Perspective: Understanding the Nature and Measurement of the Lead User Construct

Abstract

The lead user concept has attracted a lot of attention from scholars and practitioners alike. However, different studies apply different conceptualizations and measures of the lead user construct. Such variation in measurement of the construct make it almost impossible to consolidate findings from prior lead user research, which in turn hampers the accumulation of insights on the concept itself. This is also a challenge with respect to managerial practice: due to different interpretations of the concept, managers and R&D staff find it difficult to identify lead users for workshops and cooperation, and companies are often unable to transfer results from lead user projects to new product and business development. As a result, they only rarely repeat their work with lead users. The aim of this article is therefore to provide some thoughts and guidance on the conceptualization and measurement of the lead user construct.

Lead User Method vs. Innovation Contest An Empirical Comparison of Two Open Innovation Methodologies for Identifying Social Innovation for Flood Resilience in Indonesia

“…Lead user was coined by Eric von Hippel and describes users who "face needs that will be general in a marketplace -but face them months or years before the bulk of that marketplace encounters them, and who are positioned to benefit significantly by obtaining a solution to those needs" (von Hippel 1986, p.796). These two characteristics were later defined as trend leadership and high expected benefit from the innovative solution (Hienerth and Lettl 2017). The rationale behind trend leadership is that customer needs tend to evolve over time along underlying trends in the marketplace (Schreier and Prügl 2008).…”

Comparing Lead Users to Emergent‐Nature Consumers as Sources of Innovation at Early Stages of New Product Development

“… Arguments in favor of LUs: Lead userness, in contrast to the ENC trait, is considered a domain‐specific characteristic. This means that an individual can only be a LU in one (or only few) specific (or related) domain(s) and not in all product/service categories (e.g., Hienerth and Lettl, ). This difference could be related to the LUs' domain‐specific knowledge: LUs usually possess specific knowledge, expertise, and technical skills, and they draw upon their experience in a particular field or domain (e.g., Hienerth and Lettl, ).…”

“…This means that an individual can only be a LU in one (or only few) specific (or related) domain(s) and not in all product/service categories (e.g., Hienerth and Lettl, ). This difference could be related to the LUs' domain‐specific knowledge: LUs usually possess specific knowledge, expertise, and technical skills, and they draw upon their experience in a particular field or domain (e.g., Hienerth and Lettl, ). These domain‐relevant skills comprise the necessary raw materials upon which LUs can draw throughout the creative process (Lüthje, ; Schreier and Prügl, ).…”

“…There is no consensus on which of the existing LU self‐assessment scales should be used to capture the dimensions of trend leadership and the expected benefit from an innovation (Hienerth and Lettl, ). To extend the external validity of our pilot study and to retain the conditions of Hoffman et al's () research, we used their five‐item scale.…”

“…This work contributes to the research on open and user innovation in three ways. First, this article adds to the increasing body of literature on LUs (e.g., Franke et al, ; Hienerth and Lettl, ; von Hippel, , ) by again testing the basic tenets: the superiority of LUs when compared to average users in developing novel concepts (services versus products), regardless of the type of evaluator (consumers versus experts) and the type of development process (collective versus individual). Second, new knowledge is added to the promising, but still understudied, seminal work on the phenomenon of emergent‐nature consumers that currently includes, to our knowledge, only a few articles (e.g., Hoffman et al, ; Juaneda‐Ayensa, Olarte‐Pascual, Reinares‐Lara, and Reinares‐Lara, ; Vernette and Hamdi‐Kidar, , ).…”