The Role of Social Software for Customer Co-Creation: Does It Change the Practice for Innovation?

This article investigates a customer co‐creation project at the front end of the innovation process at a large well‐known Italian food manufacturer, which is enabled by social media. The purpose is to shed light on the role of such technology in transforming the characteristics of the FEI, in terms of boundaries and knowledge distance: what type of innovation ideas – exploratory or exploitative – does the practice enable? Could social media be used to manage the explore‐exploit paradox, thus transforming the practice into an ambidextrous one? The empirical analysis highlights that the investigated customer co‐creation practice has evolved from the initial stage of idea exploitation to a stage in which both exploitation and exploration are simultaneously accomplished.