Global Consumer Innovativeness: Cross-Country Differences and Demographic Commonalities

Abstract

Despite extensive research on consumer innovativeness, the literature does not contain a parsimonious construct that has been validated for use across countries, demographics, and categories. This study attempts to fill this gap by studying consumer innovativeness across 15 major world economies. The key results are that four negatively-valenced items constitute a good construct of innovativeness that seems reasonably applicable across most countries. While this construct of innovativeness varies systematically from country to country, common demographic antecedents emerge across countries. Within these commonalities, a measure of innovativeness shows some distinct category - demographics and category - country differences.

Keywords: Global innovation, consumer innovativeness, cross-cultural differences, new product adoption, cross-category differences