Stepping Into the Internet: Leveraging Virtual Worlds Affordances for Co-Creation

Both theory and practice recommend collaborating with users to access and generate innovation-relevant knowledge. Especially recent social software applications and even more virtual worlds have created unprecedented opportunities for firms to engage in advanced experiences with users and user communities for knowledge co-creation. The aim of this research is to shed light on what enables the co-creation of innovation-relevant knowledge in virtual worlds. To tackle this research task we collaborated with a Swedish start-up, designing co-creation workshops. Presenting the outcome of the co-creation workshops, we develop a set of propositions that relate specific aspects of virtual worlds to the different modes of innovation-relevant knowledge creation during co-creation. We extend prior research on knowledge creation into the virtual world context and provide insights about effectively leverage virtual worlds for innovation-related knowledge co-creation.