Mental model differences between external designers and their clients: The influence on project exploration, project exploitation and project performance

Mental model differences between external designers and their clients: The influence on project exploration, project exploitation and project performance

Tabeau, K.E.
Gemser, G.
Wijnberg, N.
Hultink, H.J.

Industrial Design Engineering

Product Innovation and Management

2013-12-31

Prior research indicated that external designers are often hired by their clients to bring new knowledge into their organization. To assure that an external designer’s knowledge is implemented in the organization of the client, managing the relationship between the two is essential. Although it seems particularly important that the external designer and the client are compatible, there is no study that examined the impact of compatibility on NPD outcomes. We fill a part of this gap by examining the mental model differences between external designers and clients, and their impact on the degree of project exploration, project exploitation and project performance. We study 100 innovation projects and we survey the external designer and the client for each project. The results of this research show how mental model differences influence project exploration, project exploitation and project performance.

mental models
dyadic relations
NPD outcomes
designers
clients

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:37f81836-4098-48a5-bf32-a53138290e96

Istanbul Technical University

Lost in translation marketing in an interconnected world, 42nd Annual EMAC Conference, Istanbul (Turkey)4-7 June, 2013

Institutional Repository

conference paper

(c) 2013 The Authors