Abstract While the majority of existing literature believes that customer participation can improve firm’s innovation, some argue that it also involves risks and dark sides. This study examines the impacts of customer participation upon B2B firm’s marketing innovation capability, as well as the moderating roles of inter-organizational relationship (including customer’s relationship commitments, firm’s relational capability and bilateral dependence structure). The results of questionnaire survey among 376 B2B firms show that: ①customer participation (CP) can improve firm’s marketing innovation capability (MIC); ② dependence structure moderates the CP-MIC link, while total interdependence enhances the positive influence and interdependence asymmetry negatively moderates the main effect; ③customer’s relationship commitment and firm’s relational capability do not exert moderating effect.
