Service Users as Sources for Innovation

Users are considered as important source for new service ideas and therefore as a vital impetus to the creation of innovative new services.Yet little is known about how service companies manage user integration in the early stages of service development and which types of user qualify as source of service innovation.In this work we widen the knowledge base practitioners and scientists can build on when exploring which service users to integrate and how to increase the likelihood of generating attractive new service ideas. Based on empirical data from two complementary large scale surveys we provide valuable new insights into the industrial practice of user integration in the German services industry and analyze the independent development contributions of Internet service users.