Popis: |
Past research in the area of product innovativeness has been dominated by studies conducted at the firm level. Furthermore, these studies principally lack a consumer perspective on the product innovativeness - product performance relationship. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore three seemingly critical questions regarding the impact of product innovativeness dimensions on the evaluation of innovative products at the individual level: (i) how do consumers evaluate and respond to different types of product innovativeness? (ii) do these evaluations change over time?, and (iii) under what conditions is change most likely to occur? Specifically, new visual design features (i.e., form innovativeness) and new non-visual features (i.e., function innovativeness) are empirically tested to understand how they interact and relate to new product evaluations. Within this research, attitudes and behavioral intentions toward products with innovative features are measured over time to assess how and when they might change. Two experiments were conducted to empirically test the impact of form innovativeness on functionally innovative products over time. Participants in both experiments received multiple exposures to innovative products, rating their attitudes and behavioral intentions toward the products after each exposure. Participants in the first experiment saw a visual representation of the products only once while those in the second experiment saw the products during each exposure. Results from two experiments suggest that form innovativeness does indeed have a changing impact on the liking of innovative products. Furthermore, this change is moderated by the product's visual presence or absence. Finally, this change occurs when innovativeness in form is applied to either a form product or to a function product. |