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Abstract: In this paper we focus on the diffusion of vegan food innovations, which endeavour to transition across a large chasm that separates the early market from the main market. Through an inductive study involving interviews with both vegan and non-vegan consumers, we firstly show that the value proposition required for businesses to attract the early market is different to that of the main market, in alignment with prior literature. We secondly demonstrate that while a specific value attribute can garner initial adoption, for non-durable innovations (e.g. vegan food innovations) a different set of value attributes may be required for continued adoption. And thirdly, our findings suggest that for innovations needing to negotiate a large chasm, the main market can comprise two sub-groups - the creative main market and the traditional market - each requiring a unique value proposition.
Keywords: diffusion of innovations; dual-market model; chasm; vegan; food innovation.
1Introduction
The literature studying chasms, saddles, and dual-markets (e.g. Moore, 1991; Kohli et al., 1999; Muller and Yogev, 2006) examines various product categories, in both the business-to-business (B2B) setting as well as the final consumer markets. A notable percentage of cases examined by scholars appear to be high-tech innovations, which diffuse within the B2B context. While scholarly contributions have also examined the chasm in business-to-consumer contexts, many cases still fall into the high-tech product category (e.g. PCs, cellular phones, and wearable devices).
Nevertheless, the focus of empirical studies on high-tech innovations limits our understanding of underlying causes to those that are predominantly technology-centric, such as product functionality, technological novelty, and price (e.g. Chandrasekaran and Tellis, 2011). The scope of strategies available for businesses to navigate the disparity between the early and main markets are subsequently limited to those addressing these causes. The conceptual understanding of chasms, saddles, and dual-markets can therefore be enhanced by examining a wider scope of products. At the same time, while a few scholarly works have considered the varying magnitude of chasms and saddles (e.g. Goldenberg et al., 2002), just how this magnitude influences the diffusion of innovations has not received sufficient attention. Yet, from a business perspective, the characteristics of the disparity between the early and main markets are important to understand for strategic manoeuvring. And further, diffusion of innovation...