Implications for innovation management

Next to these direct benefits of embedded lead users, managers need to take some potential drawbacks into consideration. Embedded lead users motivation is partly related to their own benefits associated with expected solutions to their own problems. This includes high commitment to find solutions, which alleviate these needs. In general scholars have pointed out that innovativeness of employees may lead to conflicts with co-workers who want to prevent innovative change in order avoid individual stress (cf. Janssen 2003). This may even be more salient for embedded lead users who show high levels of product involvement and derive personal benefits from innovation. One of the managers in the individual healthcare industiy pointed out this potential conflict  

Other potential conflicts may arise with R D personnel and engineers, as embedded lead users tend to go b ond their original task definition and bring their own ideas to R D s attention. This may lead to problems if R D personnel is reluctant to use knowdedge that is not generated in R D. My findings indicate that trust relationships between embedded lead users and developers can alleviate these potential conflicts and result in fruitfid collaboration. 

Managers should also consider potential bias in the information provided by embedded lead users, as th fevor solutions, which ms be to some extend idiosyncratic to then-own needs, but not compatible with mass markets. E.g. two managers in the qualitative stu(fy reported  

Depending on the firm size and the distribution of embedded users inside the firm, managers should try to spread the development risk by involving employees exhibiting different degrees of lead userness as internal test markets  

In general, embedded lead users should not be regarded as a substitute for external users, but rather as complement Embedded lead users share many characteristics of external users, but are also embedded in rigid firm routines they need to comply with. A corporate perspective towards product use is very convenient for firms, if they want to implement user need knowledge, but external user knowledge will still remain a relevant source of innovation. Even if, e.g., internal testing can to some extent substitute 

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Von Hippel, E. (1994). Sticky information and the locus of problem solving Implications for innovation. Management Science, 40,429-439. 

In line with the focus of this dissertation and the research questions, managerial implications apply mainly to the field of innovation management Yet as already mentioned in the introduction, there are other functional areas (e.g. marketing, human resources, and strategy) of the firm, for which the phenomenon of embedded lead users holds implications. In the remainder of this section I will focus especially on innovation management but touch upon these other issues as well. 

Del Brio, J.A. and B. Junquera, 2003. A Review of the Literature on Environmental Innovation Management in SMEs implications for public policies. Technovation 23,939-948. 

Choi, T., Krause, D. (2006). The supply base and its complexity Implications for transaction costs, risks, responsiveness, and innovation. Journal of Operations Management, 24,637-652. 

Adner, R., Levinthaf, D. (2001). Demand heterogeneity and technology evolution Implications for product and process innovation. Management Science, 47(5), 611-628. 

Refer, for example, to Panayides Venus Lun (2009), who find that trust influences supply chain performance through innovativeness. Therefore, it is important for managers to raise trust in the supply chain in order to build a beneficial environment. Barratt (2004) frames successful supply ch collaboration by strategic and cultural elements. He names trust as one of four key cultural elements of supply chain collaboration. The framework of Barratt (2006) can give implications for integrating the quantification approach with cultural determinants, such as trust, in respect of time. 

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