Concept Development in an Innovating Company: Exploring the Role of Signals taking the Problem Solving Perspective
Year: 2010
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Matching the needs of potential customer segments is vital for any product and service development of an innovating firm.Concept development and market signals are two significant phenomena through which customer communication is enabled so that a firm can better recognize customer demands, thereby, new business opportunities can be identified and exploited for creating better values for customers.This research project attempts to identify how signals facilitate concept development and also to recognize how innovation opportunities are identified and exploited in the concept development.Along with theoretical study, an empirical investigation of a company working on consumer product and service development and marketing has been performed.Drawing on six semistructured interviews, the elements of signals and costly signals in the concept development process of an innovating firm have been realized.More specifically, it has been found that, to convey business intentions and gain information from the customers, signals such as commitment and accounting signals are being used.To undertake certain actions for the concept development project a number of signals such as building constant customer dialogue and making better value propositions have been exploited.Moreover, signals such as brand name and value perceptions have been used in order to motivate customers to contribute in the company's concept development project.Apart from the signals, the company in focus also uses costly signals through conspicuous precision and conspicuous reputation to make the imitation of signals difficult/ impossible for its competitors.Additionally, it has been also found that opportunity identification and exploitation in the concept development process is actually being performed according to problem solving perspective (PSP) approach.The PSP approach consists of seven steps including opportunity identification, information gathering, defining different opportunity areas, generating alternative concepts, evaluating, testing and selecting the best concepts, further development of selected concepts, and implementing the best concepts that often occur cyclically rather sequentially.Conclusively, the limited empirical scope of this study is acknowledged, therefore further investigations mainly in other business contexts and other industries are required to ensure the reliability of the findings, and to generalize the results.
Authors: Rifat Sharmelly, Sara Fallahi
Language: English
Subfield: Marketing
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W85699638