Abstract
Organizational scholars recognize the importance of customers’ perceptions for the successful adoption and diffusion of product innovations. Yet most studies have focused on how innovating firms develop necessary new competencies and learn about customers’ needs rather than on how customers’ perceptions may be influenced by the firms’ technological and design choices. Drawing on psychological research, we argue that innovations with different degrees of novelty present customers with different degrees of incongruity, thereby triggering varying cognitive and emotional responses, which have varying effects on customers’ perceptions of the value potential of product innovations. We develop a framework that articulates how firms can use product form design to influence these cognitive and emotional processes. Our theory suggests that the current view of product innovations as outcomes of technological search should be extended to recognize that product form design endows new products with symbolic and aesthetic properties, which can have significant consequences for how the technologies that firms introduce are perceived and adopted.
Keywords
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Citation
Petkova, A., and Rindova, V. (2006) When is a New Thing a Good Thing? Technological Change, Product Form Design and Perceptions of Value for Product Innovations, in Friedman, K., Love, T., Côrte-Real, E. and Rust, C. (eds.), Wonderground - DRS International Conference 2006, 1-4 November, Lisbon, Portugal. https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/drs-conference-papers/drs2006/researchpapers/94
When is a New Thing a Good Thing? Technological Change, Product Form Design and Perceptions of Value for Product Innovations
Organizational scholars recognize the importance of customers’ perceptions for the successful adoption and diffusion of product innovations. Yet most studies have focused on how innovating firms develop necessary new competencies and learn about customers’ needs rather than on how customers’ perceptions may be influenced by the firms’ technological and design choices. Drawing on psychological research, we argue that innovations with different degrees of novelty present customers with different degrees of incongruity, thereby triggering varying cognitive and emotional responses, which have varying effects on customers’ perceptions of the value potential of product innovations. We develop a framework that articulates how firms can use product form design to influence these cognitive and emotional processes. Our theory suggests that the current view of product innovations as outcomes of technological search should be extended to recognize that product form design endows new products with symbolic and aesthetic properties, which can have significant consequences for how the technologies that firms introduce are perceived and adopted.