Identification and classification of household sector innovation: the parallel product market and the importance of context and complexity

Abstract

ABSTRACTRecent studies have identified impressive numbers of users innovating for themselves. However, a comparison of prominent studies reveals an inherent problem with their results: the frameworks used to identify and classify household sector (HHS) innovation differ in their procedures and criteria for the inclusion and exclusion of potential HHS innovation, resulting in diverging evidence of the phenomenon. This study aims to analyse the similarities and differences in the current identification and classification schemes and to identify the critical gaps and explanations for the different approaches. Following a systematic literature review approach, we introduce the parallel product market concept and highlight the importance of the context and product complexity of HHS innovation efforts. We contribute to the literature by synthesising our findings and suggesting a harmonised HHS innovation identification and classification framework that helps both researchers and policymakers to quantify user activities more precisely. The implications for the phenomenon of HHS innovation are both encouraging and daunting: Our findings imply that the strict application of the proposed definition of HHS innovation would decrease the overall number of HHS innovation while the introduced concepts indicate a vast number of HHS innovation activities and an underestimation of HHS innovations due to the current identification and classification processes.