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Let the user speak: Is feedback on Facebook a source of firms' innovation?

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  • Bertschek, Irene
  • Kesler, Reinhold

Abstract

Social media open up new possibilities for firms to exploit information from various external sources. Does this information help firms to become more innovative? Combining firm-level survey data with information from firms' Facebook pages, we study the role that firms' and users' activities on Facebook play in the innovation process. We find that firms' adoption of a Facebook page as well as feedback from users are positively and significantly related to product innovations. Analysis of the content of Facebook posts and comments reveals that firms are more likely to introduce product innovations if they actively ask for feedback, while only negative user comments are positively and significantly related to innovation success. These results withstand a large set of robustness checks, including estimations that take potential endogeneity of firms' Facebook use into account.

Suggested Citation

  • Bertschek, Irene & Kesler, Reinhold, 2018. "Let the user speak: Is feedback on Facebook a source of firms' innovation?," ZEW Discussion Papers 17-015, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, revised 2018.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:zewdip:17015
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    Cited by:

    1. Michael Kummer & Patrick Schulte, 2019. "When Private Information Settles the Bill: Money and Privacy in Google’s Market for Smartphone Applications," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(8), pages 3470-3494, August.
    2. Niebel, Thomas & Rasel, Fabienne & Viete, Steffen, 2017. "BIG data - BIG gains? Empirical evidence on the link between big data analytics and innovation," ZEW Discussion Papers 17-053, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    3. Janna Axenbeck & Patrick Breithaupt, 2021. "Innovation indicators based on firm websites—Which website characteristics predict firm-level innovation activity?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(4), pages 1-23, April.
    4. Thomas Niebel & Fabienne Rasel & Steffen Viete, 2019. "BIG data – BIG gains? Understanding the link between big data analytics and innovation," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(3), pages 296-316, April.
    5. Axenbeck, Janna & Breithaupt, Patrick, 2019. "Web-based innovation indicators: Which firm website characteristics relate to firm-level innovation activity?," ZEW Discussion Papers 19-063, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    6. Breithaupt, Patrick & Kesler, Reinhold & Niebel, Thomas & Rammer, Christian, 2020. "Intangible capital indicators based on web scraping of social media," ZEW Discussion Papers 20-046, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    7. Uttara Ananthakrishnan & Davide Proserpio & Siddhartha Sharma, 2023. "I Hear You: Does Quality Improve with Customer Voice?," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 42(6), pages 1143-1161, November.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    social media; knowledge sources; product innovation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • L23 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Organization of Production
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives

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