Research On Contents, Effects And Guiding Strategies Of User Innovation Free Revealing In The Information Industry

In the era of creative economy and network economy, the technology develops much faster than ever in the information industry. The market of information products and information services is very active. Mounts of smart products, mobile services and so on are personalized and customized to meet the requirements of customers. Under the circumstance, customers’"product dominant sense" and "product innovation sense" are growing. They tend to innovate and might reveal innovations freely. Free revealing of users’ innovations is a kind of breakthrough of conventional behavior. It is also a variation of innovation protection mechanism such as patent protection which is recognized and accepted by the public. At the meantime, free revealing embodies the advanced innovative concepts-"wisdom sharing" and "innovation sharing" which are beneficial to the enhancement of IT companies’competitiveness, sustainable development of information industry and the incensement of social welfare. Thus there is great research value. It is also a new phenomenon that users reveal innovations freely in the innovative development of information industry in China. There is a little relevant research. Above all, the academic exploration on user innovation free revealing is essential.With the development of network web technology and the popularization of communication and electronic products, users can reveal innovations in any way without the limitation of time and spot. This provides objective condition for users’innovations sharing. Meanwhile,"information commons" and "open-source culture" are advocated vigorously in the information industry. This increases subjective willingness of users’ innovations sharing. However, what are relevant contents of user innovation free revealing? What are the effects of user innovation free revealing? How should the government and IT enterprises guide and gather innovations based on different user subjects? What kind of guiding strategies should be given to encourage user innovation free revealing? Based on the above problems, the thesis explores keeping secrecy, paid revealing and free revealing from three levels of user firms, community users and individual users. The thesis focuses on the motivations, contents and effects of user innovation free revealing and also offers policy suggestions. The thesis is organized with seven parts as follows:Part1is the introduction. The discussion begins with "the phenomenon of user innovation free revealing in the information industry in China". The basic problems, core concepts, content arrangement, research thoughts and methods, and innovation points of the thesis are all illustrated. Part2is about basic theories and research reviews. The basic theories of user innovation are reviewed. Research status on user innovation, especially on free revealing, are summarized. Some comments are given on the existing researches finally. This part is the theoretical basis for the study in the following parts.Part3is about user innovation free revealing and user subjects. The progression of study perspectives is from user innovation releasing to free revealing. The motivations of user innovation free revealing are analyzed. The subject relevancy among user firms, community users and individual users is discussed in innovation free revealing pattern.Parts4through6are the core of the thesis which constructs the analytical framework of user innovation free revealing.Part4studies user firm innovations in free revealing pattern:model analysis and guidance. In this part, through game analysis, a decision model on innovation free revealing of user firms is analyzed. Enterprises, A and B, are defined in the model. They are both leading enterprises in Chinese mobile communications market. The model background, variables selection and related limitations are presented first. Then decision-making mechanisms both in the case of innovation by one user and in the case of innovation by both users are developed. Finally based on the decision model and the analysis of interviews, some proposals are offered to encourage free revealing behavior of user firms.Part5studies community user innovations in free revealing pattern:relevant contents, effects and guidance. Through interview method and document analysis method, the contents of free revealing are explained by the progression of study perspectives from "users of communities" to "users of open source software communities". Users of open source software community are taken as the typical case of community users. The effects of their innovation free revealing are described. Finally, some proposals are offered to encourage innovation free revealing of community users.Part6studies individual user innovations in free revealing pattern:relevant contents, effects and guidance. Through interview method, questionnaire survey method and document analysis method, the contents and effects are listed to explore the behavior nature of free revealing. Based on the above research, some proposals are offered to encourage individual user free revealing. Coping strategies of free revealing are given to manufacturers. Influencing mechanism of user scale on manufacturers’decision of innovation adoption is showed. These are also the components of proposals.The last part is the conclusions and prospects. Four conclusions are provided. The limitations of this study are concluded and future research prospect is proposed.Four conclusions of this thesis are listed as following:First of all, there are generalities and differences on the motivations of innovation free revealing for user firms, community users and individual users. Superficially, free revealing means no profitability. In fact, users would like to reveal innovations freely when they foresee some higher profitability or when they assume that other releasing strategies can not bring ideal profitability. All users possibly expect to gain psychic income or potential economic income from free revealing but with different detailed expectation. In addition, public community users will not choose secret strategy and paid revealing because their innovation goal is sharing. User firms and individual users will choose free revealing when neither secret strategy nor paid revealing brings about any ideal profit.Secondly, the contents of innovation free revealing for user firms, community users and individual users are different.1) User firms take the profit maximization as their standard to make dicisions. In fact, free revealing is paid. In the competitive market, profit maximization is the sole premise for user firms to make decisions. They get innovative products from manufacturers who are good at commercializing innovations.2) Users of open source software community are the representatives of community users in the information industry. Open source software community users adopt co-creation model in modular design and reveal innovations freely. Communities’activities rely on the virtual network platform and the connection of numbers belongs to networking communication.3) Innovation free revealing of individual user accelerates the spillover of innovation information. It also implements innovation knowledge sharing and mutual benefit. Individual users reveal innovations by diversified and randomized ways through facilitated network platforms and media.Thirdly, the effects of innovation free revealing from user firms, community users and individual users are similar.1) The positive effect of innovations’ free revealing includes accelerating technology spillover and diffusion, increasing efficiency development and so on. Both innovators and manufacturers profit more. Social welfare is improving as well.2) The negative effects are the loss of monopoly privilege in innovations and the loss of short-term profitability. Free revealing can’t prevent "free riders" from sharing innovation information.Lastly, guiding strategies for user innovation free revealing in the information industry in China are showed. There are different guidances for user firms, community users and individual users in innovation free revealing. There is also a common guidance for three kinds of user subjects in innovation free revealing.1) For user firms, the guidance includes innovation cooperation, innovation improvement, the government share and financial assistance. Manufacturers should divide user firms into different types and strengthen the leading of innovation free revealing from different angles which include strategy level, project level and implementation level.2) For community users, the guidance includes encouraging IT enterprises to expand open source projects and keeping innovations transferring equally without barriers. The guidance also includes as following: The government should subsidize open source projects. Rewarding mechanism should be developed to encourage outstanding communities. Cooperation innovation of small-scale communities should be supported.3) For individual users, the guidance includes incentive circumstance creation from social perspective, policy setting from the government perspective and training mechanism and coping strategies from IT enterprise perspective.4) Common guiding strategies for three kinds of user subjects are as following:the government’s macro regulation and control should be enhanced, which include financial subsidies, fund support, preferential tax and so on. Enterprises should take measures to train and encourage the behavior of innovation free revealing. Incentive environment should be created in society for user innovating and free revealing.Meanwhile, there are some possible innovation points in the thesis as following:Firstly, the thesis find that user firm, community user and individual user show different behavioral characteristics in innovation free revealing by combining depth interview method with the case study of user innovation free revealing in the information industry in China. But "profitability" is the common characteristic for three kinds of user subjects.Secondly, a deep research on user innovation free revealing in the information industry in China is conducted tentatively in two dimensions, one of which is innovation user subjects which conclude user firm, community user and individual user, and the other is free revealing model which concludes motivations, contents, effects and guiding strategies. The research discovers that contents of innovation free revealing for user firms, community users and individual users are different, but effects are similar. So guiding strategies for innovation free revealing should be presented separately according to the user-innovator subject classification.Last but not the least, guiding strategies of user innovation free revealing in the information industry in China are provided in the perspective of different user subjects. Guiding strategies mainly include the following:User firms could be guided to reveal innovation freely by cooperation, improvement, government share, financial assistance and so on. Community users could be guided to reveal innovation freely by open source project support, community reward mechanism, community cooperative innovation and so on. An innovative model is appropriately developed based on marketing funnel model. The new model provides a guidance mode for IT enterprises to guide individual users to reveal innovations freely.