Emotion Management in the New Product Development: A case study in the Car industry

Thesis defended on the 17th September 2014

Abstract: 

This research is focused on the management of consumers’ emotions in new product development. The interest about the emotional phenomena is increasing: more than products satisfying the needs of the consumers, companies should introduce emotional products on the market. The emotional phenomena are complex and several disciplines tried to better define and characterize them. Besides, for the firm, developing products with a strong emotional component inevitably raises the question of the management of the emotions generated by a product and specifically during the development process.

The first part of the thesis examines the notion of emotion. A definition is proposed further to the analysis of the theories of emotions. The consumer’s emotional response is distinguished from the cognitive and behavioral responses, as well as other affective responses such as feelings or mood. The relevance of emotions measurement tools with regard to the new product development constraints is also analyzed. As such, a chapter is dedicated to the description of the product development process, to the project team organization and to design theories.

Following the description of the context, the second part aims at studying the management of the emotional dimension in the development of a car. The analysis is based on a global investigation of vehicle projects including observations, documents collection and interviews of actors from various departments of the company. Results show that various meanings of the emotion coexist in automobile design practices. Besides, the product emotions management is based on a double perspective: product appearance vs. product use and overall product vs. product feature. The emotions management tools fall within two approaches of the new product development: projective, in the upstream side of the project, and evaluative, in the downstream side.

The third part of the thesis is focused on emotion measurement tools. Based on a quantitative approach, the analyze aims at adapting the major tools used in marketing research to the specific constraints of the new product development process. Results help us to underline the limits of the dimensional measure of emotions in comparison with measures based on longer lists of terms. A categorical scale, built from tools in the literature and preliminary experience of the company in emotions’ measurement, is presented and validated in the specific context of the evaluation of an automobile feature.

Finally, the fourth and last part is dedicated to the synthesis of the managerial and the methodological results. In particular, we discuss the implementation of the emotion categorical scale in the development process of a car. We also discuss the stabilization of the notion of emotion within the company. While many researches underline the impact of emotions on consumers’ satisfaction, the new product development process does not make a big deal about the emotional dimension of products. In this respect, our research draws new perspectives.

Keywords : Emotions, New Product Management Automobile, Customer experience, instrument panel

Composition of jury