarily lead to similar outcomes due to the complexity of the content (Saunders et

al., 2011). However, regarding transferability, dependability and confirmability “research

design, the reasons underpinning the choice of strategy, methods and data obtained” make it possible for another researcher to follow the processes and analyze the data (Saunders et al., 2011). The rich case description enable researchers to understand how results can be transferable to other contexts (Guba, 1981). To conclude, the design and methodology are well described in this research. How the case was chosen and interviewees were selected are illustrated. The interview guide and coding analysis can be found in the appendices.

3.8 Chapter Summary

This chapter outlined the research design and research methodology of this study. The research design is a single case study on Jovoto community. The research

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community. The interview sample includes winners of the chosen ideation contests. Furthermore, to have more in depth view of user interaction in online communities, top vote getters and idea submitters have been interviewed as well. The aim of this study is to find out how user interaction benefits users in ideation contests. For this purpose the collected data will be categorized based on existing terms of theory and literature to facilitate a structured analysis and interpretation. The following chapter will display the findings.

4 Findings

This chapter will present the results of the case study using the analysis of the conducted interviews. The identified core categories will be used to explain interaction of users in an IC. The categories will be described using quotations from the interviews. The core categories are lead-user, collaboration, feedback, relationship, learning and development, and winning factors. After describing the results, connections between the categories will be explained. This will help to understand the proposed framework in the following chapter. The findings are structured according to the procedure of an IC as described in the case study.

4.1 Joining a contest

To decide which contest to join depends on the user itself and his or her motivation as well as background skills. While conducting the interviews it became evident that users who chose to participate in such a contest have certain

characteristics. They are called lead-users referring to von Hippel (2005). The

interviewed users tend to be very competitive. One user stated that “I am competitive.

For me it is interesting to see if my ideas are better than others’. I want to create better things. When I participated in my first contest I became very emotional and I took it too seriously. I was always upset when my idea was not the winning one”(P3). It shows that

participating users try to win the contest by submitting an idea which is better than other ideas. The lead-user theory states also that certain knowledge is essential to do so. Users talked about realizing ideas into real products. According to one user creating an idea “has to do a lot with imagination and how you realize something which appears in

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users possess the knowledge to transform something which appears in their head to ideas which can be turned into real products. Certain knowledge can be based on background knowledge. The interviews show that users often have professional skills. One user explains that “I have a diploma in design. I got into fields of design, especially

industrial designing. I create new products like furniture or very functional products” (P4). The main thought of lead-user theory is that these users sense essential market

needs before anyone else does. One user says that “the world isn’t ideal. With my ideas

I want to make it a little bit better. Sometimes it just comes from everyday situations. When I see something that bothers me, I try to think of a solution. It doesn’t have to be a major innovation which will change the whole world. If it makes my life easier, it is a success” (P3). One can say that these contests are joined by lead-users who possess

certain knowledge and background skills. By joining a certain contest, lead-users want to share their ideas on essential market needs. Furthermore, they would like to

compete against other lead-users.

4.2 Submission Period

The submission period is the time where lead-users can create their ideas and submit them. Although it is a contest and each lead-user tries to win it, it became evident that there is interaction during the submission period in form of collaboration. The interviewed lead-users talked about working together in order to create an idea or working together in ICs. One user says “We basically brainstormed some ideas on how

to represent our radio broadcast the best way. We were four people. So everyone had a different perspective” (P5). For users who participate in ICs it is important to get

insights and ideas from other users. Although users participate in a contest in which the aim is to win, they still value the opinion of other users. It is important to combine

different backgrounds to achieve the best solution. For them it is also a chance to work with users from all over the world as one users states: “It is a good chance to

collaborate with other creatives from all over the world” (P4). When being asked about

how interaction might benefit the community, one user responded: “I think interaction is

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greater good of the community to work together. They share ideas in order to get help from other users. One can say that during the submission period, lead-users collaborate with each other to create the best possible ideas. With this collaboration they learn from each other and develop their skills.

4.3 Halftime-Feedback

During this period, participating users receive a general feedback from the client based on what they have encountered so far. More importantly, it also gives users to receive feedback from other users as well as to give feedback. All of the interviewed lead-users talked about it. Feedback is what users give each other and also hope to receive from other users. This includes positive comments, advices and suggestions on ideas. Users seek for advice and also hope to get some positive remarks on their ideas. Feedback is an important factor for user interaction in this case study. All of the

participants mentioned that they look for constructive feedback. In terms of the content of feedback one user explains that “It is mostly about shape, colors and technical stuff

about the design. It is good to have other opinions. Some people have more experience or they have different expertise fields. It helps a lot to talk to other people who think alike” (P5). One can observe that it is mostly technical and about the idea and design

itself. It becomes also clear that users look for feedback from like-minded users with enough experience and expertise. One user also states that she makes a distinction from whom she receives the feedback. According to her “It depends if the feedback is

just there to manipulate my work or if it is there to make my work better. People give you feedback, sometimes bad ones. I like constructive feedback because you get to modify your design and get better results” (P2). Thus constructive feedback enables

users to modify their idea. They value this feedback because it comes from people who also participate in such contests and thus possess enough credibility. When being asked about to which extent good or bad feedback is taken into account while

participating in a contest one user said the following: “Sometimes I do get tired and lose

focus and someone with a fresh perspective can say that you can change the color or design. This kind of feedback makes you think about you work and reconsider and make your work better. After these feedbacks my design really looked better” (P2).

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their work. All of the participants also stated that they look for online communities in which users give each other feedback. At the Jovoto community the administrators give a price for the best feedback. One user says that “Even more since Jovoto changed

their system. You can win money by giving the best feedback” (P4). Hence, users are

also encouraged by the community itself to provide feedback.

4.4 Modification Period

This periods enables users to modify their ideas. To what extend the user modifies his or her initial idea depends also on what has been learned from other users while collaborating and to what extend feedback helped them. Lead-users have different backgrounds and skills. Hence, these collaborations with other lead-users who have also different skills help them learn from each other and develop themselves. Further, feedback provided by other lead-users also supports this. Consequently, learning and development results from the interactions lead-users engage. For instance, one user says that “In the beginning, I was very reluctant. But with the time I also messaged

these people and asked some inspirations and if they use some certain sources or books for example to develop themselves” (P5). One can see that users ask for specific

details about possibilities to improve themselves in what they do. At Jovoto it is very easy to look for the users with most ideas as well as the specific projects they participated. Hence, if one user wants to participate in a contest about designing a marketing concept, he or she might look up what users did on similar projects. The idea is not about copying them, rather about seeing how they approached the task as one user mentions “At Jovoto you can search for people with most number of ideas. I look

them up and try to learn from their ideas and designs. I mean I don’t want to copy them. But to see how they approached a contest and how they actually interpreted the

challenge gives me the possibility to learn” (P4). In order to learn and develop their skills

users reach out to other users asking for opinions and advices. For users it is not only important to become a better innovator, but also to learn from the best users. In competitive settings like this, the best will participate. Hence, users try to learn from these experienced ones as one user shares. “I am not a product designer in terms of

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might wonder why users with great knowledge still engage in interactions with other users. Even for the most experienced user innovators, it is impossible to be experts in every field. Contests like these give users the opportunity to learn from each other. One user summarizes this accordingly. “I learn a lot from them and I hope I am as useful to

them as they are to me” (P3).

4.5 Rating only period

The rating only period enables users to rate each other’s ideas. This rating will be taken into account when deciding on the winning ideas. It does not only mean for participating users to rate but also for users from the community. Hence, also not participating users can rate. What does this in terms of user interaction? As explained earlier users can have followers in the community. Once a user submits an idea or takes part in a contest, followers get noticed. Consequently, they can immediately vote and give positive ratings. Users give positives ratings due to the relationships which emerge while interacting with each other. While talking to the participants the

researcher realized that even in a virtual world relationships can emerge. While working together on different projects and asking for feedback users build connections to other users. For users it is not only about participating and innovating, it is also about creating new ideas with people who they think are alike. They look for these people on purpose. The relationships can also be described in terms of followers and follows as explained in the case study. Originally, this category was intended to be called followers and follows. Nevertheless, this would not describe the personal connections the users talked about. For instance, when being asked about how they would characterize the people they interact with, one user says: “Well, they are nice first of all. If you need any help for

a project for example. Go for it. They are all happy to help. And they are good. I mean in the sense of what they are doing. Sometimes I look at projects and ideas and I just think wow. This is great. So I would say people are really professional and creative” (P6).

Users at the online community do not hesitate to help. It also seems that users look for other talented users because they value their opinion due to their expertise. Another one continues “Yes, all the time. We do give each other feedback and suggestions”

(P2). Hence, users also tend to talk to the same people about their projects. This user

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also call the users they interact with friends. For example “Not like friends I have known

for a while or I meet sometimes. But like friends you can meet on virtual settings. I am friends with some of them one Facebook. You get to know what they are doing in their spare time, where they live, where they travel. So yeah, they are kind of friends” (P6).

One can see that the interaction with some users go beyond ideas and innovation. For some it is interesting to see what these people do in their real lives. To call the

interacting partner as friend has been done by all the users who have been interviewed. One user says that “Interaction in an online setting makes what we do more human and

real” (P2). Thus, for users, interaction is not only about working together on projects but

also it gives a personal and human touch when talking to other users via messages or Facebook for instance. These relationships help participating users to receive positive ratings. As we have seen participants talked about other users as being very nice and helpful and trustworthy. Sharing the same passion for innovation and also getting to know each other a bit beyond this community makes the interaction very human. That is why they help each other out by providing positive ratings and comments.

4.6 Contest Complete

This stage is about deciding the winning idea. It is decided based on the ratings and jury opinion. When participating in a contest, the aim is to win. The most possible way to win seems like creating the best idea which fulfills the task requirements. Nevertheless, in a platform like this where competing users interact with each other there is more to it than just developing the best idea. In order to find out why users interact in ICs they have been asked to mention winning factors. With this the

researcher hopes to find out if interaction can lead to these winning factors. There have been different answers but it was clear to observe that there is a pattern. First, it is important to submit ideas which distinguish themselves from other ideas. One user mentions that winning ideas are “Crazy, out of the box and ideas which provide a new

perspective on the topic. Also clever ideas which are suited to the briefing. And also playful ideas which are funny”(P4). This can be traced back to lead-users. They

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client and implement this to their ideas. These factors do not explain why users interact. Yet, the following aspects mentioned by the users lead to the right direction. They mentioned it is important to have many followers at Jovoto. As explained earlier, followers can support the user in many ways. As soon as a user makes any activities such as deciding to take part in a contest or submit an idea the followers get noticed. Afterwards, followers can directly comment on an idea or give a positive rating. This enables the idea to move along the list of other ideas to the top. It is like in Facebook where the most recent comments are shown in a post. Hence, by giving comments or positive ratings followers enable the idea to be on the top. Therefore, it will get noticed by other users as well. One user summarizes this as follows: “Second, you have to be

popular. You have to have followers. I noticed that when I was in the beginning in the community I had some good ideas even better than the winning ones. Sometimes you don’t even understand how these ideas won. It is weird. I discovered that I am not as popular as they are. When you have a lot of followers. They will rate your idea because they are following you” (P2). As one can see this user even mentions that submitting the

best idea does not guarantee a win. It is important to be known in the community and have as many followers as possible. This can be related to the rating period. As

explained, it is important to have many followers. These followers are the results of the emerged relationships. They can assure that someone’s idea receives positive ratings and positive comments. This will be also recognized by the jury for instance. They have to take into account opinions of the community. Another users confirms this view “You

also get more votes. Without votes you cannot be considered.”(P4)

4.7 Bringing it all together

In order to answer the research questions the connections between the categories will be explained. This will give a better understanding of the categories and it will show how they are relevant in explaining interaction of users in an IC.

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meet other lead-users in order to collaborate with them. As the participants mentioned, they work together on projects since everyone has a different perspective. Thus, every single user can contribute to the project with certain skills. Hence, the first connection can be made between lead-user and collaboration. In ICs lead-users collaborate with each other. While working together they also give each other feedback in the form sharing their knowledge with other users. As outlined above lead-users ask about feedback regarding their ideas. This form of knowledge sharing involves giving suggestions on how to improve the idea as well as giving positive comments. Lead-users also try to give feedback. So far, one can say that Lead-users interact in an IC to collaborate with other like-mined lead users. Further, they give and receive feedback.

These connections result in two important aspects. First of all, it leads to learning and development. With collaborating and giving and receiving feedback, lead-users hope to develop their skills in creating new ideas. Several participants mentioned that different users have different expertise and knowledge. While collaborating with other users, they hope to learn something new and develop themselves. Second, it results in relationships. All the participants mentioned that they established friendships with other talented users. These relationships make their interaction more human. Over time they build trust which enables them to share knowledge. Since lead-users develop these relationships and get to know each other, they repeat collaborating and feedback. Hence, thanks to these relationships lead-users continue to collaborate and give and receive feedback. This leads to the last category, winning factors. It has been

mentioned that winning ideas have to be creative, trigger emotions and have to fulfill task requirements. Hence, if lead-users continuously can develop their skills and learn from each other this can be achieved. Furthermore, it has been emphasized that to win a contest users need followers which comment on their ideas and give them votes. The importance of these followers have been explained in terms of the rating period which is the foundation to decide the winning idea. Consequently, all these connections

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5 Discussion

This chapter intends to discuss the findings. First, the findings will be discussed in light of other important journals and scientific work in this field. Second, the theoretical framework will be introduced as this was the aim of this study. Afterwards, based on the framework propositions will be stated.

5.1 Theoretical Insight

The categories will be critically evaluated taking into account major work in this field. Scholars already revealed a long time ago that only few people account for most of the contributions in online communities (Lakhani and Von Hippel, 2003). This idea can be traced back to lead-users (Von Hippel, 2005). It has been proven in many studies that there are certain users who (1) recognize essential needs way before the majority of the market and (2) they have the capability to benefit from obtaining a solution to those needs. As outlined these users have certain knowledge to come up with ideas and solutions for products and services. This is also the case in an IC. For this research users who have the highest number of ideas and winning ideas have been interviewed. It became evident that they have lead-user characteristics. Research shows that lead-users are very knowledgeable and highly skilled in virtual product creation (Füller et al., 2007). Additionally, this research adds that lead-users also interact with other users to develop their skills and learn from each other. Previous research did not take into account that also lead-users interact with other lead users. Research stated several times that users collaborate with each other and share knowledge due to expected benefits (Nambisan and Baron, 2009). However, the concept of lead-user theory has never been taken into account. Thus, this research shows that lead-users also interact with each other which gives them an advantage in an IC.

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collaboration between members (Franke and Shah, 2003). Online communities provide valuable means for companies to facilitate collective thinking of users (Bugshan et al., 2015). This is also the case with the lead-users identified in this research. They all collaborate with other lead-users during an IC by using comment and message

functions provided by the online community. Lead-users in this case study chose with whom they collaborate and share their ideas with.

Research already showed that there is cooperation in competitive settings in online communities (Hutter et al., 2011). However, it failed to explain why. While collaborating with each other, lead-users give and receive feedback and share

knowledge. According to the SET this can be resources in form of information (Foa and Foa, 1980). Nevertheless, information seems to be too general. In terms of this case study, lead-users give feedback and suggestions on how to improve an idea. Further, they also asked for advices such as books or sources regarding innovation and design. This kind of feedback has been labeled social capital which has been identified by analyzing interaction using social network analysis (Wiertz and de Ruyter, 2007). This can be in form of social support and informational support. The first describes users giving each other positive comments about their work whereas the second one is defined as advice, recommendations or knowledge (Trusov et al., 2009). Hence, lead-users collaborate with each other also for mutual social and informational support. Social capital has been a driving factor for user innovators (Bin, 2013). In online communities the decision to realize an innovation depends on the view of the peer users in the network (Hsien-Tang Ko, 2010). Further, it is found that users depend on informational support they provide and receive in the network to make decisions

(Bugshan et al., 2015). Based on this case study, lead-users also rely on information and social support in an IC. With all this, lead-users hope to learn from each other and develop their skills. Learning and development is the result of lead-users working together. Hence, it explains also why users interact with each other even in competitive settings.

Online communities as a platform for user innovation