Purpose - This article aims to investigate how R&D employees use their social networks to acquire user information and how this information is used in the development of new products.

Design/methodology/approach - A single case study was conducted within a business unit at a multinational medical technology company. Data were collected through a mixed method.

Findings - The results show that many R&D employees lack social networks through which they can acquire information about the users' needs. However, some R&D employees establish cost-efficient relationships to people with a direct experience of using the company's products. These relationships are established over time and are often used in a rather informal way to acquire user information. Moreover, the results show how R&D employees are purposefully complementing these relationships with more occasional interactions with people who hold direct and indirect use experiences.

Research limitations/implications - As with most single-case studies, it will be important to replicate this investigation in other contexts to clarify the generalizability of the findings.

Practical implications - The article shows how important it is that management provides R&D employees with opportunities to establish, nurture and utilize relationships conducive to information about the users' needs. The article provides some advice on how this can be accomplished.

Originality/value - This is one of the first articles that clearly explain how R&D employees use their social networks to acquire user information for the development of new products.

The importance of user involvement has long been stressed in the innovation management literature. However, we argue that this literature does not take sufficient account to the employment and incorporation of users in innovation. Hence, we explore the role of incorporated users in innovation activities. The research was conducted in a business unit in a large medical technology company with long experience of employing and incorporating physicians and nurses in its new product development activities. Data were collected through a questionnaire and interviews with key individuals. The study reveals that the incorporation of users has an overall positive effect on innovation activities, but that this way of working also raises several managerial issues. The results show that incorporated users play several different roles in the unit as user representatives, networkers, idea promoters and change agents. Based on our findings we propose managerial implications related to the incorporation of users.

A challenge for many medical technology companies acting in a business-to-business (B2B) context is to develop innovative products that satisfy the sometimes differing needs and requirements of their end-users and purchasers. These companies have to exploit knowledge about both stakeholders in order to maintain an innovative edge. Research to date has largely focused on the acquisition of customer knowledge, in particular on formal methods to acquire customer knowledge in the search for new opportunities. Much less research has considered how companies acting in a B2B context handle and make use of end-user and purchaser knowledge internally. One fundamental prerequisite to disseminate and exploit knowledge about end-users and purchasers in a company is that employees carry out a continuous social interaction concerning these stakeholders. But what are the structures for these dual social networks concerning end-users and purchasers within a company acting in a B2B context? In this article we apply social network analysis to investigate, describe and compare the different patterns of social interaction of end-user and purchaser knowledge in a business unit within a large medical technology company acting in a B2B context. A survey questionnaire was designed and sent out to 115 employees within the business unit, resulting in 86 valid responses (response rate 75%). The aim of the survey was to map how conversations about end-users and purchasers had occurred within the organization over the last three years. The results indicate large differences, both in structure and content, between the social interaction concerning end-users and purchasers. Based on these findings, we argue that medical technology companies acting in a B2B context can, by adapting their approach to the way they communicate end-user and purchaser knowledge, release untapped potential to increase both their innovation performance and their competitive advantage. We conclude with suggested directions for future research on this topic.

Product innovation in highly complex and technological areas, such as medical technology, puts high requirements on the innovation capability of an organisation. Previous research and publications have highlighted organisational issues and learning matters as important and necessary for the development of innovation capability. Action learning requires reflection on the ways things are carried out, changes in current actions, implementation and improvement and thereafter another round of reflection. This could be difficult for one organisation to carry out internally and so this research uses a learning network set-up involving several organisations for inter-organisational action learning. The purpose of this article is to describe the learning network set-up used in a current action learning project in the medical technology industry and to discuss the initial experience gained. The research project aims at increasing the innovation capability of the participating organisations. The method used is based on action learning and involves representatives from industrial partners, public health organisations and academic partners. The different organisations run innovation projects over a time period of three years and meet three times a year in learning network sessions with the purpose of developing knowledge by action learning interaction between the different organisations. During these learning network sessions the participants are facilitated to go through different phases: reflection, new concepts, new actions, implementation and new reflection. The paper elaborates on theories of innovation capability and learning networks and thereafter the methods of action research, experiential learning and action learning. The action learning network structure, the experience gained in the initial phases of the project and the experience of action learning and learning networks is then presented. The importance of trust-building between partners in the network in order to facilitate action learning and development of innovation capability is discussed, as is the learning that takes place in the interaction between academics from different disciplines in their interaction with the practitioners.

The article is presents a literature study related to user involvement in the early stages of the product innovation process in the medical technology industry. Five fundamental capabilities in early stages user involvement are presented and reasoned about. The capabilities are identification of users, acquiring, assimilation, and transformation of user knowledge as well as exploiting. The result of the article contributes to future research in an action research project with the medical technology industry and the public healthcare sector in Sweden.