How big and important is consumer innovation in Sweden? – A comparison with five other countries

This paper reports the results of a consumer innovation survey in Sweden and compares the results with previous national consumer innovation surveys. The Swedish survey reports an incidence of 7.3 % consumer innovators in the... [ view full abstract ]

This paper reports the results of a consumer innovation survey in Sweden and compares the results with previous national consumer innovation surveys. The Swedish survey reports an incidence of 7.3 % consumer innovators in the Swedish adult population (18-65 years) corresponding to 435.000 persons. Even though this is a slightly higher rate than reported in previous studies, i.e., Sweden has one of the world's highest rates of consumer innovation, the study confirms that roughly 5 % of a population in a developed economy are consumer innovators. The Swedish also confirms that the typical consumer innovator is a person with a technical education, but in contrast to other national surveys the typical Swedish innovator is a younger person (18-30 years) and not middle-aged as found in previous surveys. The most frequent areas of consumer innovation are household products, computer and software, clothing and personal health, automotive and transport, as well as tools and equipment in the home. Especially computer and software has gained in incidence rates.
Moreover, the Swedish survey also confirms the pattern of limited diffusion of consumer innovations, only some 20 %, despite the innovators’ estimations that approximately 60% of innovations are potentially useful for large or specific groups in society and that some 90% of the innovators are prepared to freely diffuse their innovations.
Given the confirmation of results in previous national consumer innovation surveys and the size of the phenomenon, in Sweden estimated to be equivalent to 10 % of the total size of R&D (measured in time allocated to R&D-activities by firm sector, public sector and university sector), we propose a number of policy proposals to further stimulate consumer innovation and to facilitate consumer innovation diffusion and discuss possible policy instrument mixes. This will not only benefit the consumer innovators themselves but also increase the level of interesting innovation projects for firms and the public sector as well as the level of entrepreneurship in the economy.