Towards a Comprehensive Understanding of Lead Userness: The Search for Individual Creativity

Abstract

In innovation research the identification of lead users has attracted considerable research effort. While lead user research has made important advances, there is still a significant lack in terms of understanding antecedents to lead userness. Therefore the aim of this paper is to offer a framework which is rooted in creativity psychology in order to provide a more comprehensive understanding of who leading-edge users are. It will allow for a systematic investigation and detection of innovative users. We conducted an empirical study in the field of small kitchen appliances in co-operation with Philips Consumer Lifestyle, a field which lacks some of the typical characteristics that have been emphasized in markets traditionally studied in lead user research. With our research we show that (1) lead userness is fundamentally linked to individual creativity; (2) particularly creativity-and domain-relevant skills (cognitive style, product knowledge and use experience) are related to lead userness; (3) creativity-relevant skills can be explained by personal characteristics, such as education, gender and openness to experience.

Creativity and Innovation inHauteCuisine: Towards a Systemic Model

“…Despite consistent calls for a systems view of creativity and good progress in social psychology (Hennessey & Amabile, ), researchers (particularly in the wider field of management) have shown a tendency to study exclusively the ‘creativity of new products’ (Im, Montoya & Workman, , p. 171) or to focus on innovation as ‘a continuous, rational and purposive process’ (Faullant et al., , p. 77). Research on the creative ability of the individual, for example, is scarce, although it is widely acknowledged that it is the single most important factor contributing to the innovative output of firms (Kabanoff & Rossiter, ; Althuizen, ).…”

“…One of the few conditions that are academically accepted is that creativity is the creation of a new and potentially useful idea and innovation the acceptance of this new idea by those other than the creator (Zaltman, Duncan & Holbek, ; Amabile, 1996b; George, ), which means that creativity is a necessary precursor to innovation (Stierand & Dörfler, 2011a, ). The academic world, however, puts a much greater emphasis on researching innovation, without necessarily engaging with creativity, and often conceptualizes innovation as ‘a continuous, rational and purposive process’ (Faullant et al., , p. 77). This is not essentially different in hospitality research, where the process of turning creations into innovations is generally approached as a sequential developmental process removed from any socio‐cultural influences.…”

Dynamic Creative Interaction Networks and Team Creativity Evolution: A Longitudinal Study

“…Cognitive styles determine not only the extent to which users are able to define a problem but also how well they are able to go beyond known thought and perception patterns and to think. “outside the box.” The cognitive style was assessed using the scale from Faullant, Schwarz, Krajger, and Breitenecker (). This scale measures divergent thinking, which is the ability to analyze problems and to go beyond existing patterns when finding new solutions.…”

Platform adoption by mobile application developers: A multimethodological approach

“…Finally, related knowledge (RK) is measured by assessing respondents' level of prior knowledge in using the platform they adopted (Faullant et al, 2012). We operationalize perceived personal innovativeness (PERI) by assessing respondents' eagerness to experiment with new IT, eagerness to try out new IT, and hesitancy to explore new information (Agarwal and Prasad, 1999).…”