We provide the first empirical exploration of disease-related innovation by patients and their caregivers. Our aims were to measure the frequency of innovation by these patients and their caregivers, and the improvement in well-being they experienced from using what they have developed. In...

To solve a problem, needed information and problem-solving capabilities must be brought together. Often the information used in technical problem solving is costly to acquire, transfer, and use in a new location — is, in our terms, "sticky." In this paper we explore the impact of information...

A central tenant of open innovation is free revealing of the detailed workings of novel products and services, so that others may use them, learn from them, and perhaps improve them as well. We explain that innovators frequently do freely reveal proprietary information and knowledge regarding...

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 a user need is not simple or fast or cheap, however. As a result, the traditional approach is coming under increasing strain as...

In this book I integrate new theory and new research findings into the framework of a “free innovation paradigm.” Free innovation involves innovations developed and given away by consumers as a “free good,” with resulting improvements in social welfare. I explain that free innovation is...

When individual consumers develop products for their own use, they in part expect to be rewarded by the use value of what they are creating (utilitarian user motives), and in part expect to be rewarded intrinsically by such things as the fun and learning experience derived from creating it...

Innovation commons – which we define as repositories of freely-accessible, “open source” innovation-related information and data - are a very significant resource for innovating and innovation-adopting firms and individuals: Availability of free data and information reduces the...

Empirical studies of innovation have found that end users frequently develop important product and process innovations. Defying conventional wisdom on the negative effects of uncompensated spillovers, innovative users also often openly reveal their innovations to competing users and to...

The "lead user construct" was developed to preferentially identify commercially attractive innovation-related information developed by users of products and services. In this research, we use data drawn from users of Apache, an open source software project, to assess the association between each...