The trend of population aging is affecting an increasing number of countries around the world, especially advanced economies. One consequence of a growing population share of aged persons is a shift in consumer needs, reflected by a rising number of products and services designed particularly...

In the light of depleting natural resources and growing awareness for responsible consumption, "Cradle-to-Cradle" (C2C) has emerged as one of the key concepts redefining product characteristics and assigning a new role to environmental responsibility of companies. It reframes the general goal of...

Prior research on user innovation has concentrated on markets in which products (e.g., mountain bikes, kitesurfing equipment, tools, etc.) are typically purchased by those users who modify them. However, in numerous markets, this is not the case, for example, those in which equipment is rented....

Innovative, distinct products and no "cheaper" copies of the "rich" world are essential in order to succeed at the "Base of the Pyramid" (BoP). However, this type of innovation requires more, in-depth information on the BoP and solution spaces, which are both difficult to access. Literature...

This paper provides insights into one of the first in-depth empirical studies of how patents contribute to the external access of companies to financial sources.1 Based on expert interviews and a large-scale survey across company size clusters in technology intensive industries in Germany, the...