Affordable or premium innovation? The influence of individual and contextual factors on innovators' engagement in different innovation types

Affordable innovations target customers with a low willingness or ability to pay. While researchers and practitioners increasingly recognise the importance of affordable innovation to society, we know little about the conditions under which individual innovators engage in affordable innovation rather than its counterpart: premium innovation. In our qualitative study of 55 innovators, we first uncover the individual and contextual factors that determine innovators' commitment to affordable and premium innovations. We also identify common combinations of factors that lead to different types of affordable and premium innovators. Finally, we highlight the conditions under which innovators move from affordable to premium innovations and from premium to affordable innovations. These results contribute to the innovation literature by showing that a conceptual distinction between affordable and premium innovations is necessary to understand individual innovative commitment and by explaining why innovators often choose premium innovations over socially relevant affordable innovations.