تاثیر نوآور بودن مصرف کننده در پذیرش محصول واقعا جدید

The results of academic research into consumer innovativeness and its influence on product adoption lack consensus. To help close this gap, the study examines the relationship between consumer innate innovativeness, domain specific innovativeness, vicarious innovativeness, and the adoption of really new consumer electronic products. This study employs a quantitative survey-based approach to test several hypotheses related to consumer innovativeness and really new product adoption. In total, 256 Australians above the age of 18 completed an online survey and subsequently form the basis of the analysis. Employing structural equation modeling we find that domain specific innovativeness rather than consumer innate innovativeness is the primary influencer of the adoption of such products. We find however that the relationship between domain specific innovativeness and really new product adoption, although positive, is still quite weak. The result highlight the need for further research to more fully understand what drives or explains the adoption of “really new” products both in Australia and internationally and to further clarify relationships between innovativeness measures.

Firms believe that the continual introduction of new products is an important aspect of their business and will help attract more demand and maintain a competitive position in a market (Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1987, Griffin and Page, 1993 and Lundvall and Christensen, 2004). In order to create new markets and to alter the value dynamics in a competitive market, firms need to develop more “really new” products rather than radical or incremental products. Really new products are new products that result in a market discontinuity or a technological discontinuity but do not require customers to undergo significant training in order to use them and extract their value. Really new products provide an increased opportunity for a stronger competitive position relative to more incremental innovations. Regardless of the importance attached to new products Gourville (2006) reports that the new product failure rate remains high, between 40% and 90%. Empirical research suggests one issue that still remains important in understanding the success of new products is the adoption and diffusion of product innovations, and the factors which influence adoption (Hauser et al., 2006). Hauser et al. (2006) suggest that the role of consumer innovativeness is one of the key directions for innovation adoption research despite it having been examined extensively over the years and having had a range of scales developed to measure it (Goldsmith and Hofacker, 1991, Kirton, 1976 and Raju, 1980). Various forms of consumer innovativeness are said to exist including consumer innate innovativeness (CII) (Midgley and Dowling, 1978), domain specific innovativeness (DSI) (Goldsmith and Hofacker, 1991) and vicarious innovativeness (VI) (Hirschman, 1980). Nevertheless, in the study of the measurement of consumer innovativeness, Roehrich (2004) and Hauser et al. (2006) note that the results of different consumer innovativeness scales indicate a lack of consensus, and the strength of the relationship between measures of consumer innovativeness and product adoption behavior have been mixed. Prior research suggests that the relationship between consumer innate innovativeness, in particular, and new product adoption is positive but weak (Goldsmith et al., 1995, Im et al., 2003 and Im et al., 2007). As a result, it is argued that domain specific innovativeness and vicarious innovativeness may play an effective mediating role between consumer innate innovativeness and the adoption of really new products (Im et al., 2007). To date no academic research to date actually considers consumer innate innovativeness, domain specific innovativeness and vicarious innovativeness together. This research aims to provide much needed evidence and insight by examining the relationship between these measures of consumer innovativeness and their association with the adoption of “really new” consumer electronic products in Australia.

In the previous discussion, the definition and measurement of consumer innovativeness indicates a lack of consensus in empirical studies. The first contribution of this study is that increased support is found the poor performance of consumer innate innovativeness as a measure or predictor of consumer adoption behavior for really new electronic products. Consequently, researchers should further investigate the personality-related antecedents of new product adoption to determine if there is a better measure for behavior prediction. A further contribution of this study is that no research considers CII, DSI, and VI together, and the mediating roles of DSI and VI have not been fully tested in the literature. As mediating variables, the results suggest that DSI has an impact on the relationship between CII and really new product adoption. Vicarious innovativeness, on the other hand, may have a moderating rather than mediating effect, and needs further investigation. Further, the study adds support for scales drawn from previous research, and responds calls by Roehrich (2004) and others for more empirical international validation of the growing body of theoretical work related to consumer innovativeness and its association with product adoption behavior. Managerially, marketers and market researchers need to recognize that there is no single measure that captures the propensity of consumers to adopt new products. If consumer innovativeness items and scales are used in their analysis of product adoption then they may be better served by those that are related to domain specific behaviors rather than generalized personality traits. Measuring new product adoption behavior using only consumer innate innovativeness or vicarious innovativeness in Australia will be problematic.