Frontpage  About  admin@impgroup.org
Paper info: Involving clients in innovation: Exploring expectation, knowledge, and competency gaps

Title


Involving clients in innovation: Exploring expectation, knowledge, and competency gaps

Authors


Linda Peters
Universtiy of East Anglia
United Kingdom
Linda Peters ,
Wesley Johnston
Georgia State University
United States
Wesley Johnston and Andrew Pressey

Place of Publication


The paper was published at the 28th IMP-conference in Rome, Italy in 2012.

Download


Download paper
(162.6 kb)

Abstract


Focusing on relations, or interactions, between network members has been a primary concern for the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) group since its inception. These interactions help to promote learning, which is seen as playing a pivotal role in firm development within the network. While the link between innovation and client input has been a feature of innovation research for some time, this input is usually conceptualized as either client need identification (to inform firm research and development activities), or client usage and adoption (to facilitate the wider adoption process of innovations in the marketplace). Some prior research has recognized the role of the client in business-to-business innovation processes and identified client knowledgeability as a key issue but does not place this within a network context. Other research has examined the client as part of an innovation network and the client as a co-producer of value, but does not examine the impact this relationship has on managerial practices and firm processes. Therefore there has been a call for further research investigating how specific company-client collaborations change over time and the need for client education in the co-creation of value process. This paper seeks to address this gap and extend knowledge in the field on expert clients in project-based settings.