Multidimensional Characteristics and Construction of Classification Model of Prosumers

Yimeng Jin, Fei Hu () and Jin Qi
Additional contact information
Yimeng Jin: School of Art & Design, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510090, China
Fei Hu: College of Design and Innovation, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
Jin Qi: Institute of Mechatronic Design and Knowledge Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 19, 1-21

Abstract: To explore how to effectively identify and select prosumers to promote the innovation capabilities of manufacturers, this paper focused on the potential value of the rise in prosumers. By means of documentary, this paper sorts out the development origin and conceptual characteristics of prosumers and further specifies the concept of prosumers from the general explanation. It includes the characteristics of prosumers derived from consumers and features of the prosumers’ participation in production, creative potential, collaboration and interaction, use of resources/tools, and new value production. Through a terminology comparison and evaluation, three classified dimensions based on the characteristics of prosumers were refined: degree of participation, range of interaction, and capacity of prosumption. The case induction method was further adopted to subdivide the levels of prosumers in different feature dimensions. Finally, a classification model based on the multidimensional characteristics of prosumers was proposed, and combined with the functional analysis method, the model can be described by metric space, and subspaces for collaboration-oriented prosumers were divided. It provides a reference basis for evaluating different types of prosumers. This paper not only promotes the development of the theory of prosumption, expanding the collaboration toward prosumers, but also helps to provide a reference and basis for manufacturers to select prosumers for collaborative co-creation.

Keywords: prosumers; characteristics of prosumers; collaboration; classification model; continuum (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/19/11931/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/19/11931/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:19:p:11931-:d:921409

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().