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Virtual Communities for Innovation: Influence Factors and Impact on Company Innovation

An extensive body of literature indicates the growing influence of virtual communities not only on social interaction, spending free time and working, but also on the interaction of companies with their customers to exchange information on products and to develop innovative ideas. However, engaging in virtual communities poses certain challenges to companies which more often than not results in failure to establish a successful collaboration with customers. This leads to the following questions: What are virtual communities and how can companies establish successful interaction? Why and how can interaction with a community lead to an improvement of the innovation process? This article develops a comprehensive concept of the collaboration between companies and virtual communities called community–company interaction quality (CCIQ). Based on insights from academic literature, this paper reviews factors influencing the quality of community–company interaction, suggesting an integrative framework. After developing a working definition for virtual communities in innovation, a summary of findings regarding interaction quality in context of human–technology interaction and behaviour related to innovation is proposed.