Özet:

The main objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between the use of web-based user innovation tools and firms’ innovativeness. Besides, it is also aimed to explore the tools that are used in conjunction and trigger innovation. 61 firms operating in consumer goods/services sector within the list of Fortune Top 500 Turkey List, published in 2014, responded to the questionnaire. Findings reveal that not all of the web-based user innovation tools have a significant relationship with firms’ innovativeness. Hypotheses of the study are tested by correlation analysis and research questions are investigated via mining association rules with FP-Growth algorithm. The association rules mined point that 71% of the companies that use "virtual communities formed by users, and marketing intelligence services" together and 65% of the companies using market intelligence services in their new product development process are found to trigger innovation. Up to date, to the best of our knowledge, there has been no research focusing on the relationship between the use of web-based user innovation tools and firms’ innovativeness. Therefore, the most important contribution of this study is being a pioneer attempt to provide an empirical evidence for the aforementioned relationship by shedding light on each tool’ effect on the company’s innovativity for consumer goods/services. Web-based user innovation tools are the prominent enablers of customer integration into innovation processes of companies leading to customer generated value. Thus, it may be important for firms to decide on the bundle of the web-based user innovation tools to be used; since the use of these tools together or separately may have different effects on firms' innovativeness. Keywords: Web-based User Innovation Tools, Association Rules, Innovation.

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