Harhoff, Dietmar; Henkel, Joachim; Hippel, Eric von - 2009 - Rev.
Empirical studies of innovation have found that end users frequently develop important product and process innovations … their innovations to competing users and to manufacturers. Rival users are thus in a position to reproduce the innovation in …-house and benefit from using it, and manufacturers are in a position to refine the innovation and sell it to all users …