A conceptual extension of the customer-active paradigm

Abstract This paper offers a critique of Von Hippel's “customer-active paradigm” of industrial innovation and argues for the conceptual extension of the new paradigm. To the extent of their being entrepreneurally aware of new product opportunities, users may initiate the process of product innovation, not only by producing ideas and designs but by the collection of marketing intelligence to reduce the uncertainties of the commercial exploitation of innovations. Their doing so disconfirms the essentially passive role in product innovation which is ascribed to users by the customer-active paradigm. The customer-active paradigm should be extended to include the involvement of users in product, as well as process innovation and the paper develops a more comprehensive frame of reference for empirical research.

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