How do B2B companies motivate participation in online innovation?

The aim of this paper is to explore what kinds of factors are used by business-to-business (B2B) companies in order to motivate their B2B customers to participate in innovation processes utilizing social media. This qualitative multiple case study is a preliminary step in an attempt to understand how to motivate B2B customers to participate in social media innovations initiated by B2B companies. There has been little research conducted regarding social media use in innovation processes in B2B contexts and good case studies are rare. Therefore the aim of the present paper is to explore the motivational factors used by B2B companies that have successfully implemented social media in innovation processes involving their B2B customers. Existing literature is reviewed and five cases are analyzed in order to highlight how B2B companies can motivate participation.