The Role of Hobbyists in the Development and Diffusion of High-Tech Innovations

Harm-Jan Steenhuis (), Xin Fang () and Roland Ortt ()
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Harm-Jan Steenhuis: Texas A&M University
Xin Fang: Hawaii Pacific University
Roland Ortt: University of Delft

A chapter in Technology Management for Intelligent, Open and Responsible Organizations and Ecosystems, 2026, pp 75-82 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract The purpose of the article is to explore an early user-group in the consumer-market that apply high-tech innovations in a particular way, the so-called hobbyists. This group played an important role in the diffusion of several high-tech innovations in the consumer market. Our findings indicate how, in different ways, next to the first B-to-B industrial applications, hobbyists can play an important role in starting up diffusion in consumer markets. In some cases, the hobbyists further developed innovations and became entrepreneurs creating start-ups. In other cases, we found that hobbyists paved the way for other groups of consumers. Scientifically, the role of hobbyist complements well-known roles of subsequent adopter categories and lead users, for example.

Keywords: Innovation; Diffusion; High-technology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:prbchp:978-3-032-23282-3_10

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-23282-3_10

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