High-tech, German companies are facing a curious problem: their products are reportedly too good for the expanding global markets. So in a way they get penalised for offering a superlative quality. At a second glance, though, this doesn't seem surprising. For, succeeding in the emerging markets...

Within this paper we examine the strategic perspective of the emerging phenomenon of performance-oriented systems (e.g. car-sharing, cloud computing). Based on twenty-seven system examples from four industries, we derive six founding propositions that delineate their strategic characteristics...

Integrating lead users into the product development process is a promising source of innovations. While the lead user approach is clearly established in academia, the implementation into management practice is ambiguous. Conducting a literature review of 255 articles in business press we show...

In the light of depleting natural resources and growing awareness for responsible consumption, Cradle-to-Cradle (C2C) has emerged as one of the key concepts redefining product characteristics and assigning a new role to environmental responsibility of companies. It reframes the general goal of...

The trend of population aging is affecting an increasing number of countries around the world, especially advanced economies. One consequence of a growing population share of aged persons is a shift in consumer needs, reflected by a rising number of products and services designed particularly...

The existing research on the behavior of user innovators has focused almost exclusively on younger users. In light of the demographic shift and the increasing importance of the Silver Market segment (customers 55 years plus), we analyzed whether important determinants of user innovator behavior...

In this study we examine the effects of exogenous vs. endogenous governance rules on a virtual community handling an innovative task. Specifically we investigate the relationship between the two modes (exogenous vs. endogenous) and factors such as motivation, conflict and justice. We conducted...

The existing literature on open innovation strongly emphasizes on the organizational level, while neglecting the people side and especially the perspective of employees working in OIprojects. This study analyzes determinants of R&D employees' knowledge exchange in OIprojects by means of the...

While sustainability issues increasingly gain importance for new product design, they also further complicate the NPD process. In many cases it is hard to exactly measure the socio-environmental impact of new products, and sustainability targets may conflict with other ones. Innovators can aim...

Mobile health (mHealth) with its unique attributes (e.g. instant connectivity, convenience, personalization) is largely considered as a new healthcare paradigm transforming health services around the world. mHealth has also gained popularity in research, especially in the field of technology...