Reputation for innovation impact on consumer perceptions of co-created products

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to understand how a firm’s reputation for innovation influences the perceptions of co-created products. We investigated the impact of the co-creation claim (collaboration between customer and producer in the new product development process) against developed internally by firm professionals in the sportswear industry in terms of innovation ability, quality perceptions, attitude towards the product and willingness to pay. We investigated whether the level of firm’s reputation for innovation influences product assessments of co-created products. In order to do so we test two different new product development processes (by firm professionals and Cocreation) of a pair of running shoes in two firms with different levels of reputation for innovation. Results show that for companies with a high reputation for innovation the co-creation claim has a negative impact on product quality perceptions. Cocreation design mode did not affect significantly willingness to pay, overall product evaluations and innovation ability perceptions in these companies. Companies with low reputation for innovation are more likely to capitalize on co-creation initiatives. Our findings suggest that these companies benefit by informing consumers that a product was co-created, because it enhances substantially quality and firm ability perceptions. Furthermore consumers’ willingness to pay is higher for co-created products. Our findings indicate that, professionally developed products from companies with a high reputation for innovation have better perceive quality than professionally developed products from companies with a low reputation for innovation, suggesting that companies with high reputation for innovation are associated to higher manufacturing expertise.

Date of Award	3 Nov 2015
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Cláudia Isabel de Sousa Costa (Supervisor)