查看文章

In search of innovation and market success, firms have started to empower their customers in many ways, from customizing and self‐producing their own products (products made for one) to selecting and designing products for the broader marketplace (products made for many). This power shift has important behavioral and psychological consequences for customers and, hence, has attracted considerable interest from academics and practitioners alike. However, the literature is scattered, provides inconsistent findings, and lacks both a comprehensive conceptualization and empirical overview. Specifically, extant literature neglects the situational nature of customer empowerment, equalizing inherently different customer empowerment activities while failing to consider the divergent effects on participating versus observing customers (i.e., customers who do not participate in the new product development process …