Extending lead user theory to users’ innovation-related knowledge sharing in the online user community: The mediating roles of social capital and perceived behavioral control

• In the context of the online user community, we empirically examine the relationship between user’s lead userness and their innovation-related knowledge sharing and the mediating effects of their social capital and perceived behavioral control on the relationship.
• User’s lead userness is positively related to their innovation-related knowledge sharing.
• Users social capital and perceived behavioral control jointly and fully mediate the positive relationship between user’s lead userness and their innovation-related knowledge sharing.

The research on users as a source of innovation has been coming into blossom and the studies about the effect of users’ lead userness on their innovation-related activities are drawing more and more attention from both academic and business circles. However, there have been few empirical studies exploring the relationship between users’ lead userness and their innovation-related knowledge sharing behavior in the context of online user community and the mediating effects of users’ social capital and their perceived behavioral control on this relationship. By empirically analyzing the 140 data collected from an online user community that is used as an important source of innovation for a company with the structural equation modeling analysis through the partial least squares method, this study reveals that users’ lead userness has a positive relationship with their innovation-related knowledge sharing in the online user community and users’ social capital and perceived behavioral control jointly and fully mediate this positive relationship. Based on the new findings, this study is expected to provide useful implications which can contribute to widening and deepening the research stream about the effect of users’ lead userness on their innovation-related knowledge sharing in the online user community.