''User-Driven Innovation'' in mobile apps

Lidija Lalicic and Astrid Dickinger from the Department of Tourism and Service Management recently published a paper in top-tier ranked Journal of Technological Forecasting and Social Change. With their paper entitled 'An Assessment of User-Driven Innovativeness in a Mobile Computing Travel Platform' stemming from Lidija's PhD dissertation, the paper addresses the active role of tourists using mobile computing platforms.

Dr. Lalicic and Dr. Dickinger state that Web 2.0 code-free interfaces and mobile computing platforms allow consumers to creatively create content and share with their peers. As a result, numerous user-driven innovation-oriented communities started to emerge. Nowadays, these communities are available through smartphones and makes consumers more flexible and thus, more innovative.

They found that in the field of tourism in particular, these platforms have started to reshape marketing practices as well as tourist behavior. Tourists upload highly creative travel journals and thereby influence their online network and destinations indirectly.

The study combined creativity theory and platform engagement to explain this phenomenon in more detail. By analyzing Journi, an Austrian travel app, the study shows that users' innovative traits influence their online creative behavior. It also demonstrates that both gender and the chosen moment for creating and uploading travel journals have a significant effect on online creative behavior.

‘’Such research helps marketers to understand the important role of an effective working environment, as this proves to significantly support tourists in creating innovative journals, as well as improving the opportunities to attract highly innovative users,’’ says Dr. Lalicic.

She and Dr. Dickinger believe that introducing a new concept, user-driven innovation, will open up new possibilities to engage tourists in marketing practices and facilitate their creativity with toolkits available in apps.