This article summarizes the results of a systematic review of the literature on consumer innovativeness and its correlates and provides a propositional inventory for future research. The authors identified seventy-nine relevant empirical articles from international journals through a search of multiple databases using specific search terms, a manual search of marketing and consumer behavior journals and a cross-reference search. The results show that innovativeness consists of different levels of conceptualization and operational processes. Based on these different conceptualizations, the authors offer propositions for further empirical exploration on consumer innovativeness.
Innovation is one of the main drivers for organizational success (Pauwels et al., 2004). Despite constant developments in product design and marketing, most new products fail (Srinivasan et al., 2009). Although innovation has been studied in many independent research traditions (Hauser et al., 2006), the literature has mainly addressed the adoption and diffusion of innovations (Greenhalgh et al., 2004, Greenhalgh et al., 2005, Rogers, 1995 and Wejnert, 2002). Most of these studies focus on organizational innovations and product characteristics.
However, the failure of innovations is most often due to a firm's lack of understanding of consumer needs. In this respect, a vast amount of literature on the acceptance of new products by consumers has focused on personal characteristics (e.g., Hirschman, 1980, Foxall and Haskins, 1986, Venkatraman and Price, 1990 and Lassar et al., 2005). More specifically, much attention has been paid to the concept of consumer innovativeness (Goldsmith and Hofacker, 1991, Goldsmith et al., 1998, Im et al., 2003, Im et al., 2007, Midgley and Dowling, 1978, Steenkamp and Gielens, 2003 and Steenkamp et al., 1999).
Nevertheless, in a recent review of innovation research, Hauser et al. (2006) argue that no studies attempt to synthesize research or findings regarding consumer innovativeness. Although Burns (2007) presents a more systematized framework of innovative behavior, he only focuses on one aspect of consumer innovativeness (i.e., innovative behavior). In addition, Roehrich (2004) also discusses concepts and measures of consumer innovativeness. Although his extensive review furthers understanding of the concept, the author concludes that a more integrative model is necessary.
This study attempts to synthesize research, provide a propositional inventory and formulate an integrative model of innovativeness. The model offers a structured representation of three different levels at which the innovativeness construct has been conceptualized in previous studies. To achieve this we conducted a systematic literature review of empirical studies on consumer innovativeness that have been published in international refereed journals. We organized the remainder of this paper as follows. First, we briefly explain the method used for the systematic literature review. Second, we briefly present the results of this review. Finally, we provide a propositional inventory and the conceptual model of consumer innovativeness.
