Conceptualising the influence of lead users and opinion leaders on accelerating the rate of innovation diffusion

There are a number of research studies that theoretically and empirically investigated the influence of lead users on the innovation process. It is argued that this lead-user innovation approach helps the firm to reduce the risk of failure associated with introducing new products to the market. However, there are only limited research studies that comprehensively evaluated the influence of lead users' innovations on the rate of diffusion. This paper presents a diffusion model that synthesises concepts from key research traditions. The purposes of this paper are: 1) to introduce an integrative model of innovation diffusion that evaluates lead users' influence on accelerating rate of diffusion through highlighting the link with opinion leadership as well as innovation attributes; 2) to offer research propositions that would provide directions for future research and represent implications for innovation management practice. The conceptual contribution of this research study is in the proposed integrative model that links lead user-ness, opinion leadership and innovation diffusion attributes. The proposed model posits that both lead user-ness and opinion leadership affect innovation attributes, which subsequently affect the rate of diffusion of innovation.