Users as Service Innovators

Oliveira, P. & Von Hippel, E. (2009). Users as service innovators: the case of banking services. Retrieved February 25, 2010 from: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1460751##

This study was performed by Pedro Oliveira, with the School of Economics and Management, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, and Eric Von Hippel, with MIT - Sloan School of Management. Its purpose is to determine how banking service innovations are initiated, by the service providers or by the service users. They found that 85% of services that banks now offer were originally self-provided by the service users prior to the banks offering them. Their study also shows evidence that these findings for the banking industry can be broadly generalized within the service sector, which represents 78.7% of total employment and contributed 77% of GDP in the US economy in 2006. Therefore, most service industries would find similar results in how their innovations are originated, so this study can provide important insight to company leaders. This study is useful to managers, especially those in the service sector, because by understanding what their clients want and what they are self-providing for themselves, the manager and company innovators are able to provide new services that will be attractive to their clients, and avoid those that are not so attractive.