Customer Co and Peer-Production: Opportunities and Challenges

  Viktoria Institute and IT University of Göteborg are pleased to invite you to a seminar with Dr. Ulrike Schultze from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, USA. She will talk about new customer collaboration models – Customers, partners or competitors ?

   The Internet is democratizing commerce by turning economic models that were based on a strict separation between providers and consumers, into models where this distinction is increasingly blurred.  This implies significant opportunities and challenges for organizations, particularly with respect to the role that their customers play in the generation of economic value. Are customers partners or competitors? While firms typically strive to implement business models that leverage the customers as a resource (i.e., customer co-production), models in which customers are competitors (i.e., peer production) are frequently met with attempts to co-opt these customers (i.e., hybrid co-production).  Using examples of IT-enabled customer co- and peer-production (e.g., Nike, Apple, Lego, Medtronic, Innocentive and Second Life), this talk will explore the range of customer collaboration (and co-laboring) models prevalent today, and the opportunities and challenges that they present for firms.

  Ulrike Schultze is Associate Professor in Information Technology and Operations Management at Southern Methodist University.  Her primary research interest lies in exploring the impact of information technology on work practices.  While her initial research focused on knowledge work and knowledge management technology, her more recent research projects are in the area of Inte rnet-based technologies and their implications for customer co- and peer-production.  As part of this research program, she is exploring the use of “synthetic worlds” (online games and virtual reality environments) as media for organizational communication.  Other ongoing projects focus on the implementation of IT governance frameworks (e.g., ITIL) and standards (e.g., ISO 20000).  Dr. Schultze frequently relies on multi-method research designs, which include ethnographic observations, interviews and surveys.  Her research has been published in, among others, ISR, MIS Quarterly, Information & Organizations.  She has served as an Associate Editor at MIS Quarterly and ISR. 

Register 
The seminar is free of charge and is open to all who have an interest in the use of information technology as a strategic business tool.
Please note that the maximum number of participants is limited.
Register here

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