Do retailers leverage consumer social media content for innovation? An exploratory study

Abstract: The rise of social media has opened new pathways for organizations to innovate, in particular because innovation impetus may now be harvested from outside the organization. In our research-in-progress we examine the case of a global retail organization that has recently adopted social media strategies with the view to foster consumer-driven innovation. We focus on why social media content generated by consumers under some circumstances facilitates consumer-driven innovation and why under some conditions it doesn’t. We report on the research methods, data collection, data analysis strategies and emergent findings, and conclude with a brief overview of our future research.