User Typologies and Research Approaches for Successful Product and Service Innovations

Abstract

    The front-end of innovation has been long portrayed as the most important area of some very successful innovations where companies have tried to identify, obtain, and maximize the benefit of internal and external ideas at the early stages of the innovation process. Recently, the concept of user innovation, one of the most practiced open innovation approaches, has played a crucial role in new product and service development especially during the opportunity identification phase at the front-end. However, traditional user innovation approaches are not able to reasonably empower users for engaging in the market of open innovation. Since there are distinct characteristics in the nature of product and service development, the question remains unclear as to which user typologies and research approaches are able to provide the most valuable insights for product and service innovations. The objective of this study was, therefore, to investigate the relationship patterns of the most useful user typologies and research approaches for each form of innovation. Mixed methodology was employed to gather patterns of 27 self-evaluated successful cases from 10 leading innovation consulting firms in the U.S.A. The empirical findings reveal that ‘less’ users can provide the most interesting insights for product innovation while early adopters are recommended for recruitment if companies want to search for service innovation. The inquiry approach can be very efficient when conducting front-end user research of product innovation while participatory and trend-tracking approaches should be considered when searching for service innovation. The new matching schemes can guide researchers and business practitioners to effectively and efficiently manage their opportunity identification phase at the front-end of this new era.