Past lead user research has provided strong empirical support for the claim that lead users tend to innovate independently. While the innovation activity itself is well documented, little is known about whether users' ideas and solutions also reach manufacturers' organizations. Recent research indicates that the majority of user discoveries remain limited only to local use and are rarely presented to a wider circle of other users, business angels, or manufacturers. This limitation presents a problem because if manufacturers do not have access to users’ needs, ideas, and solutions, they might fail to recognize essential opportunities for innovation.

Therefore, this research studies the question of whether lead userness and expected recognition from manufacturers and peers explain the user's inclination to cooperate with manufacturers. We study cooperation initiated from two different ends: users pro-actively approaching manufacturers with problems and ideas and users participating in manufacturer-hosted innovation workshops. Drawing on lead user theory, we develop hypotheses and test them with two empirical studies with nurses and pharmaceutical technical assistants. The results provide support for the argument that a superior trend position and high expected benefits are strong and reliable predictors for both investigated forms of cooperation. The results on the effect of recognition from the manufacturer and peers are mixed, indicating that expected process benefits are less important.

过去的主要用户研究为主要用户倾向于独立创新的说法提供了有力的经验支持。尽管创新活动本身已得到充分记录，但对于用户的想法和解决方案是否也能到达制造商组织的了解却很少。最近的研究表明，大多数用户发现仍然仅限于本地使用，很少显示给其他用户，商业天使或制造商。这种限制带来了一个问题，因为如果制造商无法访问用户的需求，想法和解决方案，则他们可能无法识别创新的基本机会。

因此，本研究研究了铅用户的使用以及制造商和同行的预期认可是否能解释用户与制造商合作的意愿。我们研究了从两个不同方面发起的合作：用户主动向制造商提出问题和想法，以及用户参加由制造商主持的创新研讨会。基于主要用户理论，我们开发了假设并通过与护士和制药技术助理的两项经验研究对它们进行了检验。结果为以下论点提供了支持：对于两种调查的合作形式，优越的趋势位置和较高的预期收益都是可靠的可靠预测指标。来自制造商和同行的认可效果的结果参差不齐，表明预期的过程收益不太重要。