Collaboration with Potential Users for Discontinuous Innovation

Creativity and innovation are important drivers of economic welfare and growth in contemporary societies. Collaborating with and learning from users in the early phase of the innovation process has been considered a successful approach to stimulate those creative sparks for organizations. However, the idea of users as innovators has also invoked critical responses especially in the context of innovations that are discontinuous to dominant designs. Martin Hewing and co-author Katharina Hoelzle explore the potential that can arise through collaboration with potential users who are not yet users. Those users at the peripheries are perceived to contribute more novel information, by which they better reflect shifts in needs and behavior than current users at the center.