University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

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interaction enables companies to monitor trends and to understand the stakeholders’
or users’ attitudes and values better. OIM are also helpful in acquiring purposeful
background information. If the interactive methods are to be institutionalised, the
chosen methods will need to be considered carefully with regard to costs and aims.
However, companies tend to no-use of OIM in difficult situations or conflicts.
Second, the analysis also showed that consumers can become so-called prosumers.
But, do they want to be it permanently? The corporate freedom to develop
sustainable products and services partly depends on the interaction with stakeholders
or users. In each case cooperation could be improved. The companies accepted the
stakeholders and users as competent actors and experts of daily life. Most companies
made good experience with open innovation tools, and thus invited the users to
exchange ideas further. Especially in innovation workshops new products have been
adopted to the user’s needs. Therefore, the users realised their role in product and
service development (Hoffmann 2007). Sometimes the users also tried to increase
their behavior towards more sustainability. However, a very critical point is: users
bring in their ideas, but very often they do not have any rights concerning their
submitted ideas (except for some prizes).
Third, most OIM were used to legitimate corporate responsibility and improve
corporate image or to test new tools. Results are often integrated in sustainability
reports as well as in communication. Yet, results developed by OIM should be
integrated in processes, product innovation, concepts and visions permanently.
According to Ferdinand (2004), these are the main factors of successful use of OIM.
Therefore, establishing dialogue processes and the use of OIM often require change
agents or new managers. Hansen and Raabe (1991) emphasize that the reason for
stakeholder participation in product development is more often a strategic decision
than an immediate result of the company’s environment. However, sustainability has
to be addressed directly by all methods. Sustainability and CR are not issues of
methods or tools, but an issue of multicausal complexity which cannot be solved
within a workshop or interactive processes, and it will even get more complex if
there are filtering mechanisms due to companies’ constraints.
Consequences
A great advantage of sustainability-oriented or CR-related processes is the possibility
of expanding the knowledge base and opening perspectives on ad-hoc or continuous
communication with stakeholders/users (Hart 2007). This can open up
CR/sustainability oriented corporate learning as well as changing processes. Early
users’ integration in product or service development, for instance, enables a company
to include users’ practical and contextual knowledge into its strategies and action
patterns (Piore et al. 1994). Thus, firms can open up additional sustainable/CR
potentials during the use phase of their goods (Hage & Hoffmann 2004). OIM will
not change the world; instead they can initiate changes towards more sustainability
or CR activities. With the help of OIM new views emerge which enable companies
to initiate sustainable change. But how do OIM support sustainability or CR?
Together with stakeholders, companies can negotiate their own interests and those of
stakeholders. Thus, sustainable development is strengthened and responsibility is