The bellwether of community: The influence of lead users' characteristics on ordinary users' participation in online brand communities

The traditional lead user theory proposes that lead users are an important source of innovation. However, little is known about how lead users influence other users in online brand communities. Based on the uses and gratifications theory, we introduce ordinary user-perceived benefits-including cognitive benefits, social integrative benefits, personal integrative benefits, and hedonic benefits-as mediators to explain the relationship between lead users' characteristics and ordinary users' participation in an online brand community. Furthermore, we introduce the hosting type of the brand community (consumer-run vs. company-managed brand community) and explain its moderating effect on the relationship between lead users' characteristics and ordinary users' participation. The finding reveals that lead users' characteristics have a significant positive effect on ordinary users' participation, and that the effect is partially mediated by cognitive benefits, social integrative benefits, and personal integrative benefits. Besides, the relationship between lead users' characteristics and ordinary users' participation is stronger for consumer-run brand communities than for company-managed brand communities.