Abstract
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the far
reaching business potential of offering innovative DIY
services and goods. Such offerings can enable businesses
to do significant good for the world, while doing well
for themselves. Design/methodology/approach: This paper
provides a business-oriented summary of, and makes
reference to, survey research and action research carried
out over five years. Findings: Innovative DIY offerings
can enable anybody anywhere to develop, produce, use
and/or sell physical goods that are both original and
sophisticated. Businesses introducing such innovative DIY
offerings reverse two trends that have dominated since
before the Industrial Revolution. First, they radically
reduce financial and professional barriers against the
participation of ordinary individuals. Second, they cut
back mass production by enabling individual development
and production of physical goods that spring from the
imaginations of individual people. In doing so,
businesses can avoid many of the challenges that they
typically face, such as margins shrinking due to core
products becoming more and more interchangeable. Also,
they can directly address the three principal goals of
sustainability: better enabling people to meet their
needs, and express their potential, while preserving
natural eco-systems. Practical implications: Businesses
are facing many challenges as they try to do well for
themselves. At the same time, businesses are uncertain as
to how they might do good for the world. In this paper,
it is explained how offering of do-it-yourself (DIY)
services and goods is already enabling some businesses to
do well and to do good at the same time. Moreover, an
overview is provided, together with references to more
detailed information, of how introducing innovative DIY
offerings can open many more opportunities for businesses
to do well and to do good. Originality/value: The
originality of the paper is that it describes a practical
option for businesses that aim to do both well and to do
good. The value of this paper is that provides a
referenced overview of relevant business examples and
relevant enabling technologies
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 21-26 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Journal of Business Strategy |
Volume | 33 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2012 |
MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Keywords
- Do-it-yourself
- Web 2.0
- Factory 2.0
- open prosperity
- DIY stores