From Social Media to Social Product Development: The Impact of Social Media on Co-Creation of Innovation

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to discuss the impact of social media on customer co-creation in the innovation process. Customer cocreation denotes an active, creative and social collaboration process between producers and customers (users), facilitated by a company, in the context of new product or service development. We propose a typology of co-creation activities in order to develop conceptual arguments how social media can impact the relationships among customers involved in co-creation as well as the relationship between customers and the hosting firm. Social media can make economic-exchange relations more collaborative and social, but interestingly may also turn relations formerly based on social-exchange into "money markets" with strong competition among actors. As a result, we develop a set of questions that can lead future research in these regards. Das Ziel diesesAufsatzes ist es, die Bedeutung sozialer Medien für Customer Co-Creation im Innovationsprozess zu untersuchen. Der Begriff Customer Co-Creation bezeichnet in diesem Zusammenhang eine aktive, kreative und soziale Zusammenarbeit zwischen Herstellern und Kunden (Nutzern) im Rahmen der Entwicklung neuer Produkte oder Dienstleistungen. Wir schlagen eine Typologie von Co-Creation-Aktivitäten vor, um systematisch zu argumentieren, wie soziale Medien die Beziehungen zwischen Kunden untereinander und die Beziehungen dieser Kunden mit Unternehmen beeinflussen können. Soziale Medien können auf der einen Seite ursprünglich ökonomisch und kompetitiv geprägte Marktbeziehungen zu mehr Zusammenarbeit führen (sie also "sozialer" machen), auf der anderen Seite aber auch einen ursprünglich sozialen Austausch in kompetitive Marktbeziehungen wandeln. Als Ergebnis entwickeln wir eine Agenda für weitere Forschung in diesem Themenfeld.

Accessing Value-in-Use Information by Integrating Social Platforms into Service Offerings

“…Social media and various methods of co-design may be used to engage companies and customers in collaborative innovation (Piller et al, 2012). Research by Agnihotri and colleagues (2012) also suggests that the presence of social content enablers (e.g., collaborative projects) and social network enablers (e.g., social networking sites) can be used to manage and promote the co-creation of value among actors.…”

“…From the company perspective, the tools allow access to information on the actions performed with products and services and how customers perceive the offerings in their own social contexts. Research on the influence of social media on customer cocreation (i.e., active, creative, and social collaboration between actors such as suppliers and customers) suggests that the relationship among the co-creating customers as well as the relationship between the suppliers and the customers is highly affected by the increasing use of such social media technologies (Piller et al, 2012;Rishika et al, 2013).…”

Perceived Individual Risk of Co-innovation in Collaborative Innovation Networks

“…Collaboration involves interactions among internal and external actors to address problems and find or improve solutions [13]. Losing time and other resources over unsuccessful partnership are examples of risks associated with the collaboration efforts [26].…”

Accessing Value-in-Use Information by Integrating Social Platforms into Service Offerings

“…Platforms engage and involve companies and customers in collaborative innovation (Piller et al, 2012) and empower all stakeholders to participate in the co-creation of the customer experience (Chesbrough, 2011a). In practice, platforms connect different suppliers and customers with innovative interfaces -as in Chesbrough's (2011b) flexible front ends -and discovering and forming unique capabilities (Smedlund, 2012).…”