ONLINE COMMUNITIES IN MATURE MARKETS: WHY JOIN, WHY INNOVATE, WHY SHARE?

ONLINE COMMUNITIES IN MATURE MARKETS: WHYJOIN, WHY INNOVATE, WHY SHARE?

LARS JANZIK* and CHRISTINA RAASCH

Hamburg University of Technology, Institute of Technology andInnovation Management, Schwarzenbergstrasse 95

21073 Hamburg, Germany*[email protected]

Online communities (OCs), especially those related to particular products or brands, havebecome a potent means of identifying user needs and solution ideas, thereby supportingcompanies to innovate. Despite their growing relevance, user innovation activities withinconsumer OCs still are underexplored. Members’ motivations to innovate and contribute toOCs, in particular, belong to a young line of research requiring further investigation. Thisstudy contributes to this line of research by providing an in-depth netnographic analysis ofinnovative, privately operated OCs dedicated to tangible consumer products. Most fun-damentally, we differentiate: (1) motives to join OCs, (2) motives to innovate, and (3)motives to publish innovations in OCs. It is the first study that categorizes the motives ofinnovative OC members depending on membership lifecycle and situational factors. Ourresults support companies in understanding members’ motives in privately operated OCsrelating to the company’s brand or products. Thus, it provides a foundation for thedevelopment of specific incentives and tools that stimulate user activity.

Keywords: User innovation; online communities; motivation; netnography.

Introduction

In the last years, online communities (OCs) have gained great importance forcompanies of nearly all lines of business. For users, OCs have been established associal networks and knowledge platforms and have become an important sourcefor the exchange of information and experience. While a few OCs are currentlylisted among the most frequented websites on the Internet (e.g., according to Alexatraffic rankings, www.alexa.com), an endless number of specialized niche OCs foralmost every topic, theme, brand or product have also emerged. Some are operatedby manufacturers themselves as brand communities, market research instrumentsor support platforms. According to our research, the majority of specialized OCs

International Journal of Innovation ManagementVol. 15, No. 4 (August 2011) pp. 797–836© Imperial College PressDOI: 10.1142/S1363919611003568

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are privately operated by enthusiastic hobbyists, fans or extreme users of a relatedproduct or brand.

For companies such private OCs can provide an external source for gainingnew product ideas and sometimes even for innovations developed by users(Jeppesen and Molin, 2003). For example, successful community-based inter-action between users and manufacturers has created highly innovative products inthe consumer goods sector (Luethje, 2000, 2004). Analyses in this field investigatethe development of non-physical consumer products in OCs, such as open sourcesoftware (OSS) (Dahlander and Magnusson, 2005), music software (Jeppesen andFrederiksen, 2006) and games (Jeppesen and Molin, 2003), and the developmentof physical consumer goods in offline communities such as extreme sportsequipment (Franke and Shah, 2003; Luethje, 2004; Luethje et al., 2005).

Despite its practical relevance, the field of user innovation in OCs for consumergoods is still comparatively underexplored, especially in the case of tangibleproducts. Fueller et al. (2007), Antorini (2008) and Jawecki (2008) paved theground for this line of research in recent years.

Product-related innovative communities can differ in two principal dimensions.The first dimension regards the artifact designed by the community, which can bea physical (tangible) or non-physical (intangible) product, the second relates to themedium primarily used for information exchange and collaboration, which iseither online or offline (Fueller et al., 2007). Intangible products such as softwareor content can easily be created collaboratively in OCs and can be used, shared anddistributed immediately via the Internet. In contrast, much of the developmentwork for tangible products can be realized online, but the ultimate purpose —

construction and production — needs to be done offline (Raasch et al., 2009).In innovative OCs related to physical products, communication and collabor-

ation are taking place online while the act of creation is an offline process. Userscan present images, videos or models of their ideas and products online anddiscuss improvements, but such creations are neither “touchable” nor testableonline by other members. In spite of these barriers, the number of specialized OCsrelated to physical products is growing strongly.

In this paper, we take a closer look at the motivation of members in specializedprivately operated innovative OCs focusing on the design of tangible products.Motivation of members to participate and contribute is most critical as a successfactor for OCs as it determines the quality and quantity of the content (Ardichviliet al., 2003).

This study investigates four main research questions:

(I) What motivates users to join such OCs?(II) What motivates some members to create new ideas and products?

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(III) What are the main motives of innovators to publish and share theirknowledge and creations with others in such OCs?

By exploring these research questions, we aim to provide a better understandingof user innovation in OCs. We develop a categorization for different motives ofOC members, give deeper insights into the creative processes of OCs for physicalproducts, and show how members develop prototypes of tangible products andhow other members derive benefit from such innovations.

Several studies on consumer OCs describe user innovation as a phenomenon ofemerging markets (e.g., Jeppesen and Molin, 2003; Shah, 2005) and trendy pro-ducts (e.g., Jeppesen and Frederiksen, 2006; Jawecki, 2008). By way of contrast,we want to investigate user innovation in consumer OCs in a mature market. Ourresearch question four is therefore:

(IV) Do consumer OCs in mature markets show potential for radical userinnovations?

The next two sections of our paper review the prior research on user innovationand innovative OCs (Section 2) and the theory of user motivation (Section 3).Section 4 provides a short overview of the research field and methodology, whileSection 5 presents principal findings of our study on collaborative product inno-vation activities in OCs. The paper closes with a discussion of the findings inSection 6, followed by an investigation of the implications for research andcompanies (Section 7).

User Innovation in Online Communities and its Potential for NPD

Selected prior findings on user innovation

The role of lead users in the corporate innovation1 process has been analyzed on awide scale, especially for industrial goods markets (Urban and von Hippel, 1988;Herstatt and von Hippel, 1992; Morrison et al., 2000). Lead users have individualneeds that portend the requirements of the future market, and they profit greatlyfrom a solution according to their needs (von Hippel, 1986). It has been shown thatinnovations, especially radical innovations, often trace back to the ideas of these

1In the literature, there are many different definitions of the term innovation depending on theresearch field and perspective (e.g., Barnett, 1953; Fagerberg, 2004), but there is no closed, uni-versally accepted definition. In the context of our study we understand the term innovation to refer tonew products or new product-related solutions, which have not been available on the market forPlaymobil (our research object) before or satisfy the Playmobil users’ needs in a better way than ithas been done before (Urabe, 1988; Rogers, 1995).

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lead users (von Hippel, 1978, 1988). User innovations emerge mostly from open,voluntary and collaborative activities of users (Shah, 2005). An early integration ofinnovative users into the new product development (NPD) process opens up animportant additional, external source for new ideas, products and problem sol-utions and can improve a company’s innovation success rate (von Hippel andKatz, 2002; Gassmann and Wecht, 2006).

In the market of industrial goods, companies mostly have good contact toindustry experts. They have only a few clients or several major potential customersand often know the characteristics of each user quite well (von Hippel, 1986).This serves as a foundation to identify and integrate lead users. In the consumergoods market, the numbers of users are much larger. Accordingly, it is morecomplex and costly to acquire information about changing user needs, and to findand integrate innovative users (Spann et al., 2009). The Internet offers companiesan interface to identify, integrate and monitor innovative users easily at low costsespecially for these markets (Dahan and Hauser, 2002; Jeppesen and Frederiksen,2006).

Innovative online communities in “Web 2.0”

Since 2004, a number of new and enhanced technical possibilities of the Webemerged as well as changes in the usage patterns of Internet users. These twodevelopments are jointly referred to by the buzzword “Web 2.0”. Most researchersunderstand these changes not as a radical jump, but rather as an evolutionarydevelopment of the Internet into an interactive, user-centered network of websitesand applications that stimulates online user activities such as self-presentation,communication, content sharing and creation or co-creation (Janzik and Herstatt,2008; Buyya et al., 2008; Iriberri and Leroy, 2009).

Recently, the term Web 2.0 is being extended through new concepts such as“cloud computing”, which ties in with the idea of software-as-a-service (Buyyaet al., 2008; Fenn et al., 2008). The Web 2.0 can be divided into a social andtechnical dimension. The social dimension is represented by the changed role ofonline users from pure consumers to producers and active co-designers, while thetechnical dimension can be subdivided into technologies for communication andexchange, technologies for easy access and usage, and technologies for viraldistribution (O’Reilly, 2007; Vossen and Hagemann, 2007; Janzik and Herstatt,2008).

The social and technological changes within the Web 2.0 have increased thequantity of specialized OCs, the number of active community users and theacceleration of information exchange. In 2008, approximately 350 million peopleworldwide were active in OCs (Universal McCann, 2008).


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While offline communities are based on real-world meetings and synchronousface-to-face communication (Shumar and Renninger, 2002), the communicationand exchange in OCs are often asynchronous (e.g., via posts and personal mes-saging); still most OC platforms offer additional synchronous communicationchannels (e.g., chats) as they are essential for building up closer social ties amongcommunity members (Fuchs, 2008). Within this research we concentrate on OCsthat are geographically dispersed (Hiltz, 1984). Members participate due to theirshared interest in a specific topic, irrespective of their location (Blanchard andHoran, 2000). OCs do not preclude face-to-face meetings among members, but aremainly characterized as online interactions. Accordingly, we use the term “meet”in reference to OCs in this figurative sense, knowing that members are notnecessarily online at the same time and may not physically meet ever.

We define an OC as an association of individuals who share a common interestor goal and regularly “meet” and communicate virtually via a technical platformon the Internet (Preece, 2000; Kim, 2000; Tietz and Herstatt, 2007). OCs related toparticular topics, i.e. special interest and product-related OCs, also known inliterature as “Communities of Consumption”, are virtual meeting points for hob-byist experts and extreme users (Kozinets, 1999). These micro-communities areparticularly well suited for integration into NPD as they frequently includemembers with lead user characteristics and reveal innovative potentials (Luethje,2000; Shani et al., 2003). We will call this type of OC “innovation community”.

A special type of OC is dedicated to particular brands. Following (Muniz andO’Guinn, 2001), a brand community is a specialized OC, based on a structuredsocial network among enthusiasts of a specific brand or brand product. Brandcommunities are often product-related and in some cases also innovation com-munities (Fueller et al., 2008).

Community-based innovation (CBI) picks up the advantages of virtual custo-mer integration via the Internet, using the available innovative potential of OCs forthe NPD process (Fueller et al., 2004).

Members of online communities

Members of OCs are not a homogenous group and differ in their abilities andmotivations to participate in innovation projects (Nambisan, 2002; Luethje, 2004;von Hippel, 2005). To contribute successfully to an innovation project, a membermust have several abilities and competences in the specific domain of the OC.Only a small percentage of members own such competence, which can bedescribed as object knowledge (Luethje, 2000) and solution information (Luethjeet al., 2005; Piller and Walcher, 2006).

According to their abilities and activities, wewill distinguish between three groupsof innovation community members: (1) Innovators and activists, (2) crowd-followers


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and tourists and (3) lurkers (c.f. Kozinets, 1999; Preece, 2000; Curien et al.,2006). In privately operated OCs, the owner often is also a moderator and mediatoras well as an opinion leader within the community (Preece, 2000). The group ofinnovators and activists leads discussions and forms opinions, and is a funda-mental driver of the OC for its survival and advancement (Cothrel and Williams,1999; Kim, 2000). Tourists have a passing interest in the main topic of the OC.Crowd-followers2 have individual interests differing from the main topic of the OCand participate in discussions for other reasons e.g., closer social ties (Kozinets,1999; Kim, 2000). Lurkers participate passively without contributing within theOC (Nonnecke and Preece, 2000). They act as free-riders (Olson, 1965) and breakthe norm of reciprocity because they consume content and knowledge in the OCwithout providing an equivalent or any kind of active participation (Kollock andSmith, 1996; Blanchard and Horan, 2000). Contributions are revealed freelyamong members for the purpose of collaborative exchange and co-development(Harhoff et al., 2003). The provided information and knowledge of the OCbecomes a public good, accessible and also utilizable by lurkers for free (Wangand Fesenmeier, 2003; Lakhani and Wolf, 2005). Beside lurkers most OCs includea completely inactive group of registered people who have not yet deleted theirdata. They are either former active members who have lost interest in the OC, orfake registrations based on false data. We will call this group “sleeping members”.Most research of OC participation does not differ between lurkers and sleepingmembers. This may be due to the fact that such a distinction requires internal logininformation that may not be accessible to scholars. It should be emphasized thatsleeping members could “wake up” and (re-)activate their accounts. Therefore weargue that they should be considered part of the community unless the permanencyof deactivation is ascertained. While lurkers belong to the nature of OCs (Non-necke et al., 2006), sleeping members are at least temporarily beyond its reach.

The roles of OC members can change during the lifecycle of their membership(Wenger, 1998): They start as visitors of the OC, become newcomers after joiningand can evolve from regular participants into experts (Kim, 2000). Through aseries of different roles users improve skills, collect experience during theirmembership lifecycle, and also assume reputation and status (Wenger, 1998; Kim,2000; Iriberri and Leroy, 2008). In Fig. 1 we illustrate the relation between the dis-tinguished three groups of innovation community members and a stylized, hypothe-tical membership lifecycle. While the abscissa shows the stages of membership from

2We based our member type “crowd-follower” on Kozinet’s “mingler” as a member who typicallyparticipates in big general discussions by following the core member groups and being driven bysocial motives.


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visitor through joining newcomer to expert, the ordinate describes the intensity ofinnovation and collaboration activities of members within the OC. The describedintensity of activities in each stage of the lifecycle is typical, but no universal regularity:Even a newcomer of an OC can act as an innovator immediately after having joined.

Motivation in Innovation Communities

The sources of motivation — theoretical background

The question of motivation is the search for the cause and drive of human behavior(Reeve, 2005). Motivation of members to participate and contribute in innovationcommunities is most critical as a factor for the emergence of innovative user ideasand products (Shah, 2006).

Motives represent a willingness to act but are purely hypothetical. They areindividual tendencies, relatively stable and the basis for achieving several positivegoals or to avoid negative consequences (Atkinson, 1982; McClelland et al.,1989). Motivation arises from the interaction between motives (individual factors)and incentives (situational factors) (Atkinson, 1958; Heckhausen and Heckhausen,2008). Psychologists characterize motivation as the process that refers to releasing,controlling and maintaining physical and mental activities (Pintrich and Schunk,2007). According to Expectancy Theory, the motivation of individuals depends onthe expectation of the outcome, on the perception of a clear relation between theresult of an effort and its consequences as well as on the fact that an outcome has a

Fig. 1. Stages of OC membership related to groups of members.


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specific positive value (Vroom, 1964). Thus, it is possible to influence individuals’actions by designing incentives appealing to pre-existing motives (Brown, 1961;McClelland et al., 1989).

Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation

Self-Determination Theory (SDT) tells us that there is a basic qualitative dis-tinction between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation (Deci and Ryan, 1985). Typi-cally, factors of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are both active within a complexinteraction and jointly constitute individual motivation.

Extrinsic motivation is based on external incentives linked to the differentiableoutcome of an action (Pintrich and Schunk, 2007). Extrinsic incentives can beclassified as either material, such as payment and financial rewards, or immaterial,such as awards and career opportunities (Frey, 2002). Intrinsic motivation, bycontrast, arises from a drive, motivated from within an individual, for a state ofinherent satisfaction, and therefore does not focus on the outcome of an activity(Malone and Lepper, 1987; Ryan and Deci, 2000). Individuals are intrinsicallymotivated for activities if they expect no further reward apart from the activity itself(Deci, 1971). Enjoyment and altruism are examples of intrinsic motives (Lin, 2007).For our research the influence of contextual factors on intrinsic motivation is ofparticular interest. Cognitive Evaluation Theory, a sub-theory of SDT, focuses onthat question. It tells us that the basic psychological needs of an individual (innateneeds for autonomy, competency and relatedness) have to be satisfied to supportintrinsic motivation (Deci and Ryan, 1985; Ryan and Deci, 2000).

In research on user motivation in OSS online communities two specific externalrewards are often found to be key for participation: the improvement of individualskills and personal need (Hars and Ou, 2002; David et al., 2003; Lakhani andWolf, 2005; Ghosh, 2005). The latter was also identified as the strongest deter-minant of participation in innovative offline hobby communities for emergingmarkets (Franke and Shah, 2003; Luethje, 2004; Luethje et al., 2005). Accordingto these studies, material incentives such as direct financial rewards either do notexist or tend to play a minor role for the extrinsic motivation of users.

Extrinsic motivation by itself is not sufficient to explain innovative activities,voluntary participation and engagement of members in innovation communities(Jeppesen and Molin, 2003; Lakhani and Wolf, 2005). In most studies onmotivation in OCs, intrinsic motives have been identified as key drivers of par-ticipation and contribution. The most important internal motives found are fun andenjoyment (Lakhani and von Hippel, 2003; Hertel et al., 2003; Lakhani and Wolf,2005; Shah, 2006; Fueller et al., 2007; Nov, 2007; Antorini, 2008; Jawecki, 2008;Schroer and Hertel, 2009), self-determination (Hars and Ou, 2002; Schroer and


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Hertel, 2009) and community identification (Hars and Ou, 2002; Lakhani and vonHippel, 2003; Hertel et al., 2003; Schroer and Hertel, 2009).

A special form of intrinsic motivation is released by the “flow experience”. Thepsychologist Czikszentmihalyi introduced the flow concept in 1975. Flow isdefined as a “holistic experience” whereby somebody is totally involved in a task(Czikszentmihalyi, 2000), as a mental state of people who are completely absorbedin a fluently running, enjoyable activity (Czikszentmihalyi, 1990). While con-centrating entirely on a single task, a kind of distorted experience of time begins(Czikszentmihalyi, 2000). An example of such is the exploration of a fascinating,challenging and creative hobby. Flow experience was verified as an intrinsic keymotive for participation and contribution in different research studies on inno-vation communities and other voluntary OCs (Lakhani and von Hippel, 2003;Lakhani and Wolf, 2005; Nov, 2007; Fueller et al., 2007; Harper et al., 2007;Antorini, 2008; Jawecki, 2008).

Research Design

Methodology: Netnographic approach

Netnography is a method to observe OCs and to collect data about online con-sumer groups (c.f. Kozinets, 1997, 1998). As a qualitative research approach itoffers a way of exploring online user behavior, activities and cultures in OCs orweblogs without any direct exercise of influence by the researcher (Kozinets,2006). The netnographic approach follows traditional offline ethnography(Arnould and Wallendorf, 1994; Thompson, 1997 and adapts it for marketresearch in OCs as a simpler, faster and cheaper variation (Kozinets, 2002).

A great advantage of the method is the anonymous direct access to unfilteredinformation and user experience in the natural OC environment without directparticipation or an exercise of influence by the researcher (Langer and Beckmann,2005). Such information that is publicly available on the Internet can generate aspecial understanding on certain research questions, a “grounded knowledge”rooted in Grounded Theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Glaser, 1978). Furthermore,netnography allows the researcher to study attitudes, opinions and feelings that areharder to uncover with quantitative methods (Sandlin, 2007). In empirical studiesof OCs it was used successfully as a method to investigate the members’ behavior,attitudes and perceptions (de Valck, 2005; Jeppesen and Frederiksen, 2006;Fueller et al., 2007; Antorini, 2008; Jawecki, 2008; Broillet and Dubosson, 2008;Mathwick et al., 2008).

In order to derive answers to our four research questions we need to study OCmembers’ behaviors, thoughts and feelings. We choose to employ netnography asthis is the only suitable method for data collection within our research frame.


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There is a spectrum of researchers’ participation intensities in investigated OCs,starting from a purely observational through a participant-observational to an auto-netnographic approach (Kozinets, 2006). As we posted messages in the OCs asregular members and attended offline conventions, we used participant-observa-tional nethography. Participative elements of netnography can internalize emicmeanings as a form of close ethnography (Thompson and Arsel, 2004; Kozinets,2006).

Research field: Selected online communities

A research field suitable for the investigation of our research questions has to meetthe following five criteria:

(1) the OCs spawn user innovations,(2) the OCs are dedicated to physical consumer products,(3) the products belong to a mature or shrinking market,(4) the OCs are privately operated and independent of manufacturers and(5) members are hobbyists and participate voluntarily.

Our empirical research focuses on selected OCs dedicated to specific physicaltoys: Playmobil products.3 We chose Playmobil OCs as they meet all of our fivecriteria:

First, in the OCs we found various Playmobil products that have been modified,enhanced or newly created and are presented online by users (1). Second, Play-mobil toys are physical products from the consumer goods sector, where so farcomparatively little research on user innovation exists and member motivation isstill underexplored (2). Third, physical traditional toys belong to a shrinkingmarket in a late stage of their life cycle (Depamphilis, 2002). The competition inthe toy market has changed greatly with the emergence of computers, gamesconsoles and the Internet since the mid-1990s. Playmobil was successfullyintroduced in 1974 and is still successful today (Bachmann, 2006, www.play-mobil.com). But the classic toys have been pushed back by the new “electronic”competitors and this development continues (Adams, 2003; Demaria and Wilson,2004; Chudacoff, 2007) (3). Fourth, the Playmobil OCs are all operated by privatepersons and do not depend in any direct or indirect way on the manufacturerGeobra (4). Fifth and finally, members participate and contribute to the OC as ahobby and voluntarily (5).

3Playmobil products are physical toys for children based on the elements of action figures, buildingsand vehicles. They are available for specific game worlds or themes such as pirates, knights,railways, the Wild West, or space.


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As we did not want to investigate OCs as a local phenomenon we looked for aninternational sample. Playmobil OCs are very international and have membersfrom many different countries. In addition, all OCs are interlinked and jointlycreate an international network of Playmobil fans.

As a traditional toy with creative elements it is convenient to compare Play-mobil with LEGO. LEGO offers similar thematic game worlds and has the samethree basic elements (buildings, vehicles and figures). Furthermore, there areinnovative LEGO OCs that meet the five criteria we defined above and have beenanalyzed in previous research (Antorini, 2008). In Section 6.3, we will thereforecompare our findings with Antorini’s work on LEGO OCs.

The Playmobil online user network

During our research we identified four different principal types of user websitesdedicated to Playmobil: personal homepages, weblogs, photo albums and stand-alone OCs that use “social software” in the form of bulletin board forum tech-nology. Most of these websites are interconnected by numerous links. For ourresearch we only took websites into account that show ideas, designs, develop-ments of users or any other kind of user innovations related to Playmobil.

Within the network of privately operated Playmobil websites, user creations aretermed “customizations”. In some cases customizations include simple modifi-cations or variations of existing original Playmobil products and themes, i.e. thelevel of innovation can be very low, even inside the Playmobil world. In a largenumber of cases, however, the developments include new ideas, themes or pro-ducts that have not been offered by the manufacturer yet. These include paintingand massive modification of Playmobil figures (e.g., hair types, body shapes),creation of new accessories with several shaping materials (e.g., clothes, furniture,objects of daily use), creation of new vehicles and buildings, or electrification ofcertain functions. Highly innovative user creations are exemplified by the user-created ancient Egyptian theme world, which was developed and presented on theOC “Playmoboard” in 2003, but launched by Playmobil manufacturer Geobra as anew theme only in 2008.

In addition to pictures of the creation outcome, innovative Playmobil usersoften document the various steps of the development and production process withimages, drawings, and descriptions of material, equipment and procedures(“making-of”). These types of documentation are concentrated in Playmobil OCsbecause bulletin boards in general enable support, discussion and feedback pro-cesses as well as collaborations on specific themes (Harman and Koohang, 2005).Finished customizations, drafts and construction techniques are presented, reviewedand discussed.


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Table 1 presents an overview of the five major Playmobil OCs, measured bythe number of members and posts. Only OCs with a category and post for the topic“user creations” have been incorporated. The listed OCs include English, German,French and Spanish websites, which are all operated by private individuals. Accessis free of charge.

Table 1. Overview of Playmobil OCs.

Community Members Posts Language Operator

(since)

Structure, user innovations/

customizations

Playmoboard 3,736 239,143 English Private (2001) . Start page, forum, photo gallery. Forum with 6 main categories. Customizations in sub-categories

“Movies, Pictures and Photostories”,and in the photo gallery “Playmopix”

. Customization instructions in sub-category “Playmobil Customizing”

Playclicks 2,250 361,150 Spanish Private (2002) . Start page, forum, photo gallery,shop

. Forum with 7 main categories

. Customizations in sub-categories“Crea tus proprio Clicks”, “Custom yDioramas” and in the photo gallery

. Customization instructions in sub-categories “Crea tus proprio Clicks

Klickywelt 1,029 142,962 German Private (2007/

2005)

. Forum only


. Customizations in main-category“Fakten and Themenwelten” andsub-categories “Fotos and Filme”

. Customization instructions in sub-category “Customizing-Werkstatt”

Planete

Playmo

894 135,516 French Private (2004) . Start page, information page, forum,photo gallery


. Customizations in sub-category“Créations et Personnalisations”,“Photos/Videos Playmos” and in thephoto gallery

. Customization instructions in severalsub-categories

Customize it! 395 17,294 German Private (2005) . Forum only. Forum with 9 main categories. Customizations in main-category

“Gallerien”. Customization instructions in main

category “Customizing”


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We reviewed the five OCs to identify the most suited for an in-depth analysisand chose “Customize it!” (CI) and “Playmoboard” (PB). Regarding the totalnumber of registered members, CI is a comparatively small community. Weselected CI because user creation and individual development of Playmobil pro-ducts are the main topic and core content of this OC. We found many customi-zation-related categories and suspected high innovative activities. PB was chosenbecause it is the oldest Playmobil OC with the most registered members. PB isnearly ten-times larger than CI. Moreover, we found huge categories related tocustomizations with a high number of posts in PB.

Research process

Our research process was structured as follows: First, we analyzed the observedstructure of members and their activities for the OCs (CI) and (PB). This enabledan overview of member types and characteristics as well as levels of activities inthese OCs.

Next, the posts by the members of CI and PB were analyzed using the net-nographic approach for data collection. In total, more than 40,000 posts (14,000for CI, 26,000 for BP) in about 4,300 threads (1,300 for CI, 3,000 for BP) wereread and scanned for motivational sources in August and September 2008. Rel-evant text posts were downloaded and saved as a text file. We used existingclassifications of member motives in OCs (e.g., Hars and Ou, 2002; Lakhani andWolf, 2005; Janzik and Herstatt, 2008) to start our identification and categoriz-ation process. Based on the motivational statements found we modified previousclassifications to better incorporate motives manifested in the selected OCs. Weproceeded to code and categorize the text file into 13 identified different types ofmotive falling into three situational groups. An OSS program for qualitative textanalysis was used for this purpose (Weft QDA). The 13 motives were named afterthe most used keywords in the analyzed statements.

Next we researched, analyzed and ranked the published creations of OCmembers for different types of customizations, ranging from simple improvementsto highly innovative developments. For this classification we took three differentcriteria into consideration: newness of the creation to the Playmobil world, numberof non-Playmobil components used, and modification of the entire play conceptcompared to the manufacturer’s catalogue of Playmobil products (Hennel, 2006).The customizations can be either limited or advanced improvements of existingproducts, innovative developments inside the existing play concept or the creationof new use cases outside the traditional play concept. The innovativeness in ourclassification is always evaluated in relation to the Playmobil play world only.

To check the quality of our assessments, we performed “member checks” asproposed by (Kozinets, 2002, 2006). Our findings were reviewed and validated


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with ten selected active members who develop and present their own designs inthe OCs.

Empirical Findings

Activity levels

We identified a total of at least 665 different customizations in CI, carried out byusers and documented by photos.4 In PB we discovered about 1,200 documenteduser customizations.5

In Table 2, we present an overview of the various levels of member activity inthe OCs CI and PB. Instead of using the total number of contributions per member,the average contribution per day appears a more appropriate measure of theactivity level: new members with high activity are identified correctly, andmembers with a long-term, but passing interest in the OC are likewise classifiedcorrectly as tourists rather than activists.

For our classification we use the three groups of members we introduced inChapter 2.3. The group of innovators and activists covers 9% of the members ofCI and is the essential carrier and mediator of expert knowledge. With only oneexception, all members of this group have already published customizations in theOC. Very active members who only rarely published customizations mostlybelong to a sub-group of activists who focus on collecting Playmobil. In PB thegroup of innovators and activists covers only 2%. In the cases of CI and PB theprivate operator is also a moderator and mediator as well as an opinion leaderwithin the OC.

In the group of tourists and crowd-followers who participate and contribute onan occasional basis we found a further new type of member who we will call“opportunist”. Opportunists actively participate in discussions, but only askquestions to get solution information without providing expertise or knowledge inreturn. Like lurkers they are free-riders. For the group of innovators and activistsand the group of tourists, crowd-followers and opportunists we were able toanalyze age and gender from profile information of the OCs: The majority of thesemembers are male adults over 30 years.

As in other research contributions on OCs, free-riding lurkers and sleepingmembers represent the largest group of members in both Playmobil OCs (c.f.Jones and Rafaeli, 2000; Nonnecke and Preece, 2000; Nonnecke et al., 2004;

4Images that show a number of individual designs and creations are counted as only onecustomization.5Some old photos are not accessible anymore, as they have been deleted from the server.


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Table

2.Levelsof

mem

beractiv

ities

intheOCs“Customizeit!”and“Playm

oboard”.

Postsperday

Mem

bers

Mem

bertype

Age,gend

erCharacteristics

CI

PB

CI

PB

CI

PB

>0:5

9%2%

inno

vators,

activ

ists

�:36:5

years

�:34:6

years

.po

standcontribu

tefrequently

.high

status

andrepu

tatio

nin

theOC

.cultivate

social

contactsto

other

mem

bers

.35

of36

mem

bers

have

published

custom

izations

.distinctiveob

ject

know

ledg

eand

solutio

ninform

ation

.occasion

al,bu

trare

custom

izations

�0:1�

0:5

19%

4%tourists,crow

d-follo

wers,

oppo

rtun

ists

<:79

%,:

21%

<:76

%,:

24%

.po

standcontribu

teoccasion

ally

.interested

insocial

exchange

.oftenactiv

ein

differentPlaym

obil

OCs

.morethan

80%

have

published

custom

izations

.someob

ject

know

ledg

eand

solutio

ninform

ation

.occasion

al,bu

trare

custom

izations

>0<

0:1

72%

94%

lurkers

—.

neveror

rarely

contribu

te,few

orno

posts,consum

einform

ation

.ob

servewith

outactiveparticipation

.no

social

tieswith

intheOC

sleeping

mem

bers

—.

have

aninactiv

eaccoun

t


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Fueller et al., 2007). 8.6% of the members of CI submitted more than 200 posts intotal, and 62% of members did not have any or a maximum of ten posts. In PBonly 4% of the members added more than 200 posts in total, and 82% had zero toten posts. CI shows better rates in this regard as it is a smaller and more specializedOC with comparatively fewer sleeping members and lurkers, and also almost 20%occasional posters.

In research on considerably larger OCs the identified rate of active members iseven lower than in PB. As found by a study on an innovative, large-scale iPod OC(91,000 members), for instance, only 1.3% of the members added more than 100posts and 88.3% wrote fewer than 10 posts (Jawecki, 2008). This suggests that thegroup of active members grows disproportionally more slowly than the number oftotal members.

Categorization of member motives

Derivation of a categorization

In this section the posts of members in the OCs CI and PB are analyzed andcategorized into 13 different types of motives as described in the research process(Section 4.4). In most empirical studies on user innovation in OCs the motivationsrelated to innovations are differentiated by qualitative characteristics such asintrinsic or extrinsic, but not evaluated according to situational groups (Lakhaniand Wolf, 2005; Jeppesen and Frederiksen, 2006; Fueller et al., 2007; Nov, 2007;Antorini, 2008). Jawecki subdivides innovation-related motivation into threedifferent dimensions: motivations to innovate, motivations to contribute to jointinnovation activities within the OC, and motivations to collaborate with companies(Jawecki, 2008). In the case of the Playmobil OCs, no direct cooperation with themanufacturer is apparent. For this reason, we did not find any statements in theOCs relating to a collaboration process with companies. Only a few statementsindicate that members are interested in sharing their customizations and ideas withthe manufacturer. Therefore we did not find sufficient sources to analyze themotivation to collaborate with companies as a separate type within our study.However, we identified, distinguished and investigated another fundamental typeof motivation in Playmobil OCs: the motivation to join the OC. This type is ofconsiderable interest as joining to OCs is likely to be related to the innovativeactivities of the users later on in the lifecycle (based on findings from OSS OCse.g., Ghosh, 2005; David et al., 2003).

Unlike Jawecki we prefer the term “groups of motives” instead of “dimensionsof motivation”. While “dimensions” suggests there is a clear separation andindependence between motivations from different dimensions, we suspect stronginterrelationships across the boundaries of different groups. Moreover, we prefer to


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focus on motives instead of motivations as the interaction between motives andsituational factors causes motivation (Atkinson, 1958; Heckhausen and Hec-khausen, 2008). We define our “groups of motives” as aggregations of motivesthat are activated due to different situational factors in the stages of membership.Motives from variable situational groups are connected closely and influence eachother, depending on which incentives are active (c.f. Klein and Krech, 1951;Markus et al., 2000; Gollwitzer and Oettingen, 2001). Thus, we distinguish threegroups of member motives, each related to different situations:

(1) Motives to sign up to OCs,(2) motives to develop individual products (customizations) and(3) motives to publish one’s customizations and ideas in OCs.

Empirical findings

More than 85% of all contributions in CI show a reference to user creations, as thisis the core topic of that innovation community. Posts in both OCs often pre-dominantly include pictures of the customizations and the design process, whichare connected only by short text. For this reason the source of motivation does notalways become entirely clear. For CI, a total of 648 statements relating tomotivation were identified and coded for 13 different motives in three groups. Forthe much larger OC PB, 1,325 statements with motivation-related content werefound and coded for the same categorization. Table 3 presents a quantitativecategorization of all coded text passages, assigning them to our three groups ofuser motives.

We classified each motive according to its predominant characteristics as eitherintrinsic or extrinsic, also making comparisons to categorizations of intrinsic andextrinsic motives prevalent in OCs from prior research (e.g., Hars and Ou, 2002;Lakhani and Wolf, 2005; Janzik and Herstatt, 2008).

168 of the statements from CI and 607 from PB are coded for the group ofmotives to sign up to OCs (1). In this group we distinguish four different motives:join “to get support, help, tips and to learn something” (1.1), join “to showpersonal ideas and creations” (1.2), join driven by “passion for the topic” (1.3),and join the community “to see creations of other members” (1.4).6

Intrinsic motives slightly prevail over extrinsic motives in both OCs in thisgroup. At CI three motives are similarly important for signing up (motives 1.1, 1.3

6Statements we have coded as motives “to join the community to see creations of other members”(1.4) do not include direct textual hints for passion, as we consider it to be a separate group. Still, themotives “passion for the topic” (1.3) and “to see creations of other members” (1.4) can be expectedto be interrelated.


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and 1.4; see Table 3, Part 1), while at PB the passion for the topic and the desire toshare this with others is most frequently identified as a motive for joining. Theusers explain their reasons for registration in the category “introduce yourself ”:

“…Until now I felt I was crazy with the hobby [Playmobil] I had,but now that I’m not alone, that I know this community, I feelreally great…”

Many members regard the connection Playmobil to childhood memories a primarysource of their passion for the product. Some new members explain that theirpassion was reactivated when their own children started playing with Playmobil.

“…Playmobil is something I can share with my child. Playmobilis the good side of my own childhood. Playmobil is making fun.”

Table 3. Motives of OCs’ members.

1. Motives to sign up to OCs Customize it! Playmoboard Classification168 607

1.1 To get support, help, tips, to learnsomething

49 (29%) 176 (29%) extrinsic

1.2 To show personal ideas andcreations

22 (13%) 31 (5%) extrinsic

1.3 Passion for the topic (desire to sharethe passion)

47 (28%) 377 (62%) intrinsic

1.4 To see customizations of othermembers

50 (30%) 23 (4%) intrinsic

2. Motives to innovate/to developindividual products

Customize it! Playmoboard Classification200 286

2.1 Personal need (not available on themarket)

58 (29%) 122 (42.7%) extrinsic

2.2 To improve personal skills 3 (1.5%) 1 (0.3%) extrinsic2.3 Identification with OCs 47 (23.5%) 30 (10.5%) intrinsic2.4 To sell the product 3 (1.5%) 10 (3.5%) extrinsic2.5 Fun, enjoyment (flow) 89 (44.5%) 123 (43%) intrinsic

3. Motives to publish personalcustomizations and ideas in OCs

Customize it! Playmoboard Classification280 432

3.1 To receive feedback and learnsomething

103 (37%) 269 (62%) extrinsic

3.2 To find new friends 2 (1%) 3 (1%) extrinsic3.3 To inspire the manufacturer 6 (2%) 8 (2%) extrinsic3.4 To give something to other

community members169 (60%) 152 (35%) intrinsic/extrinsic


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In the group of motives to innovate (2) we identified five principal types ofmotives. Fun prevails as the one most frequently found in CI with 44.5% (similarlyPB: 43%). The users’ descriptions of the customizations undertaken include manyof the characteristics of flow experience, such as being totally absorbed by asmoothly running, enjoyable activity (Czikszentmihalyi, 1990).

“…It was fun to create him [the toy figure], I enjoyed thechallenge...”

It also becomes evident how several of the very active members improve theirskills with each customization by permanent learning effects: Encouraged byexperience, positive feedback and input from other OC members, the quality oftheir customizations improves and they seek new and greater challenges. Followingthe flow-model, the experience itself and growing abilities are the main reasons ofinnovators to return to the activity (Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi, 2002).

In comparison to CI the extrinsic motive “personal need” (2.1) is considerablymore distinctive in PB and is found almost as frequently as “fun” (2.5) (PB: 42.7%vs. 43%).

“There was nothing on the market : (so we decided to build ourown…”

This predominantly is not such a type of solution to an urgent problem caused bypersonal needs as confirmed in researches on OSS OCs (David et al., 2003;Lakhani and Wolf, 2005; Shah, 2006). An imperative to improve a certain con-dition is missing here. Far more, it can be assumed that personal need is related tofun and enjoyment of the customization activity itself.7

Overall there is rare evidence for direct, material motives to innovate anddevelop individual Playmobil products (motive 2.4). In the few discussions on thistopic it turns out that money is not the driving motive, even if the creations aresold:

“We sold a few of these figures for fun on eBay last year, pack-aged in the labeled boxes. :)…”

On eBay several user creations are offered and sold as unique items (see Fig. 2).These auctions are linked to and promoted in posts within the OCs.

In the group of motives to publish personal creations and ideas in OCs (3) weagain distinguish four different types of motives. The most frequently coded

7This assumption cannot be covered within this study and needs to be verified in further quantitativeresearch.


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motive for CI was the desire to contribute something, e.g., knowledge andexperience, to other community members (3.4, 60%). For PB this motive was lessoften coded (35%). Still, visual descriptions of the creation process and expla-nations of building techniques are very common in both OCs and are publiclyshared with any member.

“…Since I don’t feel the necessity to keep any of these techniquesas a secret you may of course copy any of them if you like to…”

The motive to contribute to get feedback and to learn is the most distinctive one forPB in this last group (Section 3.1 in Table 3: 62%), but less often identified for CI(37%). As every published image of a customization always receives feedbackfrom other OC members, the publication of such a picture is automatically con-nected to an expectation of a response, even without asking for it. Therefore wepresume the motive “to receive feedback” is in fact even more important in bothOCs.

The OC lifecycle: a preliminary model

In Fig. 3 we show the identified motives and situational groups related to thestages of membership as a stylized, hypothetical lifecycle of innovative OCmembers. Members sign up to the OC, develop customizations, and publish theirresults. The abscissa shows the stages of membership: visitor, joining newcomer,regular and, finally, expert. The ordinate describes the level of innovation andcollaboration activities within the OC. When users actively publish their designs or

Fig. 2. eBay auction of a Playmobil user creation (eBay, 2008).


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ideas within the OC they can reach the status of an expert. The diagram provides asynopsis of the motives we found to drive members during the different stages ofthe membership lifecycle, with different font sizes indicating the strength of themotives.

Types of Playmobil customizations

In this section, we examine the degree of innovativeness achieved within thePlaymobil OCs and also show some examples for radical user innovations, therebyaddressing our fourth research question. We investigate innovativeness of custo-mizations from the perspective of Playmobil users, as seen from within our narrowfield of study. Figures 4 to 7 depict user innovations by OC members with varyingdegrees of novelty inside the Playmobil world. Figure 4 shows an Apple iPodMP3 player design for Playmobil figures as an example of a very simple creation,inspired by a real object. In Fig. 5, a user designed and cast a roof piece in order tobe able to make Playmobil buildings with adjacent wings enclosing a courtyard aswell as U-shapes. The self-created connecting part is hard to distinguish from theoriginal Playmobil pieces surrounding it and it fits perfectly.

Figure 6 illustrates the construction of a Playmobil military helicopter in anextract of four pictures from a total of 37 shots that document and explain the

Fig. 3. Stages of innovators’ membership related to identified motives.


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entire creation process. Two older models of the original Playmobil helicopterwere used as a basis. These have been decomposed, sawed up and glued togetheranew. The helicopter was completed using several parts from other toys as well asself-manufactured components such as doors, wheels and turbines, and wasrepainted. In addition, a tiny electric motor was installed to power the two rotorblades.

The realization of a chess game with individually customized Playmobil figuresis illustrated in Fig. 7. Until now, such a chess game had never been launched bymanufacturer Geobra. This creation is an example of a user innovation outside ofthe original play concept, a first-of-type innovation for Playmobil products (vonHippel, 1988).

Fig. 4. Playmobil-iPod by “Little Joe ” (Playmoboard, 2005).

Fig. 5. Corner for house root by “MacGayver ” (Customize it!, 2007).


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In sum, we can identify innovations that can be categorized into four differentlevels:

(1) Limited improvement of existing products,(2) advancement based on existing products with noticeable improvements,(3) innovative new development inside the original play concept and(4) innovative new development outside the original play concept.

Fig. 6. Black Hawk Playmobil Helicopter by “Oni ” (Customize it!, 2008).

Fig. 7. Playmobil chess game by “MacGayver ” (Customize it!, 2007).


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Although we did not conduct a quantitative analysis of the degree of innova-tiveness (c.f. Garcia and Calatone, 2002) of user customizations, our findingsindicate that consumer OCs, even from mature markets, are not limited to pro-ducing incremental innovations, as sometimes suggested in the literature (e.g.,Carr, 2007). On the contrary, the OCs in our study regularly spawned new designsthat can be described as radically new from the viewpoint of a Playmobil user.Further research in consumer OCs from other mature markets will be required tosupport this finding.

Discussion

This section aims to highlight and further explore principal findings of our study.We want to discuss in particular, first, the motives we identified as most importantand compare our results to findings from previous research (6.1); second, wediscuss the relations between motives originating from different situational groups(6.2); and third, we relate our findings to Antorini’s research on Lego OCs andpoint out some differences (6.3).

The relative strength of motives

Personal need and fun

In a number of prior studies on user motivation to innovate, personal need and funhave also turned out to be the two most essential motives (Hemetsberger, 2003;Lakhani and Wolf, 2005; Shah, 2006; Fueller et al., 2007; Jawecki, 2008).Overall, fun is a more important motive than personal need in both PlaymobilOCs. Personal need is related to a specific problem solution in less than half of allrelevant posts. This result differs from the results for hobbyist communities in veryyoung or emerging product segments and OSS communities where innovationsfrequently arise due to problems and dissatisfaction with existing solutions as wellas personal need (e.g., Franke and Shah, 2003; Luethje, 2004).

The role of brand passion

Brands can be used as relationship partners and convey a sense of identity andindependence (Fournier, 1998). As found in research, users in strong and pas-sionate brand relationships often characterize brands as irreplaceable (Keller et al.,2008). We gather from our findings and from similar results in previous research(Pichler and Hemetsberger, 2007; Antorini, 2008) that in the presence of strongbrand identification and loyalty among community members, fun and passion areparticularly potent as members’ motives to invest time in development. In theirposts the community members of PB and CI very often associate the brand


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Playmobil with the term “passion”, emphasizing strong ties to the brand. In fact,these OCs are also Playmobil brand communities, even though they are not operatedby the brand manufacturer. The members virtually feel part of the brand (Upshowand Taylor, 2000).

It may be amazing that adult men and women are so passionate about Play-mobil that they build communities and develop innovative products around what isultimately a toy. A potent driver of this behavior is the fascination of collecting.Collecting is a social phenomenon, and especially miniatures and toys are popularcollectibles (Belk, 1995). Miniatures such as model railways (Grasskamp, 1983)provide a sense of physical control over objects that may create an illusion ofgeneralized control in other domains (Belk, 1995). Lego (Antorini, 2008), Carreraracetrack (Smits-Bode, 2002), Maerklin model railways (Posey, 2004) and Mat-tel’s Hot Wheels cars (Zarnock, 2009) provide other examples of branded min-iatures and toys that are collected by adults. Collecting and playing in grown-upmen is a mix of the primal attachment of childhood, an escape from everyday lifeand self-actualization (Posey, 2004).

Playmobil theme worlds such as police, hospital, city or construction showextremely simplified images of reality at a reduced scale, and by definition also are(Rosener and Beckerman, 1980) a kind of miniature. Model railways are differentin so far as their complexity renders adult users the principal target group. The firstmodel railway products originally were simple toys, however, and created forchildren only (Brown, 1996). This case demonstrates how adult users can extendand change a toy market, and also how manufacturers can react to the emergenceof such new target groups with specific product lines.

Social motives

A social reward can also cause high motivation to create individual customizations(Hemetsberger, 2002; Butler et al., 2002). Social motives play an important role inall our three groups of motives. The comparison of voluntary participation in CIand PB suggests that the social ties and thus motivation in small expert groups isstronger than in larger groups. The larger the group, the less the members arewilling to make contributions, thus tending to act as free-riders (Olson, 1965). InCI, a relatively small OC, we found that most customization posts received promptand detailed feedback from a group of experts. In contrast, PB as the much largerOC shows more sporadic and temporally outspread feedback on customizationsfrom different member groups. It is noteworthy that there is less feedback percustomization in PB than in CI, even though PB has nearly ten times moremembers. We assume that social ties among a small group of OC members supportcollaborative activities.


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Interdependencies among motives in the three situational groups

Our findings suggest that there are interdependencies among the motives acrossthe three situational groups that we describe exemplary in the following section.

As illustrated in Fig. 8, the motive to receive support and suggestions and tolearn (1.1) from group (1) motives to sign up to OCs is related to group (2) motivesto develop individual products: Users explain in posts that they join the OC tolearn how to customize individual products or how to improve their alreadyexisting customizations. So, after joining these newcomers expect additionalinformation, support and ideas that have positive effects on their developments.

Also from group (3), motives to publish products, we suggest an affectionregarding the motivation of members to innovate (group 2). The members publishideas in order to learn from feedback and to improve customizations (motive 3.1).The expected outcome of this activity can change the motivation to developindividual products: The innovator learns of new ideas or receives input for majorimprovements and is more motivated to start further developments (e.g., for fun,motive 2.5).

In addition, users join OCs to present their already existing creations (1.2),which connects the groups of motives (1) and (3). In collaborative OCs, there is astrong relationship between joining and contributing to show knowledge and skills(von Krogh et al., 2003).

We suggest that the desire to give something to the othermembers of theOC (motive3.4) also works as an incentive stimulating the motives to develop customizations. Thisexemplifies the influence of motives from group (3) on those from group (2).

Comparison to LEGO — game concept, community,manufacturer integration

In the following section, we compare Playmobil and LEGO in terms of the basicgame concept, OC members’ sources of motivation and community integration by

Fig. 8. Examples of interdependices among motives from different groups.


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the manufacturer. In Table 4 we present a basic comparison between our findingsfor Playmobil and Antorini’s results on LEGO.

Game concept

There is a crucial difference between the game concepts of LEGO and Playmobil:The basic idea of LEGO is to construct and modify products and thus to developindividual creations. In contrast, for major modifications and innovations tobecome feasible, Playmobil products need to be decomposed, handled with toolsand supplemented by foreign parts. Due to the greater effort required for Playmobiluser creations it is possible to assume that Playmobil user creations stem fromhigher motivation. They require a higher level of object knowledge and solutioninformation (Luethje et al., 2005; Piller and Walcher, 2006).

Table 4. Comparison of the Playmobil and LEGO communities.

Playmobil LEGO

GAME CONCEPTCore idea Play Build, modify, playObject knowledge and solution

information required to innovateMedium to high Low (basic product) to high

(e.g., Mindstorms)

COMMUNITYApprox. number of members 8,000 25,000Age Adults, mostly

30–40 yearsAdults, mostly 20–40 years

Sex 20–25% female Almost exclusively maleCore medium (online/offline) Strong online,

weak offlineStrong online and offline

Brand relation Identification with product High HighAffiliation with company Low High

Users develop major improvements Yes YesUsers develop first-of-type innovations Yes YesCore motives to innovate Fun, personal

need,identificationwith OC

Fun, personal need,identification with OC

Selling of creations by users Rarely, on eBay Often, on eBay andprivately operatedLEGO marketplaces

MANUFACTURERCompany operates OC for users No YesIntegration of privately operated OC in NPD No Yes


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Community

Yun Mi Antorini analyzed the characteristics and motives of innovative membersin LEGO brand communities in a case study (Antorini, 2008). Situational groupsof motives have not been differentiated. There are some strong similarities betweenthe LEGO and Playmobil OCs. For instance, both OCs generated first-of-typeinnovations and develop individual building techniques. The learned buildingskills for both, Playmobil and LEGO, are product specific, but we assume there areat least some creative skills and solution experiences that are transferable to otherdomains (Baer and Kaufman, 2005). In addition, fun, personal need and identi-fication with the community are identified as the most important motives toinnovate within both communities. However, we also find important differences,e.g., in the role of offline communication or the extent of commercial exploitation.

Manufacturers’ integration of OCs

Neither the Playmobil OCs nor individual members or their creations are sys-tematically integrated into the NPD process of the manufacturer Geobra. To date,customer preferences are collected and analyzed primarily from general marketresearch conducted by the development team and letters sent by children.8 Inseveral posts members of Playmobil OCs show their eagerness to reveal ideas andcooperate with the manufacturer.

“I wish they would write me back and tell me they are using myideas…”

According to Geobra OCs are occasionally observed, but there are no plans for amore systematic integration of OCs since Playmobil products are regarded to betoys for children. Geobra presumes that the designs of adult fans would not reflectthe preferences of 3–12 years old children in their target group. Moreover, Geobraconsiders several ideas of OC members, e.g., sound modules, to contradict“Playmobil’s philosophy”. Accordingly, Playmobil products should not includesound, which should be left to the creativity of children. This is an extremeexample, of course: many product ideas of OC members we found do not con-tradict such a philosophy (e.g., as shown in Chapter 5.3, the Playmobil iPod, theroof corner or the chess game). Finally, Geobra fears that OC ideas could mirror“short-lived fashion trends” which they try to avoid (www.playmobil.com). This iswhy Geobra has not performed systematic scans of the OCs for ideas that havepotential for their core target group, i.e., children.

8Telephone interview with Gisela Kupiak, Head of PR Geobra, July 04, 2008 and September 29,2009.


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In contrast, we find that several ideas also could be relevant productimprovements and even new developments for 3–12 years old users. Many of theadult customizers are parents and share their hobby with their children. Moreover,there is a history of user creations shared online preceding the successful mar-keting of the same idea by Geobra for several years (see Chapter 4.3). Even if thisis accidental it suggests that some of the adult users’ designs are indeed reflectingthe preference of children.

In several cases Geobra went one step further by threatening OC members withlegal persecution. A German pastor modified Playmobil figures by melting andmolding figures with a hairdryer, to display biblical scenes on the Internetincluding a naked “Eve” character and a crucifixion. Geobra claimed a violation ofcopyright and ordered the pastor to dismantle his creations (Hall and McElroy,2009).

Similarly LEGO in the early nineties disregarded its adult users and classifiedthem as “shadow market” that was not serviced in any way (Antorini, 2008). Incontrast, today the LEGO company has integrated its existing private OCs intoseveral development projects for some time. Thus, Mindstorms NXT was devel-oped with the support of lead users from LEGO OCs (Birkinshaw et al., 2007).LEGO also started to operate their own OC portal as a platform to sell usergenerated content (LEGO Group, 2005): They provided a software that is used astoolkit (Piller and Walcher, 2006) to create individual products virtually. Users canupload and sell their creations on the website “LEGO Factory” (www.legofactory.com). The most successful user creations are analyzed by the LEGO company fornew trends and new customer preferences. Today, adult users and their numerousOCs are an integral part of the NPD process of the LEGO Group, even thoughadults initially were not a targeted audience (Antorini, 2008).

As a result of these strategies there is a different level of affiliation of membersfrom LEGO and Playmobil OCs with the respective manufacturer. While theidentification with the product is high in both LEGO and Playmobil OCs, the senseof affiliation with the manufacturer is high only in LEGO OCs. Playmobil com-munity members feel disregarded by Geobra and dissatisfied with the lack ofrelationship and communication with the manufacturer.

While it is clear that both companies pursue a different approach towards theintegration of private OCs, it is beyond the scope of this study to evaluate thesestrategies in terms of their impact on company success. We have proven thatPlaymobil OCs include many innovative users who are willing to share their ideas.The manufacturer could evaluate the market potential of such ideas via an onlineplatform in which different target groups rate or vote for designs, similar to theLEGO approach (Parise and Guinan, 2008). This could reduce the market risk forGeobra and allow them to benefit from product development efforts undertaken by


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adult volunteers. We can expect that an increase in interactions with the manu-facturer would impact on the motives of users to join OCs, to innovate and to sharetheir designs. Moreover, the knowledge that the manufacturer is screening theirdesigns for potential large-scale production could induce changes in the charac-teristics of customizations users produce. Further research is needed, however, tounderstand these interrelationships.

Recently there has been some indication that Geobra might gradually shift itsstance and follow the path paved by LEGO. First steps of rethinking their strategytowards user integration already have been made. In a telephone interview acompany representative mentioned the idea of developing and producing a newproduct line only for adult collectors and OC members. This concept will soon beverified based on an online survey within the OCs.9

Implications

In this paper, we analyzed two OCs dedicated to Playmobil products. We pursueda netnographic approach for data collection, coded and classified relevant postsinto 13 different types of motives, and validated and reviewed the results withmembers. Our research shows that user motives in innovative OCs differ not onlyby qualitative characteristics, but also by activating situations related to differentstages of membership. We identified and categorized motives for three differentsituational groups: (1) Motives to sign up to OCs, (2) motives to develop indi-vidual products, and (3) motives to share personal customizations and ideas withinOCs. Moreover, our study provides insights into the innovative activities of brandcommunities dedicated to physical consumer products and shows how OCs in amature consumer market develop radical user innovations for the specific segment.In the remainder of this paper we discuss the limitations of our findings and theimplications for research and industry practice.

Limitations

Netnography can lead to insights into members’ motivation and participationbehavior within an innovation community. The method has its limitations as it isprimarily based on the observation of textual elements and lacks other contextualclues.

Moreover, since we cannot generalize from a single case of innovation com-munities, we are limited to interpretations within this case. The field of our study

9Telephone interview with Gisela Kupiak, Head of PR Geobra, September 29, 2009.


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exemplifies a physical product in the consumer goods market. Our results need tobe tested in a wider range of innovative OCs for different market segments andproducts. In order to generalize the findings outside of our online research sample,multiple methods should be employed for triangulation (Kozinets, 2002). Forinstance, quantitative analysis will be required to explore, the relations anddependencies between various members’ motives in innovation communities indetail. In addition, the effects of flow experience in the different groups should beinvestigated as flow could only be verified for one group in this research.

Further research should deepen insights into different groups of motives, e.g.,exploring additional situational factors. Another promising question to investigateis whether motivation changes when there is direct cooperation between OCs andmanufacturers.

Implications for research

In most empirical studies on user innovation in OCs, motives related to innovativeactivity are only differentiated by qualitative characteristics, particularly extrinsicversus intrinsic sources of motivation. To our knowledge, this study is the first toinvestigate groups of motives relevant at different stages of OC membership(membership lifecycle) and relate them to different situational factors. We alsoprovide a foundation for a better understanding of the complex connections andinteractions between these situational groups of motives.

Our findings are also relevant to the research on user innovation and opensource innovation as we provide an example of how tangible products areimproved or newly developed with the help of a virtual community. Despite thefact that communication and collaboration in OCs related to physical productstakes place online while the act of production is an offline process, membersdevelop and publish the designs of innovative prototypes and benefit not only frominnovating, but also from freely revealing their information.

Managerial implications

All of the identified five major Playmobil OCs include innovators who haveimproved existing products significantly or developed new first-of-type Playmobilproducts. In addition, these innovative members published and shared their cre-ations within the OC to receive feedback and to collaborate on projects. Somemembers express openly their willingness and desire to share their ideas with themanufacturer as well. In fact, they are even disappointed that their ideas mostlyseem to be disregarded.

Our research has yielded five major findings that can support companies incollaborating with OCs.


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First, our findings exemplify that OCs in mature consumer goods markets canbe a source of new, even radical ideas, and support the development of newinnovative products within a specific segment. Innovative OCs are not only aphenomenon limited to emerging markets and trendy products.

Second, one important insight for firms is that a non-core target group of aproduct, in our case adults for toys, can be a prolific source of innovative productideas. It is even more astonishing that this unexpected user group even assumesorganizational tasks within OCs and devotes considerable resources to the gen-eration of new designs. Companies should look out for existing online user groupsbeside the main target group as they could inspire in-house developers, support theNPD process (Nambisan, 2002) and help expand the market for their products.

At the same time, companies need to be aware that serving the so-called longtail of users with exceptional needs may not be profitable. Therefore, they need toanalyze the concepts of OC members thoroughly in order to distinguish between‘needs preceding a larger market’ in accordance with lead user theory, and smallniches that cannot be targeted profitably. For that purpose they need to combinetheir classical market research instruments with new online tools and cooperatewith OCs to acquire an accurate estimation of market potential. The LEGOapproach with the community voting for new user ideas is one example of how toevaluate user creations via an online platform (Parise and Guinan, 2008).

Third, our results can help companies to understand and distinguish better themotivations of members in privately operated OCs related to their brand or pro-ducts. The differentiation of situational groups of motives is important for com-panies wanting to stimulate and support specific user activities, e.g., by providingtoolkits (Piller and Walcher, 2006) or incentives such as awards (Frey, 2007). Asituational grouping of motives helps companies to design structures and incen-tives to foster (1) new registrations for OCs or (2) innovative activities of membersor (3) collaboration and contribution within OCs, depending on the companies’predefined goals.

Fourth, we point out the importance of brand passion for user motivation inOCs. Enthusiasm and passion of an existing user base can drive their involvementin OCs and foster the emergence of new ideas and prototypes. Companies can usetheir brand power to build up their own OCs, especially if they own establishedbrands with a strong base of fans or extreme users and are therefore likely to gathera sufficiently large group of potential OC members. Moreover, we have shown thatcompanies can find passionate extreme users of their products in already existingprivately operated OCs related to their brands.

And finally, our case shows that some companies are still hesitant in using OCsas an innovative instrument, even though OC members are open to cooperationand freely reveal their ideas and knowledge. Our research did not explore the


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barriers that keep companies from integrating ideas from privately operated OCs.10

While we therefore cannot offer insights into the optimality of this behavior, thefact that users can be an important source for new ideas and designs as well as anearly indicator for changes affecting the industry (Birkinshaw et al., 2007)suggests that companies should at least carefully weigh the potential OCs hold forthem. Further research needs to address the questions of the conditions for inte-grating OCs into NPD as well as the methods and extent of optimal cooperation.

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This article has been cited by:

1. Andreas Schneider, Georg von Krogh, Peter Jäger. 2013. “What’s coming next?”Epistemic curiosity and lurking behavior in online communities. Computers in HumanBehavior 29:1, 293-303. [CrossRef]

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.09.008

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