| Abstract: |
The level of cognitive distance determines how detailed objects, persons or
events are mentally construed. The higher the level of cognitive distance
between two individuals, the lower the level of detail in mental
representation of each other. In product development, a detailed conception of
the target group is essential for future product success. Product developers
need to establish an accurate mental representation of the user and
internalize customer preferences to ensure product usability and/or delivery
of adequate services in new product development projects (NPD). Depending on
the target group in focus, potential users can be distant in various
dimensions. Silver Agers (65+ years of age) can be a distant target group for
product developers in terms of age and personal contacts as most developers
are too young to fall in the category of Silver Agers. Thus, they have likely
taken different life experience paths compared to people of their own age
cohort. Management and psychological science refers to this phenomenon as
cognitive or psychological distance. Especially for distant target groups
(e.g. elderly people or children), cognitive distance between product
developers and users might have an impact on the creation of new
products/services. Literature in this field, especially within an innovation
context, is very scarce. Therefore, this paper analyzes existing research
streams and thought schools of cognitive distance literature and their
applicability in an innovation context to study implications for NPD. We use
co-citation analysis to identify and visualize the different research areas
dealing with cognitive distance, and to detect conceptual subdomains
applicable for individual relationships between product developers and
(distant) target groups. We find eight relevant clusters dealing with
cognitive distance in psychology and innovation management-related research
papers. Construal level theory stands out as the predominant theoretical
foundation of cognitive distance in psychological research. It states that
distant persons, objects or events in terms of space, time, social or
probability are mentally construed in a more abstract way as opposed to
nearer/closer/more likely persons, objects or events. Applied to product
developers' mental representation of the actual users, this infers that users
of distant target groups are likely to be represented more abstractly compared
to proximal target groups, e.g. target groups of similar age. This lesser
differentiated view on users could lead to non-optimal solutions in NPD. We
thus propose that cognitive distance can have an impact on product
development. We discover a knowledge gap on the individual level for
innovation management studies, i.e. linking cognitive distance to product
development success. We analyze findings from psychological research on
individual cognitive distances and find that besides temporal distance, the
social dimension of cognitive distance appears to be most relevant for
empirical tests in innovation management. To empirically explore and test
dimensions of social distance, we argue to utilize established
network-theoretic measures, like social capital as a proxy for social distance
between product developers and distant target groups. We close with practical
suggestions to mitigate adverse effects of cognitive distance for product
developers. |