Article Abstract
Consumer co-creation, an approach in which consumers and organizations jointly innovate, can yield valuable knowledge about consumers' needs and how to satisfy these needs. Yet, innovating with consumers is challenging due to their varying levels of commitment, skills, and motivations. In this research, we focus on challenges we cluster as cognition- and affect-driven and examine how these challenges can be addressed using a design thinking approach. Building on the insights gained from interviews with key co-creation stakeholders (n = 73) and three focus groups with experts in design thinking and co-creation, we develop a grounded process model facilitating co-creation with consumers. More specifically, we distill three co-creation phases (labeled as co-creating context, content, and confluence), consisting of eight constituent activities and resulting dynamics that are cognitive or affective in nature. The distilled affective dynamics manifest in ideation confidence, empathy for diverse perspectives, pleasurable engagement, and being creatively inspired; the distilled cognitive dynamics manifest in an expanded knowledge base and an enhanced ability to analyze and evaluate information. Our grounded model is integrative and responds to calls to further examine affective influences within innovation and organization. Furthermore, our research advances the theoretical substance of design thinking by explaining underlying mechanisms at play that make design thinking an effective approach. Finally, our results add to the literature on consumer co-creation by developing a robust process model that leverages design thinking and adopts a multistakeholder approach to optimize consumer co-creation outcomes. In terms of managerial implications, our research presents a structured framework with phases and (micro)activities that will help organizations to actively involve consumers in their innovation process.
Journal of Product Innovation Management, December 2024
About the researcher
Professor Gerda Gemser is a Full Professor of Entrepreneurship & Innovation and Chair of Entrepreneurship at the University of Melbourne, Faculty of Business and Economics. She received her PhD in Management at the Rotterdam School of Management (Erasmus University, the Netherlands). She has been a visiting scholar at leading research universities in North America, including The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and Saunder School of Business, The University of British Columbia. She has held (assistant, associate, and full) professorships at different Australian and Dutch universities including Erasmus University, University of Groningen, Delft University of Technology and Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. She has collaborated with government, professional design associations, and industry in different large-scale research projects to examine the role of design, entrepreneurship, and innovation. On these topics, she has published in leading management journals such as Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Organization Studies, Journal of Management, Long Range Planning, and Journal of Product Innovation Management. She is currently the Co-Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Product Innovation Management and Consulting Editor of International Journal of Management Reviews. She recently co-wrote a book on design leadership published at Stanford University Press (“Design Leadership Ignited: Elevating Design at Scale”). This book examines how to build and scale design capability in larger organizations. She also co-edited book entitled "Strategic design: Eight essential practices every strategic designer must master" (BIS Publishers). This book (currently in 2nd edition) contains the latest knowledge on effective strategic design practices.