Lead users and innovation Cluster

The last cluster consists of 18 publications, which are thematically involved with the theme of lead users and innovative users. When the threshold for this cluster is Increased to 0,4, two main subclusters with four papers each emerge, which will be explained as follows. 

This cluster includes four papers, which are all focusing on the differences between innovating and non-innovating users, and which factors influence this difference. In contrast to cluster 1, in which the antecedents and consequences of lead userness are in focus, this cluster includes papers on the dichotomy of [user] Innovators vs. non- 

Other publications in this cluster like Jeppesen and Frederiksen (2006) and Lakhani and von Hippel (2003) focus on the motivation of lead users. The former paper Qeppesen and Frederiksen 2006) shows that in firm hosted communities, contributors are especially motivated by recognition of the sponsoring firm and not by sodal motives. Yet peer recognition seems to play a role in open source conununities, in which the authors of the latter paper (Lakhani and von Hippel 2003) find users to be intrinsically or socially motivated to help others. 

Two papers in the cluster can be regarded as seminal papers with respect to a knowledge perspective on user innovation. Von Hippel s (1994) conceptual work claims that user innovation can be traced back to the fact that user knowledge is sticky and difficult to transfer from one site to another, e.g. across firm boundaries. LUthje et al. 

Other papers in this cluster focus on open source innovation (von Hippel and von Krogh 2003 von Krogh and von Hippel 2006), which can be seen as research in the tradition of the free revealing stream in user innovation. Others focus more on the conditions which enable user innovation (Tietz et al. 2005), and what barriers exist for users to innovate (Braun and Herstatt 2007). 

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