Triggers for virtual customer integration in the development of medical equipment — From a manufacturer and a user's perspective

a r t i c l e i n f o Keywords: Virtual product development Virtual customer integration Co-creation Consumer motives Theory of planned behavior Virtual customer integration (VCI) involves customers throughout all stages of the new product development process. Firms across industries have started to experiment with virtual user integration and expect to utilize their knowledge, creativity, and judgment. However, little research exists that looks at the motivations of customers and managers to engage in virtual product development projects. In this paper we try to identify the triggers for virtual customer integration (VCI) from the manager's as well as from the customer's perspective. Using Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behavior we aim at explaining managers' motivation for the adoption of VCI based on a sample of 104 managers engaged in the product development process of manufacturing firms of medical technology. Drawing on motive research, we test six categories of customer motivations to engage in VCI projects on a sample of 105 users of medical technology. The results show that for mangers subjective norms and attitude predict the intention to use VCI. For customers, interest in innovation and product improvement are the most important drivers, whereas monetary compensation and prestige are not significant, and surprisingly the desire to help people even has a negative impact on the participation of VCI. Product innovation is a key success factor for industrial firms (Hult, Hurley, & Knight, 2004). Recent literature has widely addressed the importance of customer integration in product development and numerous aspects of customer interaction in collaborative new product development of industrial firms have been discussed (e.g. Customers' wants and needs, as well as their acquired knowledge through the actual use of products, make them an essential external resource for new product development and allows instantaneous feedback from customers all over the world, new possibilities for customer integration into NPD arise Whereas the possibilities to integrate customers into NPD via the internet have been studied from a variety of aspects in consumer goods markets, empirical research on the application of VCI for industrial goods markets is still in a nascent state (Hemetsberger & Godula, 2007). VCI is a promising idea and offers new opportunities to improve customer integration in NPD in a business market context. Its diffusion however is still very limited and little research exists that explains the adoption of VCI in business markets. VCI can only be successfully implemented if …