User Innovation and European Manufacturing Industries: Scenarios, Roadmaps and Policy Recommendations

Recently the emergence of more open innovation models which draw on a greater diversity of distributed knowledge sources often including users and customers has received growing attention not only in academia and industry but also in policy circles. Many governments have launched initiatives to explore how to benefit from these developments and how to support companies in their adoption (e.g. the EU lead market initiative, Danish User Innovation Lab duci.dk/). The rationales for these activities are manifold. First of all, policy makers are recognising the growing relevance of open innovation models which is being driven by changing socio-economic framework conditions on the one hand and availability of enabling technologies such as innovation interfaces, connecting platforms and rapid manufacturing technologies on the other (v. Hippel 2005). Accordingly, policy makers strive to enable companies to unlock the potential benefits by adopting concepts of user involvement such as the lead user strategy (Lüthje and Herstatt 2004). At the same time it has been shown that the adoption of democratized innovation models is likely to yield substantial benefits for welfare (Henkel and v. Hippel 2005). Additionally, the empowerment of innovating users is responding to a recognised societal demand with a high potential to increase quality of life in many domains where the uptake of user centered innovation models will better match the high diversity of user needs and the growing demand for creative experience. Finally, for industrial policy there is a very concrete motivation behind the interest in such innovation models. In the face of increasing relocation of manufacturing activities to low wage production sites, concepts of production and consumption patterns that place large part of the value chain close to the customer such as distributed production in mini factories are becoming increasingly attractive to keep jobs and access to high quality products within the country. In many high wage locations where whole sectors have been disappearing, policy initiatives towards personalized production and customer integration are motivated by this goal (e.g. for US and Canadian furniture industry cf. Lihra et al. MCPC 2007). To sum up, there are many good reasons for policy makers to support the transition towards democratized innovation models within economy and society. However, to achieve this goal tailored and efficient policy actions aligning research and innovation policy with measures from other realms such as IPR and regulation are needed (Chesbrough 2006, v. Hippel 2006).