Developing Environment for User-Driven Innovation Sustainability Within a Company

This research is dedicated to user-driven innovation phenomenon. In particular, it is studied from the companies’ perspective with the main goal of defining how a company can create a proper environment for user-driven innovation sustainability and how it can maintain the connection with users. Respectively, a theoretical approach was suggested as well as proposition of guidelines for companies of how a firm can deploy user-driven innovation and, therefore, contribute to creation of the necessary environment. As the main methodology, a multiple case study was conducted with 16 companies divided into five groups: food and beverages industry, electronics and IT, hobby-related, architecture and interior design field, apparel and footwear industry. As a result of the study, recommendations to firms are provided as well as conditions that influence efficient user-driven innovation implementation were defined. The key findings show that a company before implementing user-driven innovation should consider three major groups of conditions that influence user-driven innovation application: organizational, internal and regulatory. The practical significance of the study is in its potential of practical application by firms who choose user-centered innovating approach as a way of innovating. KEYWORDS: user-driven innovation, innovating user, lead user, user-driven innovation process, user-centered approach, producer-centered approach, user community, user-driven innovation sustainability