Firm and user community collaboration: A complex love story

The purpose of this thesis is to develop a comprehensive framework that describes the dynamic relationship between firms and user communities. To understand the implications of collaboration, from the relation between users and firms rather than from their individual properties, this thesis urges a more relational approach to collaborations between users and firms than is offered by the literature.

As tensions arise from collaborations between firms and users, the argument is that their relationship (and innovation potential) can be better understood by highlighting the dynamics between their conflicting demands. This thesis investigates tensions in the idea-development phase and conceptualizes innovation performance as firms’ innovation potential and ability to renew themselves and develop new products.

Thus,the thesis seeks to answer the following overall research question:How do tensions arise from innovation-related firm and user community collaborations and how do these tensions affect the innovation performance?