User-Centered Innovation Approaches for Green Products and Services

Abstract

Studies focusing on environmental or green innovation have shown that companies can gain competitive advantage by collaborating with multiple stakeholders in the development process. Since green innovation is often systemic in nature and requires changes in consumption behavior, end user involvement early in the innovation process may be of particular relevance for the success of such products and services. The main aim of this paper is to add to our understanding of the role of users in the innovation process of green products and services. By conducting a qualitative case study, we first outline the methods used by two large European companies to involve users at different stages of the innovation process as well as their motivation and benefit. In a second step, we identify major factors that facilitate the successful implementation of the user- centric development process. Our research adds empirical evidence on the role of user involvement in green innovation processes and outlines how to best involv...