Search results

With the rise of social media, the practice of innovation management is changing rapidly as well. While the opening up of corporate innovation processes can be observed in literature as well as in practice (commonly known as “Open Innovation”), we draw the reader’s attention to the strategic potential of social media in innovation management. For this, a conceptual framework will be introduced.

In this chapter, we compare established concepts of knowledge management to potentials of social media in this field, which offer more efficient and promising ways to integrate external knowledge into innovation processes. This approach is discussed by considering the integration of customers and especially Lead-Users into corporate product development. Based on the concept of Open Innovation, we reflect the role of Lead-Users in the innovation process critically. Mounting on our reflections, we show the potentials of social media for integrating Lead-Users and develop a conceptual framework for the integration of Lead-Users using different social media applications.

In this paper, a conceptual framework for integrating Lead-Users by using different social media applications is developed and introduced.

The unique conceptual framework derived in this chapter is enriched with a discussion of the challenges resulting from the implementation of Lead-User integration along with social media in corporate innovation management. The chapter can help companies as well as researchers to implement a process for the integration of Lead-Users by using the potentials of social media applications.

Lead users are essential participants in crowdsourcing innovation events; their continuance intention significantly affects the success of the crowdsourcing innovation community (CIC). Although researchers have acknowledged the influences of network externalities on users' sustained participation in general information systems, limited work has been conducted to probe these relationships in the CIC context; particularly, the predictors of lead users' continued usage intention in such context are still unclear. Hence, this paper aims to explore the precursors of lead users' continuance intention from a network externalities perspective in CIC.

This work ranked users' leading-edge status to recognize lead users in the CIC. And then, the authors proposed a research model based on the network externalities theory, which was examined utilizing the partial least squares (PLS) technique. The research data were collected from an online survey of lead users (n = 229) of a CIC hosted by a China handset manufacturer.

Results revealed that the number of peers, perceived complementarity and perceived compatibility significantly influence lead users' continuance intention through identification and perceived usefulness.

This work contributes to the crowdsourcing innovation research and provides views regarding how lead users' sustained participation can be developed in the CICs. This work also offers an alternative theoretical framework for further research on users' continued intention in open innovation activities.

The involvement of lead‐users in product development has been emphasised as a rewarding method for companies in various industries to strengthen their development efforts. The argument is that these leading edge customers can generate innovative and appealing new product concepts. In some industries, however, companies may not be able to make use of lead‐users. In such situations, a complementor may be a valuable alternative. Complementors may be defined as development partners “whose outputs or functions increase the value” of the company's own innovations. The purpose of this article is to compare and contrast the advantages obtainable from the lead‐user method and complementor involvement respectively in order to determine the interchangeable value from these different approaches.

A typical case is selected as the empirical foundation, describing a Danish food‐producing company's collaboration with a complementor.

The case analysis shows that complementor involvement may lead to output‐related, process‐related, and system‐related advantages comparable with advantages obtainable from the lead‐user method. The findings, however, reveal some variations in these advantages. Compared with the goals set by the Danish food‐manufacturing company, output‐related advantages are achieved, e.g. in terms of higher product novelty, whereas the company's goal for enhancing its market position is not reached. Several process‐related advantages are also accomplished in terms of enhanced internal collaboration and improved cross‐functional communication. However, the company faces challenges related to how close the complementor relation might become.

This research is based on a single case study in the food industry in Denmark.

From this paper, new knowledge and insight into complementor involvement in product development as well as the related advantages and disadvantages can be derived. In academia, this knowledge contributes to deepening understanding of external partnering in product development in general. The managerial implications to be derived are associated with the potential value generated from complementor involvement in product development.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of collaboration with lead users (users that experience needs unknown to the public and therefore can innovate by finding solutions to those needs) and product experts (external new product development collaborators who have a commercial interest in the development of a new product) on the clockspeed of the development of new products and to determine which of the two has a higher impact.

Survey data were collected from 421 European manufacturers, and analysed using hierarchical regression analyses.

Both lead users and product experts were found to have a positive and statistically significant impact on new product development speed. Also, collaboration with lead users will lead to greater new product development speed than with product experts.

When knowledgeable individuals are involved in the new product development process as lead users, they have a better impact on new product development speed than when they are involved as product experts. This is a single informant study that makes use of perceptual measures. Although several steps have been taken to minimise any risk of systematic bias, its potential effect cannot be eliminated.

The results have two main implications for manufacturers. First, collaboration with lead users and product experts during the new product development process will help to improve the speed of development, and hence the speed to market. Second, collaboration with lead users will have a greater impact, particularly when undertaken informally, as formal integration may lead to a weakening of lead users' innovative abilities.

The paper contributes to the growing literature, which explores how innovators found outside an organisation can be used to enhance the innovative ability of that organisation. The value of this work is that it identifies and empirically compares the impact of lead users and product experts on new product development speed.

The purpose of this paper is to identify lead users within social networks of young adults between 14 and 17 years of age.

A questionnaire and the SAGS‐method were used to collect data within seven high schools in the north of The Netherlands. These data were used to empirically test five hypotheses using the variables which could enable the identification of lead users. A multiple regression analysis was used to test the predictive value of the variables. The analysis was complemented with a qualitative analysis of the collected data.

The main characteristics which identify lead users among adults can also be used with young adults. Those young adults who are more likely to be a lead user, are more ahead of a trend and have a higher amount of expected benefit. They also display more expertise than other young adults.

The variable of perceived information benefits could complement the variables used for identifying lead users among young adults, but further research is necessary. Because the focus is on only one specific product, the generalizability of the results from this research is limited. Further research should include different products or services in different domains of interest. The variables of perceived information benefits and efficiency did not have a significant positive relation with lead userness, but further research is needed.

The identification of lead users could be valuable to organizations that focus on young adults in the age range 14 to 17 years and could lead to significant commercial benefits. Young adults are a large potential market and the identification of lead users within this target group could help organizations

Research on lead user theory is mainly focused on adults or organizations. This article tries to fill this research gap by focusing on young adults. It is an extension of the research of Kratzer and Lettl, Kunst and Kratzer and Molenmaker et al. who focused on children from 8 to 12 years old.

Lead user experiments are increasingly applied in food-related innovation. The purpose of this paper is to: first, experiments should excavate new recipes, production processes and narratives for mussels with a specific regional origin and connotation. Second, the study should test a lead user set-up and investigate the commitment and potential benefits, not only for future mussel producers but also for the lead users themselves.

This study organized and evaluated a lead user experiment involving eight chefs and other food experts.

The experiment was successful in the sense that the lead users activated a considerable combinatory knowledge ability and creativity, and they could address issues of wider regional branding significance and contribute with catching narratives. The lead users found the experiment beneficial on several dimensions, providing the opportunity to reflect and undertake tests under respectfully inquisitive observation of others, and they also appreciated the opportunity openly to expose their own professionalism on various media that were organized as ingredients in this experiment.

The study accentuates the applicability of lead user experiments as supplements or alternative to other ways of informing product development processes and demonstrates a practical method.

The study contributes to the increasing methodological evidence in the field of lead user-based innovation and scrutinizes the issues in a wider food industry context.

The goal of this research is to fill the gap in lead users' research under children. An effort is made to analyze the characteristics of lead users in social networks of children. Furthermore, their role in the adoption and diffusion of innovations is examined.

An experiment is conducted at primary schools in The Netherlands, with children aged between 8 and 12 years. An innovation is introduced in a social network (school class). Lead users are identified and their adoptive behavior is examined.

The following characteristics of lead users are identified in this study. Lead users have an efficient place within a social network, which allows them to receive diverse and non‐redundant information. They have a higher familiarity with the product category, and they are perceived as experts by their peers. Finally, lead users are more likely to be boys than girls. This study discovers as well that there is a significant positive relationship between lead userness and the current use of the innovation and the intention to use it in the future.

This research is only performed in one kind of product category in one particular market. Additional research should strengthen the findings of this research and explore the possibilities to generalize these findings. Further research should focus more on exploring additional characteristics of lead users, which will enhance the identification of lead users in networks of children. From a marketing point‐of‐view it would be interesting to investigate the influence of media on lead users and a lead users' ability to influence the diffusion of an innovation.

This paper is unique together with the paper of Kunst and Kratzer, because it investigates the lead user method in networks of children. It makes a first effort to determine the characteristics of lead users in networks of children. This is vital because it enhances the identification of lead users, consequently organizations can involve them in the development process of innovations.

Customer involvement has been recognized as a key factor for successful service development. One important aspect affecting the outcome of new service development (NSD) projects in whose development customers are involved is the choice of the appropriate participating customer. This study aims to examine the effect of two customer characteristics (relational closeness and lead‐userness) on four indicators of new service performance.

The paper uses data from 102 NSD projects. Covariance‐based path analysis is used to test the model.

The results reveal that involving close customers in the NSD process has a positive direct effect on service advantage and speed to market and a positive indirect effect on market performance. The involvement of lead users, on the other hand, has a positive effect on service newness and service advantage, and a negative effect on market performance.

The focus on Spanish companies puts constraints on the generalizability of the results to other national contexts. Future research should replicate this study in different countries. Also, future research could explore more deeply the performance impact of close customers and lead users by collecting data on the roles that customers can play in NSD.

The findings from this study suggest that firms need to make conscious choices about the types of customers to involve in service innovation as different types of customers affect new service performance differently.

This study makes an original contribution by investigating the effect of customer's relational closeness and customer's lead userness on four indicators of NSD performance.

Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Highlighted by the Harvard Business Review list of 20 Breakthrough ideas for 2007, user‐centred innovation, based on the concept of lead users, takes a fundamentally different approach to product innovation to that practiced in most organisations. It is based on the research by Eric von Hippel, MIT, which found that many commercially important products are initially thought of and even prototyped by product users (lead users) rather than manufacturers. In recognising this, the lead user process can transform the difficult job of generating product and service “breakthroughs” into a systematic task of tracking down especially promising lead users and adapting and developing their ideas to a business's needs. The approach, which 3M has found to generate project ideas that deliver sales eight times higher than those generated by contemporaneous traditional projects, is now not only taking hold within industry, and within user communities, but it has got to the point where governments are getting involved.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to‐digest format.

The lead user concept developed by Eric von Hippel is perhaps the only formal method designed specifically for identifying innovators. This paper discusses the applicability of von Hippel's lead user concept in the architectural industry where technological innovations are necessary yet gravely scarce. In order to examine the applicability of the lead user method, a set of seven case studies of novel energy efficient solutions found in built facilities in Europe and North America were analyzed. The result of the study indicates that the method may not be suitable for identifying the likely source of innovation if the innovation does not focus on an individual's needs; combined efforts are mandatory to create the innovation; and the size and complexity of the innovation make it impossible for a user or an individual to deliver or to test it out on his/her own. The concept of lead provider is introduced and several characteristics are identified.