Orchestrating Innovation with User Communities in the Creative Industries

The digital creative industries exemplify innovation processes in whichuser communities are highly involved in product and service development, bringing new ideas, and developing tools for newproduct uses and environments. We explore the role of user communities in suchco-innovation processes via four case studies of interrelations between firms and their communities. The digitization and virtualization of firm/community interactions are changing how boundaries are defined and how co-innovation is managed. The transformation of innovation management is characterized by three elements: opening and redefining firm boundaries; opening of products and services to community input and reducing property rights; and reshaping organization and product identities. Innovation in collaboration with user communities requires firms to orchestrate their communitiesand theirinterrelationships toencouragethe creativity and motivation of users, and develop the community‟s innovatory capacity.