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In heterogeneously segmented markets, collaborating with product users in product innovation is important for business success. End user innovators and embedded user innovators differ in terms of their prior embeddedness in the target industry. The purpose of this study is twofold. First, the authors empirically compare these two types of user innovators in terms of their diffusion channel selection. Second, the authors analyze how the technological advances of their innovations affect this difference.

Using an online questionnaire survey, this study collected a sample of 237 user-generated innovations in Japan and analyzed several hypotheses using quantitative statistical approaches.

The analysis shows that embedded user innovators are more likely than end user innovators to transfer their innovations to producers rather than peers. As the technological advances of their innovations increase, end user innovators' likelihood of transferring their innovation to producers increases more significantly than that of embedded user innovators.

This is the first paper to investigate the difference between end user innovators and embedded user innovators with respect to their diffusion channel selection as well as the moderating role of technological advances. The findings bring new perspectives to the domains of user–producer collaboration and technology transfer.

This article expands literature on user innovation by exploring the mechanisms that support user innovations in the context of a public organisation. Research has hitherto documented support mechanisms for user innovation in producer companies, where users contribute in early or temporary innovation phases as external non-employees or lead-users engaged by the producer. Complementarily, this paper explores a lesser known area of support mechanisms, those that support internal user innovations in a public sector setting.

Employing a qualitative study of a Norwegian public hospital at the interface between users (personnel and patients) and organisational support (facilitators who orchestrate user innovations), this article analyses in-house user innovation based on observations, text documentation and interviews over a four-year period.

In this public hospital, holistic organisational facilitation of “public user innovators” formed the key support mechanism built on “people” (facilitating co-creation), “process” (facilitating ideas, project realisation and implementation) and “coordination” (facilitating systems and communication). The findings show that public and producer organisational mechanisms both resemble and differ in many respects, as illustrated by the framework developed to describe these characteristics, such as that producers insource users, while the public organisation outsources production.

The originality of the article lies in the identification and description of “public user innovation”, a new term developed from this study of a public organisation in contrast to the dominant literature on producer companies. This article contributes new insights by differentiating the roles of user innovators and the mechanisms that support such innovations. New implications are drawn from the public side of organisational support in user innovation research.

Research on makers and innovation has been equivocal regarding whether maker innovation is driven by internal motivation or external incentives. The motivation view favors the intrinsic motives of makers, whereas the incentive view supports external economic incentives. The authors combine both views to explore how innovation tournaments promote the product innovation outcomes of different creative and entrepreneurial makers, using economic incentives (money) or social incentives (love).

The authors interviewed 42 makers and collected a panel dataset of 29,823 makers from the largest digital maker community in China using a Python crawling program. The authors analyzed the data using multiple methods, including cluster analysis, discriminant analysis, factor analysis and negative binomial regression.

Compared with entrepreneurial makers, the product productivity of creative makers is inferior, but their product popularity is greater. The social incentive of innovation tournaments promotes the product productivity and popularity of creative makers compared with that of entrepreneurial makers, but the economic incentive is contradictory. In addition, social and economic incentives interact to generate inconsistent influences.

The study identifies creative and entrepreneurial makers and contributes to user innovation and innovation tournaments by integrating motivation and incentive views.

Citizens can develop new products in the household sector (HHS), and although HHS innovations are generally valuable to others, they are seldom diffused by the innovator. In order to provide insight for the understanding of this diffusion failure, this article proposes to introduce the vocational and retirement perspective to consider how the innovator's chronological aging affects her diffusion channel selection. Commercial diffusion of HHS innovations allows older adults to continue a work-related identity. And, a satisfying work experience could enhance older adults' reliance on work for self-worth. Therefore, the relationship between the older HHS innovators and their commercial diffusion as well as the moderating effect of their person–organization (P–O) fit on this relationship was examined.

This study referred to the standard procedure and utilized a Japanese consumer panel to identify HHS innovators. The criterion of old age was set to 60+ years old. The hypotheses were tested with ordinary least squares regression analysis. The robustness of our findings was checked by analyzing two restricted samples.

In Japan, older adults are more likely to diffuse their HHS innovators commercially than to peers. This relationship is amplified when the older adults also perceived a P-O fit in their employer firm.

This paper adds to the evidence that older adults can be an important source of innovation. It – for the first time – points out that the vocational and retirement perspective can help researchers consider why a particular diffusion channel is selected and thereby provide insight for understanding when the diffusion failure of HHS innovation is alleviated. The moderating effect of the P–O fit originally suggests the “interdependent life spheres”, that is, older adults' work experience may affect their post-retirement life and their activity in the household sector.

This paper investigates the user entrepreneurship process in the video game industry, and how this process is influenced by the interactions between user entrepreneurs and communities.

The paper presents an exploratory multiple case study on 17 firms founded in the video game industry by Italian users.

The findings show that in most of the cases analysed, innovation by users precedes identification of the entrepreneurial opportunity. This research identifies three categories of communities that provide different forms of support to user entrepreneurs: communities of (1) gamers/users, (2) developers/innovators and (3) entrepreneurs. Given the different role played, the three categories of communities have a different relevance during the various phases of the innovation and entrepreneurial path: communities of gamers/users and of developers/innovators affect innovation development and opportunity identification, while communities of entrepreneurs help users to evolve from opportunity recognition to the start-up of a firm.

This study investigates the video game industry, a context in which user entrepreneurship is under-researched and that is characterized by the intangible nature of the products (while previous studies have mainly focused on physical goods). It contributes to extant literature by revealing that, at the beginning of the end-user entrepreneurial process, there may be not only unmet needs but also “excitement-driven” innovations. Moreover, by analysing the whole entrepreneurial path, the study shows how three categories of communities (gamers/users, developers/innovators and entrepreneurs) provide different forms of support to user entrepreneurs in the different phases of the entrepreneurial process.

The purpose of this study is to conceptualize the paradigm of meaningful innovation (MI) by exploring the theoretical basis, identifying its core concepts and key processes, and supporting it with evidence from leading world-class enterprises.

Based on a systemic literature review on the evolution of innovation paradigms, this study builds a conceptual framework to explicate the core concepts and process of MI. Moreover, a horizontal embedded case study of GREE electric appliances is conducted to further enrich, refine and support the proposed framework.

The main finding of this study is that MI could be regarded as a process of integrating innovation elements (resources, capabilities, systems, etc.) with internal and external innovation meaning to obtain outcomes with both economic value and social significance. As a “long-termism” paradigm with meaning identification and conversion as its core, MI is driven by the collaboration of “deductive mechanism” and “reflective mechanism.”

Based on the previous studies concerning innovation paradigms on the internal and external meaning, this paper proposes an integrated framework of MI. In this framework, enterprises can consider internal and external meanings through deductive and reflective mechanisms, to better coordinate resources, capabilities, institutions, markets and other factors to achieve higher innovation performance.

This study examines the influence of different user innovator mindsets on new product development (NPD) performance. The current research explores the relative impact of a product-focused user innovator mindset vs a customer-focused mindset on feedback volume and feedback diversity and investigates the effect of each type of feedback on product improvement and product diffusion.

This study examines these relationships using two distinct types of data. Data on user innovator mindset, feedback characteristics and user innovator improvisation were obtained via an online survey. Archival data on NPD performance measures were acquired directly from an online research database, and results were obtained using confirmatory factor analysis.

The authors find that while neither type of user innovator mindset directly influences NPD performance, user innovators, who are highly customer-focused, have a significant advantage in sourcing knowledge from users in the form of a higher volume of feedback and more diverse feedback. In turn, feedback volume appears to positively influence product improvement, while feedback diversity positively influences product diffusion. Finally, the effect of both types of feedback on product improvement is enhanced for user innovators who are highly improvisational.

This research highlights the important role that customer focus plays in directly obtaining knowledge from customers (i.e. customer feedback) and the effects of that feedback on NPD performance. This study provides evidence that a user innovator's interest in accurately understanding the needs of their peers improves their access to external knowledge and enhances their innovation efforts.

To assist marketing management in the identification and targeting of consumer innovators for novel products by selectively reviewing and integrating three separate streams of research, namely, trait theory, utility‐awareness theory and contemporary cognitive theory.

A range of traditional and contemporary research concerned with the identification of consumer innovators is selectively reviewed and critiqued to enhance marketing management's ability to identify and target the consumer innovator segment. This research, which is addressed under three main sections: personal characteristics, utility‐awareness and cognitive structures, is then integrated to provide management with a more comprehensive approach by which to identify and target consumer innovators. Particular emphasis is placed on the contribution of recent cognitive theories.

The trait dependent approaches in particular, are found to be of limited usefulness in that they identify consumer innovators only retrospectively after initial adoption, as opposed to operating in a predictive manner. It is argued that an approach based upon consumer utility‐awareness, and the more cognitively orientated analogical learning and embedded knowledge structure approaches can provide management with increased control over the process of new product adoption within a target population.

This paper provides management with a new insight into the identification of the consumer innovator by integrating three existing, but somewhat disparate theoretical approaches, and suggests amore comprehensive model for this task.

In the digital economy era, digital platforms are vital infrastructure for innovation subjects to perform digital innovation activities. Achieving efficient and smooth knowledge transfer between innovation subjects through digital platforms has become a novel research subject. This study aims to examine the knowledge transfer mechanism of digital platforms in the digital innovation ecosystem through modeling and simulation to offer a theoretical basis for digital innovation subjects to acquire digital value through knowledge-sharing and thus augment their competitive advantage.

This study explores the optimal symbiotic interaction rate between different users based on the classic susceptible-infected-removed (SIR) model. Additionally, it constructs a knowledge transfer mechanism model for digital platforms in the digital innovation ecosystem by combining the theories of communication dynamics and symbiosis. Finally, Matrix Laboratory (MATLAB) software is used for the model and numerical simulation.

The results demonstrate that (1) the evolutionary path of the symbiotic model is key to digital platforms' knowledge transfer in the digital innovation ecosystem. In the symbiotic model, the knowledge transfer path of digital platforms is “independent symbiosis—biased symbiosis (user benefit)—reciprocal symbiosis,” aligning with the overall interests of the digital innovation ecosystem. (2) Digital platforms' knowledge transfer effects within the digital innovation ecosystem show significant differences. The most effective knowledge transfer model for digital platforms is reciprocal symbiosis, whereas the least effective is parochial symbiosis (platform benefit). (3) The symbiotic rate has a significant positive impact on the evolutionary dynamics of knowledge transfer on digital platforms, especially in the reciprocal symbiosis model.

This study's results aid digital innovators in achieving efficient knowledge transfer through digital platforms and identify how symbiotic relationships affect the knowledge transfer process across the ecosystem. Accordingly, the authors propose targeted recommendations to promote the efficiency of knowledge transfer on digital platforms.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the various roles of academic librarians in a particular startup university and how they embrace the “entrepreneurial spirit” by collaborating with many departments as the “embedded librarian”. The paper examines how embedded librarians can become entrepreneurs in generating new opportunities, collaborations and support within this university and through several departments. The paper also suggests how librarians can become embedded and entrepreneurial in academic librarianship.

The approach of this paper is to explore several case examples of how librarians who are embedded in a startup university demonstrate and possess the “entrepreneurial spirit” that redefine traditional roles of a librarian by opening up new opportunities for collaboration and support.

The paper finds that these case examples can serve as paradigms for other librarians to become entrepreneurs in their universities or communities; these examples also show that librarians can and must adapt to new changes whether they are economic, political, social or technological: librarians can be innovative and entrepreneurial in startup or non-startup environments.

The paper examines how librarians, particularly embedded ones in a department, can be entrepreneurs that can add tremendous value to the university and community in a way that transcends and redefines traditional roles of librarians.