Does lead userness matter for electric vehicle adoption? An integrated perspective of social capital and domain-specific innovativeness

The deployment of electric vehicles (EVs) contributes significantly to the sustainability of world economic growth. However, despite the intensive promotion of EVs by car manufacturers and governments, majority of the drivers remains in the wait-and-see stage. Therefore, to understand how characteristics and adoption mechanisms of potential customers might shed light on the increasing of EV adoption. In this study, we investigate how lead userness is associated with EV adoption. Build on the diffusion of innovation theory, we examine the mechanisms through which lead userness affects EV adoption. By empirically analysing a sample collected from 307 members of China's EV online community, we show that lead userness plays a significant role in predicting EV adoption. In addition, we find that social capital and domain-specific innovativeness jointly mediate this positive relationship while ecological attitudes positively moderate the effect of lead userness on EV adoption. Our findings contribute to research of EV adoption behaviour and provide recommendations to policymakers and manufacturers for promoting EVs.