Online Information Practices for User Innovation in Data-Rich Environments

Internet has been changing contemporary information environments into being data-rich by with user-generated content. The rich data generated by users on the Internet provide new opportunities for customer-driven and open innovation on the one hand, and potentially lead to information overload when boundedly rational managers allocate their scarce attention to abundant information on the other. Drawing on a symbolic value perspective, we study firms’ information practices in using online user innovation communities and their impacts on firm value. By extending the theory of information as symbol in data-rich environments, we conceptualize two types of information practices in using online user innovation communities: gathering of information refers to a firm’s practices to acquire information about new products and services from its online user innovation community; justifying for innovation refers to a firm’s practices to show that its new products and services are decided based on the most pertinent inf...