The literature on new goods and social welfare generally assumes that innovations are developed by manufacturers. But innovation by users has been found to also be an important part of innovative activity in the economy. In this paper we explore the impact of users as a source of innovation on...

In the traditional new product development process, manufacturers first explore user needs and then develop responsive products. Developing an accurate understanding of user needs is not simple or fast or cheap however, and the traditional approach is coming under increasing strain as user needs...

In a study of innovations developed by mountain bikers, we find that user-innovators almost always utilize "local" information - information already in their possession or generated by themselves - to assess the need for and to develop solutions for their innovations. We argue that this finding...

Delta Air Lines entered e-business with much aplomb when it agreed to provide Priceline.com with its excess inventory (seats on planes) in exchange for a 10% equity position. When Priceline stock soared, Delta sold part of its holding for $750 million. Delta management recognized that e-business...

SweetDeal is a rule-based approach to representation of business contracts that enables software agents to create, evaluate, negotiate, and execute contracts with substantial automation and modularity. It builds upon the situated courteous logic programs knowledge representation in RuleML, the...

Innovation development, production, distribution and consumption networks can be built up horizontally €Ӡwith actors consisting only of innovation users (more precisely, "user/self-manufacturers"). "Free" and "open source" software projects are examples of such networks, and examples can...

We compare market returns associated with firms' creation of new units focused on e-business. Two aspects of organization design - governance and leadership - are considered with regard to exploitation - and exploration-oriented organization learning. We find that exploitation in governance...