Co-creation for innovation: why do customers get involved?

Abstract

Companies employ innovation platforms, like crowdsourcing and open innovation platforms, to gather ideas and engage their customers in service innovation processes. Although this might be a technically easy way for customer involvement in service innovation, companies need to understand the drivers and challenges of customer participation through the innovation platforms. The chapter explores a bank’s crowdsourcing platform that gathers customers’ ideas on financial services and the future of banking. A case study is described examining two types of factors that influence customers’ intention to participate in the crowdsourcing platform: (1) motivational factors, including perceived enjoyment, recognition and social presence, and (2) factors of perceived trustworthiness, including ability, integrity and benevolence. The study revealed associations between trustworthiness and motivational factors on one side and customers’ behavioral intention to share ideas with the bank on the other. Association with trustworthiness was stronger. Trustworthiness thus emerges as a key factor for establishing customer-company communication in innovation platforms.