1995). The five factors that facilitate diffusion (relative advantage, compatibility, simplicity, trialability and observability) also constitute a solid basis for analyzing the downstream phase of innovation trajectories.
THE LIMITS OF THESE APPROACHES – Schumpeterian thinking remains marked by a conception of innovation centered on the suppliers and their products1, with the adopters appearing as relatively passive agents. Boullier (1989) in turn underlines the imprint of these reductions in the diffusionist theory. Focusing on the acceptance of the novelty, the analysis neglects what happens upstream, as well as the influence that users can have on the genesis of the innovation. More broadly, this point of view is in some ways linear and unidirectional (top down, from the producer to the consumers, from the elites to the ordinary users, from the center to the periphery). It does not completely escape determinism, obscuring certain contingency effects, uncertainties and the sinuosity of real innovation stories. Finally, the focus on a main actor (whether an entrepreneur or a pioneering organization) seems in some cases excessive (falling under the “myth of origins” pointed out by Callon (1994)), whereas stakeholders with multiple roles generally take part in innovation processes. Bauer (2017) also questions certain diffusionist assumptions: the anchoring of the novelty in a single, specific place; the need for rapid spread; the only temporary nature of possible rejections; or the absence of evolution (or only at the margin) of innovations during the diffusion process. Rogers (1995) also recognized the unrealistic nature of most diffusionist assumptions, especially since they are based on the study of a carefully selected set of success stories.
1.2. Approaches based on uses and users
Sportsmen and women (whether experts or “ordinary” sportsmen and women) are not the subject of much attention by the authors mentioned so far: “second roles”: they often appear as simple recipients who accept or don’t accept an innovation, either as a trailblazer or a follower. Innovation is still thought of as a closed process, carried out by organizations (generally companies). In this sense, the main role attributed to the user is to have needs that the manufacturer tries to identify, to fill or even to transform by designing new products.
However, it has now been proven that consumers are not passive: they appropriate goods (even the most standardized ones) through their “arts of doing” (de Certeau 1990), and they are creative through their “techniques of use” (Julien and Rosselin 2005). For their part, the management sciences have clearly shown how much the consumer participates in the processes of servuction, and even production (Vernette and Tissier-Desbordes 2012).
Moreover, it is possible to consider users as actors in innovation, given their capacity to move, adapt, extend, divert and transform novelties and their prescribed uses (Akrich 1998). This is by no means to postulate an absolute symmetry between designer and consumer (Flichy 2003), but simply to note that there is no watertight barrier between design, production and use – which are all sources of creativity.
1.2.1. The lead-user theory: the user-innovator
The consumer may seem to be nothing more than a tactician, capable of playing with innovations designed by market professionals. By developing the lead-user theory (LUT), Von Hippel (2005) pushes the consideration of the user to the point of affording him or her a “lead role” in the innovation process. More so than the early adopter, according to Rogers, who approves or diverts manufacturers’ innovations, the lead user is a developer of specific products or services that the market does not yet know how to use or does not yet want to use. Von Hippel was interested in lead users (or “pioneer users”) in the creation of “informational goods” (such as software), but also in the manufacture of “material goods”, with a particular focus on the sports sector, which is teeming with creativity carried by these user-innovators.
The lead user is generally an expert in the activity concerned, but he is also characterized by a willingness to tinker. He may even rationalize the process to the point of creating a “mock laboratory” to test and compare different solutions. He also sometimes seizes the opportunity to use his close circle and/or custom manufacturers to obtain resources. Although important compromises are made at this stage (due to time, money, etc.), this low-cost innovation niche is likely to produce prototypes with novel functionalities. The solutions thus generated are generally shared with other users who will examine them, comment on them, imitate them, test them and eventually appropriate them (modifying and enriching them in the process, in many cases). This sharing, based on a free and generalized free access opposed to intellectual protection (close to the open-source movements (Von Hippel 2013)), is very frequent among most lead users2. Favoring the dissemination and circulation of knowledge, their approach is not necessarily disinterested because it is the source of symbolic benefits (recognition, notoriety, status) within communities of practice.
By definition, the number of user-innovators is greater than the number of people working in the R&D departments of companies in the sports sector. Beyond the diversity of needs expressed by this mass of sportsmen and women, another element that explains the effectiveness of these communities, in terms of innovation, can be evoked: technical expertise and cognitive diversity are a source of creativity. Von Hippel supports the idea that innovation is all the more effective when it is elaborated collectively; on the one hand, through the successive addition of improvements and transformations made by others; on the other hand, because of the heterogeneity of needs and the capacity of users to imagine solutions to lead to a stable (and generalizable) form of progress. The collective activity of lead users, especially when mediated by structured communities of practice, offers manufacturers a large amount of information about the stated needs, envisaged solutions, and, indirectly, potential markets. This information is all the more useful to manufacturers because it is either unavailable or extremely costly to obtain. Sometimes, companies only have to reproduce prototypes developed and progressively optimized in this way, thanks to the virtues of this “distributed innovation”.
Von Hippel, and a growing number of researchers with him, were particularly interested in sport. The invention and spectacular spread of the mountain bike is an example. In the United States, in the early 1970s, elite sportsmen who wanted to ride off-road and were dissatisfied with the existing bicycles decided to build their own equipment. To get around on rough terrain, they cobbled together bicycles by assembling pre-existing elements (old solid frames, wide tires, motorcycle brakes, etc.). Gradually, these prototypes were taken up, perfected and developed by user-manufacturers, and only then were they recovered and generalized by the bicycle industry (Büenstorf 2003). Subsequently, users have continued to invent new equipment due to the diversification of mountain bike practice (subspecialties according to terrain, practice conditions, modalities – touring, downhill, etc.), giving rise to other unmet needs (Lüthje et al. 2005). In the development of kitesurfing, Franke et al. (2006) have also highlighted the essential role of kite surfers in the improvement (incremental innovation) of equipment, by adapting and diverting equipment, in an iterative and collective way. These authors underline the efficiency of this bottom-up mode of innovation (open innovation, user-centered innovation, or community-based innovation), which is confirmed by the safety improvements obtained in this way in the field of wing safety releases (Hillairet 2012). A study of innovation practices in four sports communities – canyoning, gliding, boardercross and cycling – suggests that, on average, 20–30% of practitioners have already modified or created their equipment (Franke and Shah 2003).
Lead users are sometimes the source of radical innovations, but most often they bring about incremental innovations that are likely, through accumulation and enrichment, to modify products and techniques to a greater or lesser extent. Take, for example, the development of materials and expert gestures in windsurfing in Hawaii (Shah 2000), and the adaptation and stylization of kayaking materials (Hienerth 2006; Hyysalo 2009). Analyzing the emergence and growth of Nordic walking, Pantzar and Shove (2010) also mention the need to take into account, alongside lead users, ordinary users whose role is somewhat underestimated. In this respect,
