Skip to main content
Kent Academic Repository

Comparing business and household sector innovation in consumer products: Findings from a representative study in the United Kingdom

Von Hippel, E., De Jong, J.P.J., Flowers, S. (2012) Comparing business and household sector innovation in consumer products: Findings from a representative study in the United Kingdom. Management Science, 58 (9). pp. 1669-1681. ISSN 0025-1909. (doi:10.1287/mnsc.1110.1508) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:51404)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1110.1508

Abstract

In a first survey of its type, we measure development and modification of consumer products by product users in a representative sample of 1,173 UK consumers age 18 and older. We estimate this previously unmeasured type of household sector innovation to be quite large: 6.1% of UK consumers-nearly 2.9 million individuals- have engaged in consumer product innovation during the prior three years. In aggregate, consumers' annual product development expenditures are more than 1.4 times larger than the annual consumer product R&D expenditures of all firms in the United Kingdom combined. Consumers engage in many small projects that seem complementary to the innovation efforts of incumbent producers. Consumer innovators very seldom protect their innovations via intellectual property, and 17% diffuse to others. These results imply that, at the country level, productivity studies yield inflated effect sizes for producer innovation in consumer goods. They also imply that existing companies should reconfigure their product development systems to find and build on prototypes developed by consumers. © 2012 INFORMS.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1287/mnsc.1110.1508
Additional information: Unmapped bibliographic data: LA - English [Field not mapped to EPrints] J2 - Manage Sci [Field not mapped to EPrints] AD - MIT Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge MA 02142, United States [Field not mapped to EPrints] AD - Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, 3062 PA Rotterdam, Netherlands [Field not mapped to EPrints] AD - EIM Business and Policy Research, 2701 AA Zoetermeer, Netherlands [Field not mapped to EPrints] AD - Centre for Research in Innovation Management, University of Brighton, East Sussex BN1 9QE, United Kingdom [Field not mapped to EPrints] DB - Scopus [Field not mapped to EPrints]
Uncontrolled keywords: Consumer innovation, Measurement, Research and development, User innovation, Consumer Goods, Effect size, Household sectors, Product development system, Product innovation, Representative sample, Research and development, United kingdom, User innovation, Industry, Innovation, Measurements, Product development, Consumer products
Subjects: H Social Sciences > HF Commerce > HF5351 Business
Divisions: Divisions > Kent Business School - Division > Kent Business School (do not use)
Depositing User: Kimberley Attard-Owen
Date Deposited: 04 Nov 2015 10:54 UTC
Last Modified: 05 Nov 2024 10:37 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/51404 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

  • Depositors only (login required):

Total unique views for this document in KAR since July 2020. For more details click on the image.