Online User Communities in the Finnish Game Sector: Source for Knowledge Creation and Innovation

Abstract

Social networks allow the creation of online user communities. This in turn allows firms to have a better understanding of their clients, and serve as a distribution channel for their product offerings. Companies can apply business analytics techniques to these communities to gain additional perspective on their clients and their desires. In combination with knowledge management, knowledge can be created. Many businesses have invested in applying this type of analytics to their website traffic data, as well as any existing online user communities. One growing industry utilizing both online user communities and business analytics is the game industry. Finland is a leader in this category, being home to industry standouts such as Rovio and SuperCell. Nevertheless, once the information has been gathered many companies struggle with making sense of it – much less applying it for positive effect. Despite existing research covering the topics of online user communities and business analytics, few if any studies have been carried out about innovation through online user communities in the Finnish game industry. Some of the top experts in the field of knowledge creation have conducted studies to demonstrate its relevance in the world of today. However, not much has been done before to integrate all of these major concepts into a single framework. The aim of this study is to do just that: integrate these topics under a single framework and describe how online user communities can act as data sources for knowledge creation and innovation by means of deploying business intelligence. The study has been conducted with a single case study of a company in the game industry, applying action research as the main approach. Interviews with experts and second hand data collection supplement the case study. Some of the relevant results obtained are the lack of attention from game companies to apply analytics towards online user communities that are not embedded in the game as well as the shortage of knowledge management perform due to the limited resources of the firms.