Topic: The Role of Process-focused Emotions and Perceived Product Newness in New Product Adoption:  

            Towards a Two-stage Affective Model

Speaker: Qing Wang,Warwick Business School, University of Warwick

Host: Pro. ZHOU Xinyue

Time: 14:00-15:30 October 10th, 2017 (Tuesday)

Venue: Room 1102

Abstract:

This paper provides new insights in marketing of new technological products, by conceptualizing the adoption process as consisting of emotional drivers linking initial use to continued use, and empirically tests a two-stage affective model. Combining prior theory about emotions in decision making with literature on mental simulations in new product evaluations, it examines the effect of process-focused anticipatory emotions on usage emotions and continuing usage intentions, and how the degree of perceived product newness influences emotions both before and after initial usage. In a two-wave field study of first-time buyers of 21 technological products, the authors show that emotions evoked by process-focused mental simulations prior to initial usage (i.e. anticipatory emotions of excitement and anxiety) influence emotions after initial usage (i.e. disconfirmation emotions of amazement and shock) by biasing how consumers predict and interpret their initial usage experiences with the product. The results indicate that despite being experienced at a very early stage of new product adoption, anticipatory emotions evoked by process-focused mental simulations are likely to have a sustained effect on the adoption process. In addition, the study’s results show that perceived newness generally has a negative effect on anticipatory emotions before initial usage. It appears that process-focused mental simulations help first time users to more clearly see how little they know about the product and how much learning effort is required to be able to use the product, hence leading to negative emotions and dampened enthusiasm to use it. In this regard our study extends from previous research on the cognitive effect of mental simulations to show how emotions derived from mental simulations also affect new product evaluations. However, our study indicates that the influence of perceived newness on new product adoption becomes mostly positive after initial usage. Further studies would be required to test this result, as it seems that perceived newness could have the function of “rewarding” persistent users due to its contrasting effects before versus after adoption. In this regard, this paper has generated a more sophisticated understanding of the role of perceived newness in different stages of new product adoption. Finally, these findings are integrated into a discussion of the managerial implications and the potential avenues for future research in the area.

About the Speaker:

Qing Wang is Professor of Marketing and Innovation, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK, email qing.wang@wbs.ac.uk. David L. Alexander is Associate Professor of Marketing, Opus College of Business, University of St. Thomas.