Idea selection and adoption by users – a process model in an online innovation community

ABSTRACT

Firms increasingly use ideas from online innovation communities to solve problems or to better address customer needs. However, in many cases the number of submitted ideas has exploded, it leads to an information overload that firms hardly can handle considering their limited cognitive resources. Therefore, we use the Elaboration Likelihood Model to distinguish between the quick and lean idea preselection process as a peripheral route of information processing and the subsequent idea review process as a central route of information processing. In our empirical study with a sample of more than 163,000 ideas collected from the Xiaomi MIUI community, we analyse influencing factors that increase the likelihood of ideas being preselected or reviewed. Results show that user status, user initiative contribution, and community recognition have a significantly positive influence on idea preselction, whereas user response contribution has no influence. Idea presentation characteristics have an inverted U-curve relationship with idea adoption. Community absorptive capacity has a moderate effect on the curvilinear relationship between idea description length and idea adoption.

KEYWORDS:

• Idea adoption
• idea selection
• online innovation community
• cognitive overload

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Supported by Beijing Natural Science Foundation [grant number 9202004]; National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 71602006]; and State-owned assets Collaborative Innovation Center [grant number BTBUGZGL202001].

Notes on contributors

Nan Wang

Nan Wang is professor a t Business school of Beijing Technology and Business University. She received her Ph.D. at Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Her research focuses on innovation management and knowledge management. She has published in The Journal of Technology Transfer, Technology in Society, Asian Journal of Communication and so on.

Victor Tiberius

Victor Tiberius is a Senior Researcher at the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at University of Potsdam. He holds an MBA in Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship and received his PhD in Economics from Technische Universität Carolo Wilhelmina zu Braunschweig and a second PhD in Education Sciences and Futures Studies from Freie Universität Berlin. His research interests cover strategy, entrepreneurship, corporate foresight, and technological and organisational innovation.

Xiangxiang Chen

Xiangxiang Chen is a Ph.D candidate of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications. Her current research focuses on knowledge management and user innovation in online community.

Alexander Brem

Alexander Brem is an Endowed Chaired Professor and Institute Director at the University of Stuttgart, Germany. He is also Honorary Professor at the University of Southern Denmark. His research interest is on technological innovation and entrepreneurship.

Fei Yu

Fei Yu is an associate professor at SDU Technology Entrepreneurship and Innovation (TEI), University of Southern Denmark. He has the research focus on digital technology adoption in product development and production. He is leading an Interreg 5A project InProReg – Innovative production region, which seeks to maintain and further develop innovative and competitive manufacturing in the German-Danish cross-border region. He has a multidisciplinary profile and has published in Creativity and Innovation Management, Sensors and Actuators A: physical, JMIR mHealth and uHealth, Smart Materials and Structures, and Physiological Measurement, etc. He is also an editorial board member for International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management, and evaluation expert assigned for different EU project proposals.