| Since the last century,innovation has been the focus of many scholars as an important source of corporate competitiveness,and it has attracted the attention of corporate managers.As innovation plays a vital role in corporate profitability and sustainable development,the innovation practice of enterprises has never stopped,but the innovator is constantly changing:from the enterprise to the enterprise and users,and then to the fans and companies in recent years.With the advent of the fan economy,fans play an increasingly important role in organizational innovation.Therefore,how to make fans actively participate in organizational innovation is crucial.This thesis uses the perspective of empowerment theory to explore how companies can empower fans to promote knowledge sharing and finally realize innovation.This doctoral thesis combines case analysis,rooted analysis and empirical analysis to conduct research from two perspectives:enterprise and fan.First,conduct exploratory research from an enterprise perspective,revealing how companies can promote knowledge sharing through empowerment and finally realize different types of fan participation innovation.Moreover,what are the driving factors that influence the company’s empowerment to fans;secondly,from the veritative perspective of the fans,that is,whether the relationship between empowerment,knowledge sharing and fan participation in organizational innovation established by the exploratory research of the enterprise perspective is correct.In order to answer the above research questions,the thesis first reviews and discusses the relevant literatures on empowerment,knowledge sharing,and fans participation in organizational innovation,sorts out the existing research results,clarifies the research necessity of this thesis,and proposes that the empowerment of enterprises to fans become a key bridge connecting fan and business innovation.On this basis,four cases were selected,including Xiaomi,Mind Creation,Jingdong,and Lego,to explore the correspondence between the company’s empowerment,knowledge sharing,and fan participation innovation models.The results of the case study show that structural empowerment leads to purpose knowledge sharing,and psychological empowerment leads to the contact or entertainment knowledge sharing.High-structural empowerment and high-psychological empowerment will generate product innovation through purpose knowledge sharing and connected/entertainment knowledge sharing.High-structural empowerment and low-psychological empowerment will generate service innovation through purpose knowledge sharing.Low-structural empowerment and high-psychological empowerment will generate business model innovation through contact/entertainment knowledge sharing.No fans participate in innovation under the conditions of low-structural empowerment and low-psychological empowerment.Secondly,through the first-order concept,the second-order concept and the aggregate dimension coding three-level coding paradigm,the analysis of Xiaomi,Mind Creation,Jingdong and Lego is carried out,and the factors affecting the empowerment are further explored.The findings reveal four factors that influence a company’s empowerment of fans:fans management systems,employee management systems,fans engagement strategies,and leadership styles.Finally,based on exploratory research from the perspective of enterprises,we conduct further verification research from the perspective of fans,examine the correspondence between empowerment,knowledge sharing and organizational innovation,and reveal the impact mechanism.Based on the statistical analysis method,based on the existing mature scale and combined with the field investigation,the questionnaire was designed and 210 valid samples were collected.The results of empirical research show that structural empowerment and psychological empowerment significantly affect knowledge sharing,and knowledge sharing has a significant positive impact on product innovation,service innovation,business model innovation,knowledge sharing in structural empowerment and product innovation,service innovation,business model innovation.Moreover,knowledge sharing plays a full intermediary role in the relationship between psychological empowerment and product innovation,service innovation,and business model innovation.Therefore,the large sample statistical analysis from the perspective of fans verifies the exploratory research conclusions of the enterprise perspective.The theoretical contributions of the thesis mainly include:from the dual perspective of enterprises and fans,using the research paradigm of exploration and empirical test to construct the framework of DEKI(Driving factors-Empowerment-Knowledge sharing-Innovation),and reveal how companies empower fans to participate in organizational innovation and identify the driving factors of fan empowerment in the context of fan engagement.The practical value lies in guiding managers to empower fans and giving direction to how companies in the fan economy era are driving fans to participate in innovation. |
