Do lead users cooperate with manufacturers in innovation? Investigating the missing link between lead userness and cooperation initiation with manufacturers

Dietfried Globocnik,Rita Faullant

doi:10.1016/j.technovation.2020.102187

Dietfried Globocnik, Rita Faullant

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.technovation.2020.102187

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Abstract

Past lead user research has provided strong empirical support for the claim that lead users tend to innovate independently. While the innovation activity itself is well documented, little is known about whether users' ideas and solutions also reach manufacturers' organizations. Recent research indicates that the majority of user discoveries remain limited only to local use and are rarely presented to a wider circle of other users, business angels, or manufacturers. This limitation presents a problem because if manufacturers do not have access to users’ needs, ideas, and solutions, they might fail to recognize essential opportunities for innovation.Therefore, this research studies the question of whether lead userness and expected recognition from manufacturers and peers explain the user's inclination to cooperate with manufacturers. We study cooperation initiated from two different ends: users pro-actively approaching manufacturers with problems and ideas and users participating in manufacturer-hosted innovation workshops. Drawing on lead user theory, we develop hypotheses and test them with two empirical studies with nurses and pharmaceutical technical assistants. The results provide support for the argument that a superior trend position and high expected benefits are strong and reliable predictors for both investigated forms of cooperation. The results on the effect of recognition from the manufacturer and peers are mixed, indicating that expected process benefits are less important.

Highlights

In the customer-active paradigm popularized by von Hippel (1978), individual users generate ideas, modify existing products, or invent completely new solutions
Our research is situated in the domain of lead users and their ac tivities that are relevant for the new product development of firms
The actual interactions between lead users and manufacturers had not been investigated, and it had remained unclear whether lead users are more or less likely to make their knowledge accessible to manufacturers and whether they differ in their willingness to transfer their ideas and so lutions through cooperation with manufacturers

Summary

Introduction

In the customer-active paradigm popularized by von Hippel (1978), individual users generate ideas, modify existing products, or invent completely new solutions. The rate of users modifying or innovating products as reported in multiple studies ranges from 6% to 40% (Bald win and von Hippel, 2011) and is even higher when users are inter viewed personally (Franke et al, 2016). For manufacturers and their new product development efforts, lead users are especially attractive partners for innovation activities (e.g., Franke and von Hippel, 2003). Lead users often start inno vating on their own (Luethje, 2003; Schreier and Priegl, 2008), and their ideas and solutions have been found to be superior in terms of market attractiveness and success rates (Lilien et al, 2002; Franke et al, 2006)

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