How innovation nurtures well-being in enthusiast communities

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the dynamics at play between community members before, during, and after the launch of a new product by one of its members. While most of the literature on user innovation focuses on production/technology-oriented user communities, this paper studies a community of enthusiast consumers. Enthusiast communities are a specific case of user communities with their own household sector (HHS) innovation practices. The paper relies on a five-year study conducted on a community of speleology and mountain sports enthusiasts who created a new device for their leisure activity. We argue this is a hybrid HHS innovation, as it simultaneously pertains to two orders of worth: the ‘inspired’ order of the enthusiast community, and the market order of the entrepreneur’s business. The findings show that such hybrid innovations enhance communal well-being and that the community plays the role of incubator for these innovations.