Annals of Business Administrative Science
Online ISSN : 1347-4456
Print ISSN : 1347-4464
ISSN-L : 1347-4456
Adverse User Innovation
The Case of a Semiconductor Equipment Manufacturer
Seungkee MIN
Author information
JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS

2016 Volume 15 Issue 6 Pages 265-272

Details
Abstract

Von Hippel (1988) coined the term “user innovation” by arguing that semiconductor device makers (equipment users) played a critical role as innovators in the development of semiconductor process equipments. However, in the same period of this study, the Japanese semiconductor process equipment manufacturer, ULVAC, autonomously conducted fundamental research on the material composition of cobalt–nickel–chrome (CoNiCr), a study that is generally conducted by device makers. Based on the material research outcome, ULVAC developed new manufacturing equipment for HDD and supplied it to users (device makers). Here we define this phenomenon as “adverse user innovation,” which works in an opposite manner to the “user innovation” of von Hippel (1988). In fact, there are likely to be numerous other examples similar to this case.

Content from these authors
© 2016 Seungkee Min. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons [Attribution 4.0 International] license.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Previous article Next article
feedback
Top