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A rapid growth of technologies supporting user interaction on the internet, such as social networking sites and other virtual communities, can be seen today. These virtual communities have been shown to be of great value to companies who want to involve users in their innovation processes. However, in order to guide organisations on how to utilise their virtual communities, more knowledge is needed regarding who their users are and their motivational drivers for participating in a community. The aim of this paper therefore is to explore user characteristics and motivations to contribute to innovation processes in an innovation intermediary community. The main findings of our study indicate that users’ motivation to participate is influenced by community type as well as technology adoption type. This study show that in innovation intermediary communities, one important motivational factor for users is learning.
Ståhlbröst et al. (2011) studied this question.