Innovativeness in product usage: A comparison of early adopters and early majority

Abstract

A field study was conducted to examine if time of adoption (i.e., purchase innovativeness) was systematically related with use innovativeness, product involvement, and extent of product usage. The results showed that early adopters had significantly higher use innovativeness and product involvement as compared to the early majority. Although usage variety was higher for early adopters, no significant differences were found in usage frequency between the two groups. Use innovativeness and involvement mediated the relationship between purchase innovativeness and usage variety. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

The impact of adoption timing on new service usage and early disadoption

“…Several studies consider post-adoption usage at the individual customer level (Gielens & Steenkamp, 2007;Shih & Venkatesh, 2004, Wood & Moreau, 2006, mainly using cross-sectional data to gain insight into various determinants of postadoption usage, such as ease of use. Other studies focus on the differences between early and late adopters in terms of their usage levels (e.g., Danko & MacLachlan, 1983;Mahajan, Muller, & Srivastava, 1990;Morgan, 1979;Ram & Jung, 1994). These studies offer no conclusive evidence, which could be due to the fact that they use cross-sectional data.…”

“…However, if the new service is not fully developed, the utility of the new service may still be low, and this can cause subsequent disadoption and/or lower service usage (Bolton & Lemon, 1999). Moreover, the early adopters of a new service are not necessarily the heavy users (Ram & Jung, 1994). As a result, the service provider may end up with a large set of adopters but also experience low service usage levels and multiple disadopters in an early stage.…”

Demand Heterogeneity in Platform Markets: Implications for Complementors

“…Related research has explored how preference for novelty is linked to adoption timing. Ram and Jung (1994) suggest that "usage needs … tend to vary across consumers who adopt the product at different stages of the lifecycle" (p. 58) and empirically link novelty seeking with early adoption timing, or use innovativeness (see also Venkatesh and Vitalari 1986). Vishwanath (2005) explores preferences and adoption timing across a number of technology hardware products and finds that tolerance for novelty is tied to adoption timing, with early adopters being more tolerant of novelty, while Chau and Hui (1998) show a similar relationship in computer operating systems.…”

Adolescents' utilitarian and hedonic Web consumption behavior: Hierarchical influence of personal values and innovativeness

“…This study adopted Hirschman's (1980) three-part phenomenon of innovativeness (vicarious, adoptive, and use). Vicarious-innovativeness is defined as the active search for information about new or unfamiliar products and services (Ram & Jung, 1994) for the purpose of making decisions about future purchases (Raju, 1980), and/or for increasing consumption knowledge and adopting the concept without purchasing the product or service. Adoptive-innovativeness is defined as the acquisition of a product or service during a relatively early stage of the life cycle (Hirschman, 1980).…”