Christopher Lettl and Hans Georg Gemünden
To provide first insights into under which conditions innovative users start entrepreneurial activities and finally become manufacturers themselves.
Abstract
Purpose
To provide first insights into under which conditions innovative users start entrepreneurial activities and finally become manufacturers themselves.
Design/methodology/approach
Concrete innovation projects were chosen as the unit of analysis and a multi‐case comparison methodology was applied. In‐depth interviews on the basis of a semi‐structured interview guideline were conducted. Furthermore, archival data were used. A rigorous content analysis framework was applied to analyse the collected data.
Findings
Those users that were the original investors in the innovations established and organized the required innovation networks. A high problem pressure, an active role of users in the idea generation phase, a high degree of innovativeness of the prospective product, and missing competencies as well as missing resources explain the entrepreneurial role of users.
Research limitations/implications
For the empirical study the focus was on the industry of medical equipment technology. This raises questions with respect to the generalizability of the results. Further research in other industries is needed to cross‐validate the results.
Practical implications
One important implication for corporate practice is to systematically identify and leverage entrepreneurial users for their innovation work. Thus, parts of the R&D and marketing function can be outsourced.
Originality/value
A new role for users in the innovation process is identified and an explanatory framework provided to better understand antecedents of this phenomenon.
Details
Keywords
Seung Hwan Lee and Sean Luster
This paper aims to investigate the paradox of whether prestigious goods help or inhibit a consumer’s social affinity. The goal of this research is to explore whether pursuit of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the paradox of whether prestigious goods help or inhibit a consumer’s social affinity. The goal of this research is to explore whether pursuit of prestigious goods increases consumers’ social affinity or decreases their social affinity, and, more importantly, to understand the mechanisms that drive this process.
Design/methodology/approach
Three laboratory experimental studies and a social network study are conducted to show that consumers hold inconsistent beliefs about the social implication of prestigious goods.
Findings
In Study 1, the authors showed that prestigious goods evoked stronger social affinity for the self than for the other. In Study 2, the authors showed that people evaluated themselves high in social affinity when they brought a prestigious wine to a party compared to when they brought a cheaper, generic wine, but evaluated others low in social affinity when they brought the same prestigious wine. In Study 3, the authors showed the mediating effects of social image and boastfulness on social affinity. Study 4 utilizes social network study to further validate previous findings in a field setting.
Practical implications
For high-end retailers, the authors suggest framing their promotional messages to explicitly highlight how owning prestigious goods will benefit them (i.e. social image). It is important that these retail managers (and salespeople alike) make it more salient on how their prestigious goods socially benefit the consumer (the self). Thus, it is important to get consumers to think about how a prestigious item looks on them and not on others. However, marketers must be prudent when constructing these messages, as the link between prestigious consumption and network development is merely perceptual.
Originality/value
The findings demonstrate that consuming prestigious goods increases social affinity via positive social image for the self. When evaluating others, the authors demonstrate that consuming prestigious goods decreases social affinity via boastfulness. In sum, owning prestigious items may seem beneficial socially to the self, but people have negative perceptions (boastfulness) of those who own the same prestigious goods. Hence, there seems to be a discrepancy in how the authors evaluate themselves versus how they evaluate others with the same prestigious goods.
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Keywords
Bernard Burnes and Hwanho Choi
This article aims to explore the arguments that citizens of future cities will increasingly live in virtual communities as well as bricks and mortar ones, and that some previously…
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to explore the arguments that citizens of future cities will increasingly live in virtual communities as well as bricks and mortar ones, and that some previously physical supply chains will become virtual networks or communities. In examining these arguments, the article investigates the development of the independent music community in Seoul, South Korea.
Design/methodology/approach
The research is based on a qualitative case study of music fans and independent record labels in Seoul.
Findings
The article shows that independent music fans in Seoul have built a self-organising, fan-dominated, value co-creating community, which has replaced the old, music label-dominated, hierarchical supply chain. The community arose from the passion of fans and their engagement with social media, rather the intentions of city planners and supply-chain architects.
Originality/value
The article shows that Seoul may be an exemplar of how future cities can and will develop, particularly in terms of the ability of people to use social media to develop and run their own virtual spaces and communities, which are tailored to the way they want to live their lives.