IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/respol/v50y2021i8s0048733320301347.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Next-generation consumer innovation search: Identifying early-stage need-solution pairs on the web

Author

Listed:
  • von Hippel, Eric
  • Kaulartz, Sandro

Abstract

All innovations consist of a need paired with a responsive solution - a need-solution pair (von Hippel and von Krogh 2016). Today, technical advances in machine learning techniques for natural language understanding, such as semantic word space models and semantic network analytics, have made it practical to capture descriptions of early-stage, need-solution pairs mentioned anywhere in the open, textual content of the Internet. Producers - and anyone - can now thus look for user innovations posted on the web that may involve either known or newly defined needs coupled to new solutions that are gaining traction. This is important because, as is now understood, users, rather than producers, tend to pioneer functionally new products and services for which both the need and the solution may be novel.

Suggested Citation

  • von Hippel, Eric & Kaulartz, Sandro, 2021. "Next-generation consumer innovation search: Identifying early-stage need-solution pairs on the web," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(8).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:50:y:2021:i:8:s0048733320301347
    DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2020.104056
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733320301347
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.respol.2020.104056?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Artem Timoshenko & John R. Hauser, 2019. "Identifying Customer Needs from User-Generated Content," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 38(1), pages 1-20, January.
    2. Eric von Hippel & Georg von Krogh, 2016. "CROSSROADS—Identifying Viable “Need–Solution Pairs”: Problem Solving Without Problem Formulation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(1), pages 207-221, February.
    3. Hienerth, Christoph & von Hippel, Eric & Berg Jensen, Morten, 2014. "User community vs. producer innovation development efficiency: A first empirical study," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 190-201.
    4. Ho-Dac, Nga N., 2020. "The value of online user generated content in product development," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 136-146.
    5. Glen L. Urban & Theresa Carter & Steven Gaskin & Zofia Mucha, 1986. "Market Share Rewards to Pioneering Brands: An Empirical Analysis and Strategic Implications," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(6), pages 645-659, June.
    6. Baldwin, Carliss & Hienerth, Christoph & von Hippel, Eric, 2006. "How user innovations become commercial products: A theoretical investigation and case study," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(9), pages 1291-1313, November.
    7. Carliss Y. Baldwin & Kim B. Clark, 2006. "The Architecture of Participation: Does Code Architecture Mitigate Free Riding in the Open Source Development Model?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(7), pages 1116-1127, July.
    8. Eric von Hippel & Harold DeMonaco & Jeroen P. J. de Jong, 2017. "Market failure in the diffusion of clinician-developed innovations: The case of off-label drug discoveries," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 44(1), pages 121-131.
    9. Carliss Baldwin & Eric von Hippel, 2011. "Modeling a Paradigm Shift: From Producer Innovation to User and Open Collaborative Innovation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(6), pages 1399-1417, December.
    10. Eric von Hippel & Jeroen P. J. de Jong & Stephen Flowers, 2012. "Comparing Business and Household Sector Innovation in Consumer Products: Findings from a Representative Study in the United Kingdom," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(9), pages 1669-1681, September.
    11. de Jong, Jeroen P.J. & von Hippel, Eric & Gault, Fred & Kuusisto, Jari & Raasch, Christina, 2015. "Market failure in the diffusion of consumer-developed innovations: Patterns in Finland," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(10), pages 1856-1865.
    12. Gary L. Lilien & Pamela D. Morrison & Kathleen Searls & Mary Sonnack & Eric von Hippel, 2002. "Performance Assessment of the Lead User Idea-Generation Process for New Product Development," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(8), pages 1042-1059, August.
    13. Markus Ernst & Alexander Brem, 2017. "Social Media for Identifying Lead Users? Insights into Lead Users’ Social Media Habits," International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management (IJITM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 14(04), pages 1-21, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ping Chen, 2023. "The Effect of Value Creation on Startups Performance in the Digital Environment: Evidence from Chinese Digital Startups," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-18, February.
    2. de Jong, Jeroen P.J. & Ben-Menahem, Shiko M. & Franke, Nikolaus & Füller, Johann & von Krogh, Georg, 2021. "Treading new ground in household sector innovation research: Scope, emergence, business implications, and diffusion," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(8).
    3. Pierre Barbaroux & Victor Santos Paulino, 2022. "Why do motives matter? A demand-based view of the dynamics of a complex products and systems (CoPS) industry," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 32(4), pages 1175-1204, September.
    4. von Hippel, Christiana D. & Cann, Andrew B., 2021. "Behavioral innovation: Pilot study and new big data analysis approach in household sector user innovation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(8).
    5. Mulhuijzen, Max & de Jong, Jeroen P.J., 2023. "The rich or the poor? Personal resources, do-it-yourself, and innovation in the household sector," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(3).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. de Jong, Jeroen P.J. & Gillert, Nils Lennart & Stock, Ruth M., 2018. "First adoption of consumer innovations: Exploring market failure and alleviating factors," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 487-497.
    2. Preißner, Stephanie & Raasch, Christina & Schweisfurth, Tim, 2017. "Is necessity the mother of disruption?," Kiel Working Papers 2097, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    3. Globocnik, Dietfried & Faullant, Rita, 2021. "Do lead users cooperate with manufacturers in innovation? Investigating the missing link between lead userness and cooperation initiation with manufacturers," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    4. Bradonjic, Philip & Franke, Nikolaus & Lüthje, Christian, 2019. "Decision-makers’ underestimation of user innovation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(6), pages 1354-1361.
    5. de Jong, Jeroen P.J. & von Hippel, Eric & Gault, Fred & Kuusisto, Jari & Raasch, Christina, 2015. "Market failure in the diffusion of consumer-developed innovations: Patterns in Finland," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(10), pages 1856-1865.
    6. de Jong, Jeroen P.J. & Ben-Menahem, Shiko M. & Franke, Nikolaus & Füller, Johann & von Krogh, Georg, 2021. "Treading new ground in household sector innovation research: Scope, emergence, business implications, and diffusion," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(8).
    7. Franke, Nikolaus & Schirg, Florian & Reinsberger, Kathrin, 2016. "The frequency of end-user innovation: A re-estimation of extant findings," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(8), pages 1684-1689.
    8. Schweisfurth, Tim G. & Dharmawan, Magha P., 2019. "Does lead userness foster idea implementation and diffusion? A study of internal shopfloor users," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 289-297.
    9. Wu, Chia-huei & de Jong, Jeroen P.J. & Raasch, Christina & Poldervaart, Sabrine, 2020. "Work process-related lead userness as an antecedent of innovative behavior and user innovation in organizations," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(6).
    10. Claussen, Jörg & Halbinger, Maria A., 2021. "The role of pre-innovation platform activity for diffusion success: Evidence from consumer innovations on a 3D printing platform," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(8).
    11. Svensson, Peter O. & Hartmann, Rasmus Koss, 2018. "Policies to promote user innovation: Makerspaces and clinician innovation in Swedish hospitals," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 277-288.
    12. Halbinger, Maria A., 2018. "The role of makerspaces in supporting consumer innovation and diffusion: An empirical analysis," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(10), pages 2028-2036.
    13. Mulhuijzen, Max & de Jong, Jeroen P.J., 2023. "The rich or the poor? Personal resources, do-it-yourself, and innovation in the household sector," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(3).
    14. Hamdi-Kidar, Linda & Vellera, Cyrielle, 2018. "Triggers entrepreneurship among creative consumers," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 465-473.
    15. Brem, Alexander & Bilgram, Volker & Marchuk, Anna, 2019. "How crowdfunding platforms change the nature of user innovation – from problem solving to entrepreneurship," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 348-360.
    16. Konstantin Fursov & Thomas Thurner, 2016. "God Helps Those Who Help Themselves! A Study of User-Innovation in Russia," HSE Working papers WP BRP 59/STI/2016, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    17. Trischler, Jakob & Johnson, Mikael & Kristensson, Per, 2020. "A service ecosystem perspective on the diffusion of sustainability-oriented user innovations," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 552-560.
    18. Schweisfurth, Tim G. & Raasch, Christina, 2015. "Embedded lead users—The benefits of employing users for corporate innovation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 168-180.
    19. von Hippel, Christiana D. & Cann, Andrew B., 2021. "Behavioral innovation: Pilot study and new big data analysis approach in household sector user innovation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(8).
    20. Alexander Brem & Volker Bilgram & Adele Gutstein, 2021. "Involving Lead Users in Innovation: A Structured Summary of Research on the Lead User Method," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Alexander Brem (ed.), Emerging Issues and Trends in INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT, chapter 2, pages 21-48, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:50:y:2021:i:8:s0048733320301347. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/respol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.