Inviting Lead-users from Virtual Communities to Co-create Innovative IS Services in a Structured Groupware Environment

Abstract

Contemporary information systems (IS) products and services must fulfill the needs of consumers that are more widely scattered than traditional organizational end-users. New ways to incorporate these wide-audience end-users in the IS development are required. The lead-user method used in new product development is a promising approach to tackle this problem. However, the finding and recruiting of the lead-users has been found very burdensome for the firms. We propose lead-users to be found and recruited from virtual communities. This paper provides a conceptual framework that makes use of the Internet's possibilities – not only in recruiting the lead-users – but also when collaborating with them utilizing distributed Group Support Systems. Finally, we report on our preliminary field tests regarding the recruitment phase, discuss the implications of our work and provide suggestions for further research. [Service Science, ISSN 2164-3962 (print), ISSN 2164-3970 (online), was published by Services Science Global (SSG) from 2009 to 2011 as issues under ISBN 978-1-4276-2090-3.]