Impact of Shared Value Propositions on Users’Participation: User Empowerment as Moderator

In the era of open innovation, more and more enterprises tend to adopt users to participate in their innovation to address the challenge originated from fluid demands. However, existing literature pays more attention to consequences of user participation rather than antecedences of that. Taking the perspective of value co-creation, the present study explored the mechanism of shared value proposition driving user participative behavior with user empowerment as moderator from the standpoint of a firm. Using a sample of 302 domestic firms and hierarchical regressive model, findings are as follow: a firm can motivate its users to participate in its innovation by constructing value proposition shared with users. In the context of Chinese“affection and face”culture, a firm empowering its users will weaken the relationship between value proposition of individual’s unique demand and user participation in form of information provision, although it can promote users to participate in the firm’s innovation. The differences in incentives between user innovation and user participation in a firm’s innovation have been clarified. Furthermore, the condition of“incentive-behavior”transformation has been identified. The findings contribute the theory of value co-creation and that of user participation.