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Over the last decade, both scholars and practitioners have uncovered users as a valuable source of innovation leading to open innovation and Co-Creation strategies where consumers take an active role and co-create value together with the company. Throughout the new product development stages various groups of users have been identified to contribute for different new product development tasks. Especially lead users were found to support a company´s radical innovation activities. However, also ordinary customers contribute valuable information for innovation management. Recently so called expert users, characterized through a very high level of user expertise in a specific product category, have been identified as a valuable player in a company´s open innovation efforts. In this thesis I will explore the role of the previously unrecognized group of users that I labeled professional users. To gain further insight sponsored freeride team riders will be surveyed and interviewed.

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David Pitschmann, a passionate skier, studied business administration and sportsmanagement in the city of Innsbruck and is going to finish the mountain guide education in summer 2011. With his thesis he wanted to contribute to the ongoing debate of innovation in the skiing field and address Professional Users as a yet untapped source.

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