Co-Creation with Users at the Edges of Markets

In order to identify growth potential in new markets, organizations constantly need to tap new sources of knowledge, especially from existing and novel users. Studies have shown that idea impulses which emerge from less experienced users turned out to be more original. This paper seeks to improve and conceptualize the understanding of collaboration with even more distant users at the boundaries of markets in the context of exploration for discontinuous innovation. Commonalities of different terms coined throughout the innovation management literature, such as potential or emerging users, are identified and a comprehensive definition is derived. The merits expected to arise from collaboration with these users, identified from a comprehensive literature review, are aligned to literature on the degree of innovativeness and theories from creativity research. Instead of solely classifying individuals according to the dichotomy between either being a current user or a non-user, the notion of use experience, user knowledge and domain involvement will be applied to allow for a more fine grained and individually based classification of users. Finally, significant research gaps in the collaboration with potential users are drawn out which call for researchers’ attention in order to mitigate the struggles of organizations in explorative activities towards discontinuity.