Identification of Lead User Characteristics Driving the Quality of Service Innovation Ideas

Evaluating the individual, situational, and technological drivers for creative ideas generation in virtual communities: A systematic literature review

The setting in which people generate ideas and work collaboratively to solve problems is gradually shifting from traditional face-to-face communities to virtual communities. Virtual communities are, therefore, becoming a new source of creative ideas. Nevertheless, online creativity is not without challenges. The main obstacle seems to be a lack of active engagement from participants within these virtual communities, resulting in a low quality and quantity of creative content when compared to traditional methods of creation. Research suggests that successfully generating creative ideas online involves sustained, active engagement among collaborators. A number of studies have investigated various factors related to the generation of creative ideas within virtual communities. However, a comprehensive understanding of contributing factors remains elusive. This study examines past research on the factors that drive creative ideas generation in online creative communities through a systematic literature review. The study seeks to analyze research findings over the past decade and provide an overview of the main driving factors, research areas, research trends, and implications for future research. Web of Science and Scopus were used to identify relevant articles, while Google Scholar was used to minimize the risk of missing any valuable data related to the aim of this study. The results provide an overview of the studies examining creative ideas generation within virtual communities. By approaching the subject matter from three primary perspectives (individual, situational, and technological), this paper identifies influencing factors associated with the successful generation of creative ideas online. The results of the paper also provide an overview of the research methods and guiding theories adopted by current researchers. The paper concludes with research trends and recommendations for future research.

Why Were Innovators Motivated to Be Entrepreneurs? An Empirical Study of Taiwanese Start-Ups

Background: According to the lead user theory, lead users at the front of a market, benefiting significantly from new products, usually have more innovation intension than general users. However, little research depicts the entrepreneurship motivations that drive innovators to become businesspeople. Hence, this study investigates Taiwanese entrepreneurs to fill this gap in the research. Method: This study examines motivations for becoming an entrepreneur from small- and medium-sized enterprises in Taiwan. A multiple regression analysis is used to examine the relationship between lead user inclination and entrepreneurial motivations as well as to test the moderating effect of community involvement. Results: The research results summarise entrepreneurial motivations into five categories: product knowledge advantage, industry expertise, inducements to innovation, career expectations, and benchmarking and indicate the positive moderating effect of community involvement on the association between innovators and entrepreneurs. Conclusions: Additional research is suggested to catalyse motivations to aspire lead users to pursue business success as well as to enhance entrepreneurship education policy. This study contributes to understanding the inclination of lead users towards becoming entrepreneurs and, especially, to emphasise the role of community involvement, which increases the likelihood of innovators to be entrepreneurs.

Smart Consumers: A New Segment for Sustainable Digital Retailing in Korea

Today’s smart consumers are intelligent consumers with multiple roles in the digital consumption environment. Consumer smartness refers to the multi-dimensional qualities that support various roles. Aiming to discover who the smart consumers are in the digital consumption context, this study classifies consumer segments based on consumer smartness and explores each segment’s profile in terms of demographic and behavioral characteristics. Using the data of 541 adult consumers, a clustering analysis generated four optimal clusters: Go-getters, Socialites, Realists, and Shopping-pococurante. Consumers with a higher level of consumer smartness were likely to have stronger shopping and sharing intentions, which indicates that smart consumers are active entities in the digital consumption context. This is the first attempt to segment today’s consumers carrying out multiple roles based on the concept of consumer smartness.

Understanding relational virtual community members’ satisfaction from a social learning perspective

Purpose

This study develops a belief-value-satisfaction model based on social cognitive theory. This paper aims to explain how relational virtual community (RVC) members’ beliefs on individual features and environments can be transformed into satisfaction through social learning strategies.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors followed a longitudinal, quasi-experimental field approach to collect data from two phases, which entailed the key informant approach to get the responses from those who participated in knowledge exchange in VC. The authors used partial least squares to examine the proposed hypotheses.

Findings

Satisfaction is measured as two dimensions – outcome and process. Value creation is conceptualized as social self-regulated learning (SRL), and its antecedents include lead userness, learning goal orientation and social influence. The results show that both dimensions of satisfaction are affected by social SRL, which in turn is influenced by learning goal orientation and social influence.

Originality/value

A systematic research for understanding satisfaction from a social learning perspective in relational virtual community settings remains absent. This study explains why and how relational virtual community members’ social SRL serves the role in leveraging resources and reducing uncertainty, from which they gain satisfaction.

Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Soccer: Web of Science Bibliometric Analysis

According to the existing literature, there is growing interest in the sports industry by individuals involved in entrepreneurship and innovation. However, no bibliometric analyses on the importance of and interest that these individuals have in the football industry have been conducted. A total of 220 articles and reviews retrieved from Thomson Reuters Web of Science (Core Collection™) between 1997 and 2019 were analysed. These articles were published in 169 different journals by 609 authors from 340 different institutions in 46 countries. The following basic bibliometric analyses and co-occurrence networks were carried out: co-authorship and co-words. As a result, four clusters that summarise the following four different thematic areas were found: (1) football, entrepreneurship and social development, (2) football, innovation and management, (3) football, efficiency and new technology, and (4) football, injuries and innovation in rehabilitation. A thematic analysis of the four clusters found was carried out. Finally, practical implications and future lines of research were presented.

An Exploration and Confirmation of the Factors Influencing Adoption of IoT-Based Wearable Fitness Trackers

In recent years, IoT (Internet of Things)-based smart devices have penetrated a wide range of markets, including connected health, smart home, and wearable devices. Among the IoT-based smart devices, wearable fitness trackers are the most widely diffused and adopted IoT based devices. Such devices can monitor or track the physical activity of the person wearing them. Although society has benefitted from the conveniences provided by IoT-based wearable fitness trackers, few studies have explored the factors influencing the adoption of such technology. Furthermore, one of the most prevalent issues nowadays is the large attrition rate of consumers no longer wearing their device. Consequently, this article aims to define an analytic framework that can be used to explore the factors that influence the adoption of IoT-based wearable fitness trackers. In this article, the constructs for evaluating these factors will be explored by reviewing extant studies and theories. Then, these constructs are further evaluated based on experts' consensus using the modified Delphi method. Based on the opinions of experts, the analytic framework for deriving an influence relationship map (IRM) is derived using the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL). Finally, based on the IRM, the behaviors adopted by mass customers toward IoT-based wearable fitness trackers are confirmed using the partial least squares (PLS) structural equation model (SEM) approach. The proposed analytic framework that integrates the DEMATEL and PLS-SEM was verified as being a feasible research area by empirical validation that was based on opinions provided by both Taiwanese experts and mass customers. The proposed analytic method can be used in future studies of technology marketing and consumer behaviors.

USING CROWDSOURCING TO INCREASE NEW PRODUCT’S MARKET VALUE AND POSITIVE COMMENTS FOR BOTH THE CROWD INVOLVED AND CUSTOMERS

More and more consumers base their buying decision process on online reviews. Not surprisingly, researches show that online reviews have an actual impact on revenues. As a result, a new product can disappear even before it makes it to the market. How to make sure that the new product will get positive online reviews before it goes to market? By evaluating the market value of a new product before and after Crowdsourcing, we offer the proof-of-concept that crowd-wisdom pertaining to new-product idea generation improves its market value significantly, both in term of ratings and comments after just one integration of the crowd into the new product development process. The improvement took place before a large investment was done. More surprisingly, this market value after Crowdsourcing is the same for the Crowd involved in the Crowdsourcing process than for the potential customers of the new product created by using this process.

HOW COMPLAINING CUSTOMERS MAKE COMPANIES LISTEN AND INFLUENCE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

The analysis in this paper shows how complaining customers can make companies listen to them by spurring the mobilisation of various actors into a hybrid collective strong enough to influence companies’ product development. Customers as sources of innovation have been analysed previously in the literature, whereas the process of how complaining users mobilise support to influence companies has received less attention and is not well understood.

This study uncovers the processes that made it possible for a 17-year-old Norwegian to become pivotal in constructing a problematisation, which emerged to become so strong as to alter the Norwegian Coca-Cola Company’s earlier decision to cease production of a product in a certain size. The analysis uses constructs from actor–network theory (ANT) and shows how a single dissatisfied individual was able to become a spokesperson who, through different processes, mobilised a heterogeneous group of consumers into a loosely connected hybrid collective. The spokesperson acted on behalf of the hybrid collective and put growing pressure on a multinational company, influencing its decision making. In this case, the complaining customer did not exit, nor did he become a lead user, but rather became a hybrid customer who actively tried to mobile others in his desire for a product.

The study reports on a process analysis of the means by which the company was induced to reinstate a discontinued product. The analysis is divided into three episodes, each marking a critical phase for the collective. This opens up the way for an examination of the processes of mobilisation, interessement, enrolment and mobilisation, revealing the margins of manoeuvre and how these are negotiated and delimited in the process.

DETERMINANTS OF USER INNOVATOR BEHAVIOUR IN THE SILVER MARKET

The existing research on the behaviour of user innovators has focused almost exclusively on younger users. In light of the demographic shift and the increasing importance of the "Silver Market" segment (customers 55 years plus), we analysed whether important determinants of user innovator behaviour (use experience, product knowledge, technical expertise, and the lead user components) exert the same influence among older users. We conducted a study in the camping and caravanning industry and included 333 respondents from 19 to 86 years of age. The innovator share among older users was slightly lower (43% versus 57%). While use experience and product knowledge turned out less important for older users in our sample, technical expertise materialised as the most important determinant. Additionally, being ahead of trend is stronger related to dissatisfaction with existing products among older users. We found additional evidence that users with high use experience suffer from functional fixedness.