Functional fixedness as related to elapsed time and to set.

Adamson, Robert; Taylor, Donald W.

doi:10.1037/h0057297

Cited by 83 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Further, classical research on problem solving shows that subjects are strongly constrained by their real-world experience via an effect called "functional fixedness": For example, those who use an object or see it used in a familiar way find it difficult to conceive of novel uses (Adamson 1952, Birch and Rabinowitz 1951, Duncker 1945, Adamson and Taylor 1954, Allen and Marquis 1964. Taken in combination, these findings led to the hypothesis that users "at the leading edge" would be best positioned to understand what will be needed later by many.…”

Section: Lead User Theorymentioning

confidence: 91%

Finding Commercially Attractive User Innovations: A Test of Lead User Theory

2005

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Firms and governments are increasingly interested in learning to exploit the value of lead user innovations for commercial advantage. Improvements to lead user theory are needed to inform and guide these efforts. In this paper we empirically test and confirm the basic tenants of lead user theory. We also discover some new refinements and related practical applications.Using a sample of users and user-innovators drawn from the extreme sport of kite surfing, we analyze the relationship between the commercial attractiveness of innovations developed by users and the intensity of the lead user characteristics those users display. We provide a first empirical analysis of the independent effects of its two key component variables. In our empirical study of user modifications to kite surfing equipment, we find that both components independently contribute to identifying commercially attractive user innovations. Component 1 (the "high expected benefits" dimension) predicts innovation likelihood, and component 2 (the "ahead of the trend" dimension) predicts both the commercial attractiveness of a given set of user-developed innovations and innovation likelihood due to a newly-proposed innovation supply side effect. We conclude that the component variables in the lead user definition are indeed independent dimensions and so neither can be dropped without loss of information -an important matter for lead user theory. We also find that adding measures of users' local resources can improve the ability of the lead user construct to identify commercially-attractive innovations under some conditions. The findings we report have practical as well as theoretical import. Product modification and development has been found to be a relatively common user behavior in many fields. Thus, from 10% to nearly 40% of users report having modified or developed a product for in-house use in the case of industrial products, or for personal use in the case of consumer products, in fields sampled to date. As a practical matter, therefore, it is important to find ways to selectively identify the user innovations that manufacturers will find to be the basis for commercially attractive products in the collectivity of user-developed innovations. We discuss the implications of these findings for theory and also for practical applications of the lead user construct, i.e. how variables used in lead user studies can profitably be adapted to fit specific study contexts and purposes. 3 Introduction and overview

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Section: Lead User Theorymentioning

confidence: 91%

Finding Commercially Attractive User Innovations: A Test of Lead User Theory

2005

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“…Also, subjects who use an object or see it used in a familiar way are strongly blocked from using that object in a novel way (Duncker 1945, Birch and Rabinowicz 1951, Adamson 1952. Furthermore, the more recently objects or problem-solving strategies have been used in a familiar way, the more difficult subjects find it to employ them in a novel way (Adamson and Taylor 1954). Finally, we see that the same effect is displayed in product development groups in firms, where the success of a group in solving a new problem has been shown to be strongly affected by whether solutions it has used to solve past problems will fit the new problem (Allen and Marquis 1964).…”

Section: General Impracticality Of Obtaining Intellectual Property Prmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Dominant Role of "Local" Information in the User Innovation The Case of Mountain Biking

2002

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1.0: Introduction and overviewFirms that manufacture products and services have an incentive to develop innovations that appeal as strongly as possible to as wide a customer base as possible in order to enhance their innovation-related profits. Research into the incentives operating on user-innovators, however, leads us to hypothesize that this category of innovators will display a very different pattern.Prior research has shown that users that develop new products and services typically profit only from their own, in-house use of their innovations. This is because users that seek to benefit financially from diffusion of an innovation to other users in a marketplace must obtain some form of intellectual property protection followed by licensing. Both are typically costly to attempt, and have very uncertain outcomes (Harhoff et al 2002). If users do derive their innovation-related benefit only from inhouse use of their innovations, they should find it rational to ignore the general needs of the marketplace in favor of developing innovations that are very precisely tailored to serve their own specific needs. The innovations they develop to serve their own needs may, of course, also prove to serve a more general demand by happenstance.In this paper we examine the specificity with which innovations developed by user-innovators address their in-house needs. To do this, we compare the characteristics of a sample of user-developed innovations in mountain biking equipment with the direct need experience of the users developing them. We find a close relationship: userinnovators do tend to develop innovations to serve precisely their own needs. They do not do this out of ignorance of the market: user-innovators in our sample have an accurate understanding of the breadth of potential marketplace demand for the innovations that they have developed.In addition to finding that user-innovators do not stray significantly from attempting to solve their own in-house needs, we also find that user-innovators tend to use only their own pre-existing stocks of solution-related knowledge to develop their innovations. In other words, we find that innovators largely rely upon both need and 3 solution information that is "local" to them to generate their innovations. (We define local information as that an innovator already has "on site" prior to innovating, or generates on site during the course of innovation development.)Reliance on local need and solution information has the effect of sharply reducing innovators' innovation-related costs. With respect to need information, consider that users encountering a need for an innovation during activities that they engage in "anyway," in effect discover that need at no incremental cost. If they also can test solutions that they may develop to that need during the course of activities engaged in and rewarded for non innovation-related reasons, they also have a "free" test laboratory for solution development. A similar argument holds with respect to solution-related information. If a user employs...

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“…This constrains the user in finding solutions to the new problem (Adamson, 1952;Birch and Rabinowicz, 1951;Lilien et al, 2002). It becomes even more difficult when the objects or problem-solving strategies are more recently used (Adamson and Taylor, 1954;Lilien et al, 2002;Von Hippel, 1986). Lead users display characteristics that set them apart from ''regular'' users (Von Hippel, 1986).…”

Section: Lead User Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Applying lead user theory to young adults

2010

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Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to identify lead users within social networks of young adults between 14 and 17 years of age.Design/methodology/approach -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.Findings -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.Research limitations/implications -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.Practical implications -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 Originality/value -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.

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Functional fixedness as related to elapsed time and to set.

Cited by 83 publications

References 7 publications

Finding Commercially Attractive User Innovations: A Test of Lead User Theory

Finding Commercially Attractive User Innovations: A Test of Lead User Theory

The Dominant Role of "Local" Information in the User Innovation The Case of Mountain Biking

Applying lead user theory to young adults

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