APPLIES TO ACADEMIC YEAR 2015/2016

GRA 6440 User-driven Innovations

Responsible for the course
Alexander Vossen

Department
Department of Marketing

Term
According to study plan

ECTS Credits
6

Language of instruction
English

Introduction
It has been a predominant view in marketing and management practice alike that firms are the drivers of innovation, mostly by providing new or improving existing products or services. However, more recently, researchers have shown that users are often the source of innovation. Beginning in the late 70’s, scholars presented an actual example, the so called “lead user” who becomes innovative due to a strong personal need for a product that is not provided by current market offering. Next to these rare lead users, more “ordinary users” have also begun to innovate. One central explanation for this trend is advances in communication and manufacturing technologies. The rise of the internet in the 1990’s as a new way to communicate and collaborate, and as a source for technical knowledge, has tremendously lowered the barriers for ordinary users to engage in innovative behavior and resulted in a remarkable amount of time and money invested in innovation by these users.

In this course, we will take a look at user-driven and customer-driven innovation from the past to present. We will jointly find answers to questions such as “Why is user-driven innovation important?”, “How is it different from firm driven innovation?”, “What motivates users to become innovative?”, “Why does it make perfect sense for users to invest hours, weeks or even years into something and then give it away to complete strangers for free?”, “ Is user innovation a threat for firms?”, “How should they react to innovating users?" and "How can they benefit from it?”

Learning outcome
The course is designed to provide you with a comprehensive overview of the topic of user-driven innovation. The course will document the distinctness of user-driven innovation, as opposed to firm-driven innovation, and it will review, evaluate and critique several subthemes. The course will place an emphasis on motivational aspects of users to innovate and how firms can incentivize and shape user-driven innovation to fit their needs. More in detail, the course shall help you to:

• (1) See distinct differences of user-driven and firm-driven innovation.
• (2) Realize the general economic and societal relevance of user-driven innovation.
• (3) Recognize what drives users to become innovative and how individual (self-related) and collective (others-related) reasons differ.
• (4) Understand how firms can interact with their own innovating users (their customers) and how firms can even interact with users beyond their own customer base (“external users”).
• (5) Realize how firms can design proper incentive and government structures in order to benefit from user-driven innovation.

If you have to miss class on a particular day, it is your responsibility to get notes from a classmate. Let me know as soon as possible if you have to miss a class. During the semester, if you experience any problem(s) with the class or any of the classmates I expect you to report any problem(s) that you are not able to resolve yourself to me as soon as possible. In this course class attendance is mandatory. Therefore, unexcused absence will result in a lower participation grade.


Examination
The course grade will be based on the following activities and weights:
40 % - Class participation, including written comments. (preparation of business cases and scientific articles as well as case and paper discussion in class. Additionally course participation includes the writting of a manuscript for each session that summarizes key findings of the session, results of the discussion, and individual evaluation of the specific sessions content and usefulness)
40 % - Term paper (8-10 pages) (2 weeks)
20 % - Research presentation

For determining your course participation, I will evaluate your class participation in every session. In addition, you will hand in a manuscript containing your structured notes by the end of the semester. For fulfilling the written assignment, you will need to analyze a related empirical research paper published in an international top journal. For the last grade component, you will be assigned to a group and prepare a subtheme for a specific discussion date. This requires that you moderate the discussion as a group and afterwards give a brief “expert” presentation of the specific topic, for which you need to identify, read, and analyze more related research papers related to your subtheme to make a comprehensive overview for the whole class.