Unlocking innovation: the dynamics of user engagement in an open-source 3D printer community

Abstract

User innovation lies at the core of a growing body of research, with a predominant focus on how individual user attributes can be associated with observed contributions to innovation. However, framing user innovation in terms of individual attributes risks neglecting important changes in behavior at the individual and community level over time. Here, our focus is on how the time that individual users spend in that community relates to innovation outcomes. We study innovation in a firm-hosted online user community for a 3D printer company, marked by their commitment to open-source hardware. We analyze a unique longitudinal dataset of 38,277 observations recording user posts to an open-access user forum from October 2011 to March 2015. We find that time spent in a user community is positively associated with contributions to innovation, as users migrate from identifying problems and needs, to contributing innovation-related modifications and hacks. Our finding emphasizes the value of user retention in open-source communities as our analysis shows that typical users can add value to firms’ innovation activities over time. Our focus on open-hardware complements many existing studies on open-source software and advances our understanding of open innovation more generally.