Design thinking and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities are gaining prominence in today’s dynamic markets. However, research gaps remain regarding their influence on the outcomes of new product development (NPD), such as decision-making agility, and the structural conditions facilitating or impeding their effective implementation. Considering design thinking as a dynamic capability and AI capabilities as technology-driven innovation enablers, this study examines their impact on NPD performance via NPD decision-making agility. An empirical investigation using data collected from 230 U.S. firms shows that design thinking and AI capabilities positively influence agility, which in turn drives NPD performance. This study also uncovers that the moderating role of organizational formalization attenuates the impact of design thinking on NPD decision-making agility but strengthens the impact of AI capabilities on NPD decision-making agility. These findings provide NPD managers with insights into using these capabilities to enhance agility and improve NPD performance in the organizational context.

Although previous literature has identified personal branding as an important concept in marketing, little is understood about the effects of personal brand equity (PBE) during the personnel selection process. To address this research gap, we performed two experimental studies and one field study in the domains of sales and engineering to examine the effect of candidates’ PBE on hiring outcomes through recruiters’ perceptions. This research draws upon signaling theory and an integration of the accessibility-diagnosticity model with the competence-based view of careers and regards PBE as the interpreted outcome of personal branding signals, reflecting how recruiters perceive and evaluate the value conveyed by job candidates. We unveil that candidates’ PBE positively predicts hiring recommendation and that credibility mediates this relationship. Moreover, job hierarchy and objective job qualifications appear to negatively moderate the relationship between candidates’ PBE and hiring recommendation. Our findings also indicate that objective job qualifications negatively interact with candidates’ PBE in predicting their credibility. The present research contributes to personal branding and selection research by offering novel insights into the role of PBE during the interview process, thereby providing guidance for job candidates and practitioners.

Although the topic of dynamic design capabilities is emerging in the literature and the design community, no research has yet offered an operationalization that considers the strategic integration of DDCs within the organization. This Research Design paper aims to address this gap by defining, conceptualizing, and measuring DDCs through multiple validation studies. Specifically, a scale development procedure grounded on measurement theory will operationalize DDCs through their operational and regenerative dimensions. Drawing on the theory of dynamic capabilities, this paper also presents a conceptual model that will be used to test and validate the newly developed construct of DDCs. This conceptualization explores the influence of DDCs on business model innovation and innovation performance under varying conditions, such as volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA).

When exposed to advertisements, consumers are often suspicious of brand claims. To that end, prior research has explored how individuals evaluate claims to form a judgement under a state of suspicion. Yet, consumer research has not examined how suspicion affects consumers' suspension of their judgement towards the brand. We experimentally investigate the effects of three (low vs. moderate vs. high) levels of consumer suspicion on judgement suspension. Study 1 shows that compared with low or high levels, moderate levels of suspicion lead to significantly higher judgement suspension. Studies 2 and 3 replicate this inverted U-shaped effect for additional brand and product category contexts and unveil that uncertainty towards the brand mediates the effect of suspicion on judgement suspension. In turn, the impact of uncertainty towards the brand on judgement suspension is mediated by product imagery. This research corroborates the effects of suspicion on consumer judgement suspension.

In certain sectors (e.g., consumer electronics), products are developed as part of successive product transitions where the new generation of the product replaces its predecessor. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first that takes a marketing perspective to examine the drivers and performance outcomes of a firm’s decision to determine generational product innovativeness (GPI). Empirical results from 201 generational product transitions in the UK show that a) market and technology sensing capabilities positively influence GPI, and b) GPI has an inverted U-shaped impact on generational product performance. The results contribute to the product innovation literature, which sparsely studied generational product transitions. The paper also provides managerial implications on how firms can enjoy superior generational product performance by leveraging outside-in capabilities and optimally managing GPI.