Marketers
who launch innovative products need to identify consumers who are willing to
learn about, buy, and use these innovations. To optimize marketing campaigns,
practitioners need to know the characteristics of this key segment in the
diffusion process. Previous research, however, provides confounding results
about antecedents of innovativeness because of two limitations: (1) previous
studies have conceptualized innovativeness on different levels of abstraction
(2) previous studies have not taken into account the influence of the product
category. The present paper suggests a conceptual framework to overcome these
shortcomings. Based on this framework, the paper suggests a theoretically
founded cognitive model of domain-specific innovativeness for a product
category with a utilitarian benefit. This model is empirically tested in the
field of automotive interior. To this end, 521 German car drivers were
surveyed. The results of structural equation modeling show that domain-specific
innovativeness for utilitarian products is mainly influenced by specific need
for cognition, special interest media usage and domain-specific opinion
leadership.
Hoffmann, S.;
Soyez, K. (2010). A Cognitive Model to Predict Domain-specific Consumer
Innovativeness, Journal of Business Research, 63 (7), 778-785.
