Users as Part of Firm’s strategic Human Capital: the 3D printing revolution

By providing ideas and knowledge, users become part of firms’ strategic human capital and managers can leverage on them for enhancing growth and innovation. In recent times, users’ opportunities for interacting with companies increased substantially due to the spread of social networks and the diffusion of Internet connectivity. As a consequence, companies’ opportunities to leverage on users’ knowledge increased but, at the same time, it is also more difficult to assess the value of a higher number of users, driven by different motivations. In this paper, we explore this issue using the 3D Printing community as empirical context. We show how companies can leverage on different users’ contributions and invest in users with a higher potential to become valuable strategic human capital for the company.