To tell or not to tell? The impact of communicating consumer participation in new product development
| Pages | 158-171 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBM-07-2016-1276 |
| Date | 12 March 2018 |
| Published date | 12 March 2018 |
| Author | Claudia Costa,Rita Coelho do Vale |
| Subject Matter | Marketing,Product management,Brand management/equity |
To tell or not to tell? The impact of
communicating consumer participation in new
product development
Claudia Costa and Rita Coelho do Vale
UCP –Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics, Lisbon, Portugal
Abstract
Purpose –This paper aims to analyze the implications of communicating customer involvement in the ideation and concept stage of new product
development (NPD). This paper assesses the extent to which the awareness that a product was co-created jointly by company professional designers
and consumers affects observer consumers’attitudes toward the product and the company. While earlier research has mainly emphasized the
positive and desirable consequences of consumer participation in NPD, the present set of studies shows that labeling products as having been co-
created is not always valuable; rather, it is dependent on the level of perceived complexity of the products.
Design/methodology/approach –The hypotheses are tested in four experimental studies using several categories of product complexity (low,
medium and high). The data have been collected on young adult samples, measuring the participants’perceptions of a firm’s innovation ability and
product purchase intentions.
Findings –The results suggest that there are benefits at the corporate level (higher perceptions of innovation ability) to inform the market about consumer
involvement, particularly when consumers and company professionals work together. The findings also indicate that product c omplexity plays a critical role
in translating the perceptions of greater corporate abilities (innovation) in purchase intention, and it is particularly beneficial for low-complexity products.
Originality/value –The previous research has mainly focused on the impact of involving consumers in firms and participating consumers; however,
it has neglected the role of observer consumers. This study adds to the innovation literature by showing that the value of learning about other
consumers’involvement in firm NPD is not universally beneficial and that product complexity is a critical boundary condition.
Keywords Generation Y, Consumer behaviour, Product innovation, Consumer empowerment, Purchase intention, New product development,
Innovation adoption, Product complexity
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Companies have recently begun to realize that including
consumers in the innovation process can generate positive
outcomes (Chang and Taylor, 2016). In the past few years,
several companies (e.g. Lego, Nike and Procter & Gamble)
have begun to hand over part of the innovation process to the
consumer (Gemser and Perks, 2015). This increasing
phenomenon has been aided by the evolution of information
technologies and social media, which have facilitated the
engagement of consumers in innovation and new product
development (NPD) processes. In addition, the results from
previous studies suggest consumers’abilities to assist firms in
several differentareas, including:
innovation, which shows that consumers can have
innovative and commercially valid ideas (Poetz and
Schreier, 2012);
diversification, with consumers leading to greater product
variety and additional product lines (Al-Zu’bi and
Tsinopoulos, 2012); and
improvement of market performance (Nishikawa et al.,
2013).
Interestingly, even with highly complex products, consumers
seem to be capable of coming up with innovative solutions,
such as with medical devices (Chatterji and Fabrizio, 2014),
computerized commercial banking services (Oliveira and von
Hippel, 2011) and software (Linux, Appache and Mozilla
Firefox) (Fülleret al., 2013).
Furthermore, some studies have found that observer
consumers –those who consume products but do not participate
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on
Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/1061-0421.htm
Journal of Product & Brand Management
27/2 (2018) 158–171
© Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 1061-0421]
[DOI 10.1108/JPBM-07-2016-1276]
The authors are grateful to the editor as well as to the three anonymous
referees for helpful comments. We also thank all the feedback received in the
Annual Conference of the European Marketing Academy (EMAC), the
Innovation and Product Development Management Conference (IPDM),
Open and User Innovation Conference (OUI) and workshops at Erasmus
University. The authors would also like to thank Luis Filipe Lages from
Novasbe, Nuno Camacho from Erasmus University for their valuable
comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. The authors acknowledge
financial support, via the research unit CUBE, from the FUNDAÇÃO para a
CIÊNCIA e a TECNOLOGIA (FCT Portugal) through the Multi-Year
Funding Program for R&D Units (UID/GES/00407/2013) and the project
SFRH/BD/47708/2008.
Received 22 July 2016
Revised 21 November 2016
8 March 2017
30 May 2017
30 June 2017
Accepted 1 July 2017
158
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