Overview of dataset

The fourth data source were trade shows that focused on products of the sampled industries. I visited two exhibitions for people with special needs (International Home Care and Rehabilitation Exhibition, Toltyo, 2009 Rehacare International, Diisseldorf, 2009] and two sports fairs (Hanseboot, Hamburg, 2010 HanseGolf, Hamburg 2011], During these events contacts to firms and users were initiated and the whole field could be observed in a natural environment Many informal conversations took place in which 

In order to establish reliability and validity of my findings, I sent my draft to my informants to ask them about their opinion (Kozinets 2002] and discussed my findings with industry experts I met during the fieldwork (Lincoln and Cuba 1985], I emphasize the external validi of my findings by showing how the phenomenon I observed relates to the literature (Eisenhardt 1989b], 

I find that the contribution to innovation by embedded lead users is mainly characterized by their deployed resources and actions. Embedded lead users draw on different configurations of resources during innovation, which can be categorized into intellectual resources (knowledge] and social resources (structural, relationaL and 

In the sports and leisure industry 1 found a large number of users located in the company. This became especially observable vidien I talked to employees of sports firms at the fairs 1 visited. Almost all front-line employees (i.e. those employees in direct contact with customers and users) were users themselves. Trying to quantify the phenomenon 1 asked my interviewees to estimate what share of employees they believed to be embedded users in the sporting industry, my informants estimated on average, that 75% of the employees were users, in the leisure industry the estimated share was a little lower, at 60%. 

The situation in the individual healthcare industry was different as the share of users was very small compared to the sports and leisitre industry. In these industries many of the external users are not part of the active labor force, due to their age or physical constitution. Exceptions are those people who stand out from the whole user crowd due to their personal fitness, being able to work in a company. An example for embedded lead user innovation was a new design for a throttle grip on an electric wheelchair, which could not be grasped by a handicapped employee and was thus being redesigned by him (Health 4). 

---