TY - JOUR

T1 - Embedded (Lead) Users as Catalysts to Product Diffusion

AU - Schweisfurth, Tim G.

AU - Herstatt, Cornelius

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

PY - 2015/3/1

Y1 - 2015/3/1

N2 - Firms can harness social user networks not only for ideation, but also to accelerate and facilitate diffusion of new product introductions. They select individuals whose own product adoptions and opinions influence adoption decisions of others. In this paper we transfer this rationale to firm employees. We focus on 'embedded users' who are employees of a firm, but at the same time users of the firm's products. We aim to find out if their access to user networks, use experience and lead userness impact their opinion leadership and domain-specific innovativeness. We also show how cognitive empathy towards external users is a mechanism to explain these relationships. Drawing on the user innovation and consumer behaviour literature, we derive and test eight hypotheses on a sample of 54 firm employees in gaming hardware firms. We find that lead userness is positively related to domain-specific innovativeness and opinion leadership, but use experience only to the former. Cognitive empathy mediates all relationships in our study. To facilitate embedded users' tendency to act as opinion leaders and to adopt new products, managers should encourage their employees to use the firm's products to build use experience and thus develop cognitive empathy towards external users.

AB - Firms can harness social user networks not only for ideation, but also to accelerate and facilitate diffusion of new product introductions. They select individuals whose own product adoptions and opinions influence adoption decisions of others. In this paper we transfer this rationale to firm employees. We focus on 'embedded users' who are employees of a firm, but at the same time users of the firm's products. We aim to find out if their access to user networks, use experience and lead userness impact their opinion leadership and domain-specific innovativeness. We also show how cognitive empathy towards external users is a mechanism to explain these relationships. Drawing on the user innovation and consumer behaviour literature, we derive and test eight hypotheses on a sample of 54 firm employees in gaming hardware firms. We find that lead userness is positively related to domain-specific innovativeness and opinion leadership, but use experience only to the former. Cognitive empathy mediates all relationships in our study. To facilitate embedded users' tendency to act as opinion leaders and to adopt new products, managers should encourage their employees to use the firm's products to build use experience and thus develop cognitive empathy towards external users.

KW - Management studies

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84923091374&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1111/caim.12106

DO - 10.1111/caim.12106

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:84923091374

VL - 24

SP - 151

EP - 168

JO - Creativity and Innovation Management

JF - Creativity and Innovation Management

SN - 0963-1690

IS - 1

ER -