Thesis supervisor
: Patrice Flichy
In the context of a globalized, highly competitive economy that increasingly relies on companies' ability to master volatile yet crucial information, the relationships between companies and their environment are expanding and profoundly restructuring innovation processes. A new manifestation of the dialectical complementarity between innovation and organization, the opening up of companies to increasingly complex external ecosystems makes the ability to integrate the talents of dispersed individuals and organizations a crucial skill for managers and firms.
Online user communities, which are integrated into the innovation process of some large companies, are an original example of organizations opening up to their ecosystem. Exploring the variety of structures, actors, means, and skills brought into play by companies in managing these communities will be one of the focuses of our research. In particular, we will focus on the role of the user community facilitator who, as an actor located at the frontier of the organization, must translate between the variety of user representation systems and that of the company. We will seek to understand how this translation takes place and how the experiences and know-how of users are integrated into the innovative offerings being designed.
In terms of usage, the objective of this thesis is to better understand both the modalities of user engagement in these co-innovation platforms and the reasons for their involvement. Since more and more co-innovation sites with users offer remuneration (in the form of gift vouchers, concert tickets, etc.), we will determine whether individuals' engagement in these schemes is more a leisure activity or, on the contrary, a complement to their professional activities. The black-and-white opposition between these two categories is, of course, destined to be overcome, perhaps through the definition of an intermediate category between leisure time and work time, of which the social web (Web 2.0) would be the revelation
. Doctorate
: Sociology
Doctoral school
: OMI – Organization, Markets, Institutions