虚拟社区中IT产品共创机理研究：来自开源软件社区的实证分析

Virtual community has been regarded as an effective tool for helping enterprises to enhance its product innovation. The enterprise can either leverage the user-generated contents from online community as the source of product innovation, or make those potentially innovative users engage into the innovation activities for new product development. However, most of existing literatures investigated the effectiveness and application of such co-creation innovation model in organizational level, but paid little attention to the fundamental entity, namely the innovator residing in virtual community. This proposal attempts to investigate the fundamental factors and mechanisms influencing the individual innovators contributing to IT product co-creative innovation through virtual community from the individual innovator’s perspective, which will be validated by the evidence from open source software community. The investigation will be built upon three facets, i.e. co-creation motivation, knowledge routine in virtual community, and co-creation managerial institution. More specifically, this proposal is built upon a series of theoretical frameworks motivation theory, social identity theory, social network theory, and followership theory. Meanwhile, this proposal will be empirically investigated with pluralist research methods, including surveys, interviews, social network analysis and econometric analysis, which will systematically depict how individuals contribute to IT product co-creative innovation through the virtual community. The research output will provide significantly theoretical contribution to the existing understanding of IT product co-creation. Besides, the IT enterprise will also benefit from the findings to formulate the strategies of product co-creative innovation in an efficient and costless way, which will contribute the national policies aiming to boost innovation in China.

虚拟社区已成为帮助企业提升产品创新能力的一种有效工具。企业可将社区内用户生成内容作为产品创新的参考，也可通过这类社区引导具有创新能力的用户参与新产品的创新活动。然而，目前大部分文献更多地从组织层面讨论这类共创模式的效果与应用，而对虚拟社区内共创个体之间的机理研究并不全面。本课题将从共创参与者的角度出发，以开源软件社区为例，探讨影响个人创新者通过虚拟社区参与IT产品创新的因素与机理。本课题将从个人参与共创动机，在线知识获取路径，以及共创管理机制这三方面来全面研究虚拟社区内IT产品共创机理。具体来说，本课题将基于动机理论，社会身份认同理论，社会网络理论，以及追随力理论来构建理论模型及相关假设。并采用多元方法论（问卷调研，访谈，社会网络分析，计量分析）进行实证分析，系统地解读个人通过虚拟社区参与IT产品的共创过程。研究结论将对基于虚拟社区的共创模式提供理论借鉴，同时也将对企业的IT产品创新实践

虚拟社区已成为帮助企业提升产品创新能力的一种有效工具。企业可将社区内用户生成内容作为产品创新的参考，也可通过这类社区引导具有创新能力的用户参与新产品的创新活动。然而，目前大部分文献更多地从组织层面讨论这类共创模式的效果与应用，而对虚拟社区内共创个体之间的机理研究并不全面。本课题将从共创参与者的角度出发，以开源软件社区为例，探讨影响个人创新者通过虚拟社区参与IT产品创新的因素与机理。本课题将从个人参与共创动机，在线知识获取路径，以及共创管理机制这三方面来全面研究虚拟社区内IT产品共创机理。具体来说，本课题将基于动机理论，社会身份认同理论，社会网络理论，以及追随力理论来构建理论模型及相关假设。并采用多元方法论（问卷调研，访谈，社会网络分析，计量分析）进行实证分析，系统地解读个人通过虚拟社区参与IT产品的共创过程。研究结论将对基于虚拟社区的共创模式提供理论借鉴，同时也将对企业的IT产品创新实践