Who is at the cutting-edge of market trends? Development of a scale for identifying “Lead-users”

Abstract

Users are, by no means, an insignificant source of innovative and attractive products. 5% of our non-representative sample of consumers from Gipuzkoa innovates, which is quite similar to findings in other relevant studies on the subject. This would suggest that innovation management and policies that are exclusively manufacturer-oriented and fail to take the user into account will always be unsatisfactory and incomplete.However, it is equally true that not all consumers innovate. The challenge, therefore, is for companies who wish to develop co-creation strategies with consumers to be able to identify those consumers who do.To this end, the authors present a reliable and valid scale called “Consumers at the Cutting-Edge”. We offer a 31-item scale divided in three dimensions (“User leadership”, “Curiosity/creativity”, and “Availability of time and skills for product development”) designed specifically for the identification of lead users so that they can contribute to the innovation process.