Economics of product development by users: The impact of "sticky" local information

被引:403
作者
von Hippel, E [1 ]
机构
[1] MIT, Sloan Sch Management, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
关键词
user innovation; sticky information; local information; heterogeneous markets; mass customization; specialization in problem solving; task partitioning;
D O I
10.1287/mnsc.44.5.629
中图分类号
C93 [管理学];
学科分类号
12 ; 1201 ; 1202 ; 120202 ;
摘要
Those who solve more of a given type of problem tend to get better at it-which suggests that problems of any given type should be brought to specialists for a solution. However, in this paper we argue that agency-related costs and information transfer costs ("sticky" local information) will tend drive the locus of problem-solving in the opposite direction-away from problem-solving by specialist suppliers, and towards those who directly benefit from a solution and who have difficult-to-transfer local information about a particular application being solved, such as the direct users of a product or service. We examine the actual location of design activities in two fields in which custom products are produced by "mass-customization'' methods: application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and computer telephony integration (CTI) systems. In both, we find that users rather than suppliers are the actual designers of the application-specific portion of the product types examined. We offer anecdotal evidence that the pattern of user-based customization we have documented in these two fields is in fact quite general, and we discuss implications for research and practice.
引用
收藏
页码:629 / 644
页数:16
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