Towards a convergence of innovation-relevant user characteristics: A systematic literature review of lead user screening studies

The current strand of lead user screening studies is applying lead user identification in a wide- variety of use-contexts. In addition, a diverging long-list of determinants underlying the principal lead user concept is... [ view full abstract ]

The current strand of lead user screening studies is applying lead user identification in a wide- variety of use-contexts. In addition, a diverging long-list of determinants underlying the principal lead user concept is identified. Within this paper we present a systematic literature review of 26 articles, which employed (at least partial) a lead user screening strategy. By offering this overview, we provide the reader with a reference work on the contexts-of-use of lead user screening studies, the main objectives and the recurrently used lead user-characteristics. This way we want to open the discussion on assessing the true added value of involving lead users in distinguishing contexts of use. Our study offers 3 main conclusions: (1) There remains a problem with the operationalization of the lead user concept and the related determinants. (2) There is a problem with the ever-increasing long-list of related concepts. (3) There is a need to guide research efforts in this domain towards a validated instrument for innovation-relevant lead user screening studies. Our main message is to put a to stop the ever-increasing diverging long-list of related concepts to the lead user construct, but instead compose a converged list of underlying concepts relevant for the context at hand.