An Analysis of the Relationship Between the Characteristics of Innovative Consumers and the Degree of Serious Leisure in User Innovation

TL;DR

This study explores how serious leisure correlates with innovative consumer traits, finding positive links with product experience and early adoption, suggesting leisure may motivate user innovation.

Contribution

It introduces an alternative measurement approach to analyze the relationship between serious leisure and innovative consumer characteristics using survey data.

Findings

Positive correlation between serious leisure and diverse product experiences

Early product adoption linked to serious leisure engagement

No significant link between information exchange and serious leisure

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between the concept of serious leisure and user innovation. We adopted the characteristics of innovative consumers identified by Luthje (2004)-product use experience, information exchange, and new product adoption speed-to analyze their correlation with serious leisure engagement. The analysis utilized consumer behavior survey data from the "Marketing Analysis Contest 2023" sponsored by Nomura Research Institute, examining the relationship between innovative consumer characteristics and the degree of serious leisure (Serious Leisure Inventory and Measure: SLIM). Since the contest data did not directly measure innovative consumer characteristics or serious leisure engagement, we established alternative variables for quantitative analysis. The results showed that the SLIM alternative variable had positive correlations with diverse product experiences and early adoption of new products. However, no clear relationship was found with information exchange among consumers. These findings suggest that serious leisure practice may serve as a potential antecedent to user innovation. The leisure career perspective of the serious leisure concept may capture the motivations of user innovators that Okada and Nishikawa (2019) identified.