Title: Enhancing the value of an innovative development community through the virtual community perspective

Authors: Jiun-Hung Lin, Tzong-Ru (Jiun-Shen) Lee, Ching-Ya Hu

Addresses: Department of Marketing and Logistics Management, China University of Technology, No. 530, Sec. 3, Jhong-Shan Road, Hukou Township, Hsin Chu County, 303, Taiwan. ' Marketing Department, National Chung Hsing University, No. 250 Kuo-Kuang Road, Taichung, 420, Taiwan. ' Institute of Electronic Commerce, National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan

Abstract: Facing competition from China, the survival way of Taiwan|s precision machine industry is gaining competitive advantage from Research and Development (R&D). The government established an Innovation Development Community (IDC) to provide an internet-based platform for firms to exchange information, find chances to cooperate and form a virtual community. Since the IDC is a virtual community, developing the proper functions and services that the IDC should provide based on the virtual community-related theory is an interesting topic. This study adopts the theory of Capture-Increasing Returns (CIR) to the virtual community to find the proper new services that the IDC should provide to help member firms gain resources that would enhance their R&D ability and create much more product value through enhanced R&D ability and also upgrade the precision machine industry in Taiwan from a traditional manufacture industry to a high technology-based industry.

Keywords: virtual communities; importance-performance analysis; IPA; grey relational analysis; GRA; increasing returns model; online communities; web based communities; innovation; Taiwan; precision machine industry; research and development; R&D; high tech industry; high technology.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVCM.2009.028602

International Journal of Value Chain Management, 2009 Vol.3 No.3, pp.241 - 262

Published online: 20 Sep 2009 *

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