“…This cooperative tie is particularly valuable in the context of new technologies and products (Urban and Von Hippel, 1988;Neale and Corkindale, 1998;Lilien et al, 2002;Tether, 2002;Bogers, Afuah, and Bastian, 2010) and may be of help in improving existing designs (Shaw, 1994) and in inventing new products or applications. Conversely, the dependence on customer knowledge alone may force producer firms to search for new solutions along more established pathways instead of pursuing new or even radical innovations (Laursen, 2011).…”