مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WEB BASED USER INNOVATION TOOLS AND FIRMS’ INNOVATIVENESS

Abstract :

The main objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between the usage of web based user innovation tools and firms’ innovativeness. Besides, it is also aimed to explore the tools that are used in conjunction and trigger innovativeness. 61 firms operating in consumer goods/services sector within the list of Fortune Top 500 Turkey List, published in 2014, responded to the questionnaire. Findings reveal that not all of the web based user innovation tools have a significant relationship with firms’ innovativeness. Hypotheses of the study are tested by correlation analysis and research questions are investigated via mining association rules with FP-Growth algorithm. The association rules mined pinpoint that 71% of the companies that use “virtual communities formed by users, and marketing intelligence services” together and 65% of the firms using market intelligence services in their new product development process are found to trigger innovativeness. Up to date, to the best of our knowledge, there has been no research focusing on the relationship between the usage of web based user innovation tools and firms’ innovativeness. Therefore, the most important contribution of this study is being a pioneer attempt to provide an empirical evidence for the aforementioned relationship by shedding light on each tools’ effect on firm’s innovativeness for consumer goods/services. Web based user innovation tools are the prominent enablers of customer integration into innovation processes of firms leading to customer generated value. Thus, it may be important for firms to decide on the bundle of the web based user innovation tools to be used; since the usage of these tools together or separately might have different effects on firms’ innovativeness.