Mass customization strategies try to offer customized products and services for broad market segments with mass production efficiency. Every order of a customized offering implies the integration of the customer into the firmâs activities during the elicitation process. During elicitation, customers select their individual configuration out of a given solution space. Compared to the rather huge amount of literature on manufacturing systems for mass customization, only little research discusses the role of the customer within the co-design process. Customers, however, face new uncertainties and risks when acting as co-designers. Building on a construction strategy of empirical management research in form of six case studies, we propose the use of online communities for collaborative customer co-design in order to reduce the mass confusion phenomenon. In doing so, the paper challenges the assumption made by most mass customization researchers that offering customized products requires an individual (one-to-one) relationship between customer and supplier. The objective of the paper is to build and explore the idea of communities for customer co-design and transfer established knowledge on community support to this new area of application.    «

Mass customization strategies try to offer customized products and services for broad market segments with mass production efficiency. Every order of a customized offering implies the integration of the customer into the firmâs activities during the elicitation process. During elicitation, customers select their individual configuration out of a given solution space. Compared to the rather huge amount of literature on manufacturing systems for mass customization, only little research discusses t...    »