Extending lead user theory:udAntecedents and consequences of consumers' lead userness

摘要

Lead users have been shown to be a highly promising source of innovation for generatingudradical new product ideas. According to lead user theory, these users are defined as beingudahead of an important market trend and experiencing high benefits from innovating. There isudstrong empirical support that these users tend to come up with commercially attractive userudinnovations. Other than that, however, there is hardly any knowledge available which helps touddescribe and differentiate this "species" of user from more "ordinary" users. The presentudarticle aims to fill this gap and extends lead user theory by exploring some antecedents andudconsequences of consumers' "lead userness". As regards antecedents, it is argued that audconsumer's leading-edge status will depend on field-related as well as field-independentudvariables. First, it is hypothesized that a consumer's basis of knowledge and use experienceudgained in the underlying field will help explain one's lead userness. Second, it is hypothesizedudthat the two general personality traits of "locus of control" and "innovativeness" will beudrelated to users' leading-edge status in a given domain. As regards consequences, this articleuddevelops a link between individuals' lead userness and new product adoption behavior. It isudhypothesized that lead users will demonstrate innovative behavior not only by innovating onudtheir own, but also by adopting new products faster and more intensively. These tenets areudtested in the course of three studies on extreme sports communities (sailplaners [n=129],udtechnical divers [n=193], and kite surfers [n=139]). Overall, findings are throughoutudaffirmative. First, it is found that the proposed antecedents (both field-related as well as bothudfield-independent variables) are strongly related to consumer's lead userness. These findingsudhave important implications: One major challenge of the lead user method has been theudreliable and efficient identification of leading-edge users in the first place. Findings related toudantecedents suggest that these variables might be employed to improve the lead user searchudprocess - they might be used as a proxy to identify the rare "species" of lead users. Second,udalso the proposed consequence of being a lead user finds strong empirical support: Lead userudtend to adopt new products faster and more intensively than other users. These findingsudsuggest that lead users might be highly valuable to companies beyond the fuzzy front end ofudgenerating radically new product ideas. Lead users might also be relevant to more generaludproduct development and marketing issues. For example, they might be integrated into newudproduct concept testing methods and "lead userness" might serve as an additional positioningudvariable for the marketing of new products. (authors' abstract)