The purpose of this book is to explore, understand, describe the active roles of proactive users and consumers in shaping the economy in Europe. This book will therefore focus primarily on the side of Europe’s economy and critical role of lead users and prosumers. Is an important to describe productive, innovative and entrepreneurial roles of users and consumers in developing new products and services. Prosumers and lead users are creating internet communities where exchange knowledge and design new products, sometimes with cooperation with producers or food processors. Generally this type of research is relatively new. These roles had been largely unexplored, offering potentials for the theoretical and empirical studies.
During the twentieth century Europe witnessed the rise of mass production and democratization of consumption, based on specification and the division of labor between producers and consumers. In this traditional concept of value creation, producers are mainly responsible for the development, production, and marketing of products, while the role of consumers is primarily restricted to the purchase, use, and post-use of products. According to (Wikström 1995) the division of labor begins to blur. He suggests that company-customer interaction, which is widespread in industrial markets, can also be applied to consumer markets. Enabled and empowered by new technologies, consumers increasingly take part in the process of research and development (R&D),production and marketing. On the other side, companies also influence and support consumer activities. Reichwald and Piller termed this dynamic “Interactive Creation”.