Past theories of consumer innovation and creativity were devised before the emergence of the profound collaborative possibilities of technology. With the diffusion of networking technologies, collective consumer innovation is taking on new forms that are transforming the nature of consumption and work and, with it, society and marketing. We theorize, examine, dimensionalize, and organize these forms and processes of online collective consumer innovation. Extending past theories of informationalism, we follow this macro-social paradigm shift into grassroots regions that have irrevocable impacts on business and society. Business and society need categories and procedures to guide their interactions with this powerful and growing phenomenon. We classify and describe four types of online creative consumer communities—Crowds, Hives, Mobs, and Swarms. Collective innovation is produced both as an aggregated byproduct of everyday information consumption and as a result of the efforts of talented and motivated groups of innovative e-tribes.

Open-source communities are innovative online communities, some of which have recently attracted increasing attention. The study suggests that members of innovative online communities learn and build collective knowledge through the use of ‘technologies’ and the establishment of discursive practices that enable virtual re-experience. Theories of knowledge creation and learning have been reviewed and a social-experiential view of learning has been applied in order to examine the reflective inquiry processes and collective learning practices. The findings demonstrate that re-experience is enabled by code, transactive group memory, instructive content and discourse, and reflective discourse. The manifestations of learning processes lead to concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation at the individual level. Collective reflection, collective conceptualization, virtual experimentation, and participative practice are initiated at the social level. Empirical evidence is based on an interpretive investigation of the K Desktop Environment (KDE) community—an open-source software project that is administered online.

No abstract

This article provides in-depth insights into the dynamic, performative co-construction of stakeholder and brand identity in the context of the LEGO brand. Based on detailed considerations of individual and social identity theory, a critique of research on brand identity, and a review of current performative approaches to branding, this study applies a performativity theory perspective. Brand performances-encompassing playing and liking, basement building and showcasing, creating and innovating, community building and facilitating, storytelling, missionizing, and marketplace developing-exhibit generic ludic, creative, economic, and socializing qualities and co-construct involved identities. The findings contribute to a dynamic view of brand identity, highlighting brand identity's performative construction alongside constructions of stakeholder identities and the strong interrelatedness of company and stakeholders as agents of brand performance.