Lead users as idea supplier in online community platform: How to choose the right ideas to implement?

Crowdsourcing ideas from users in online communities are becoming common practice in the development of high-tech products. While most studies focus on sourcing ideas from ordinary users (i.e., non-experts), high-tech firms commonly rely more on ‘lead users’. Despite the importance of lead users’ peer-evaluation activities on a firm’s user community platform, research on the relationship between these activities and a firm’s actual implementation decision is scarce. We draw on lead user theory and a large dataset from a high-tech firm’s platform to examine whether an idea’s popularity, the comments it receives and sentiment are good predictors of a firm’s consideration and implementation decisions. We find that in addition to the number of votes and comments, sentiment is a predictor of an idea’s further development and implementation. Furthermore, implementing a lead user’s ideas decreases the user’s motivation marginally to contribute continuously to the platform. These findings have implications for the design and operations management of user community platforms.