The impact of international designers on firm innovation capability and consumer interest

Purpose - The increasing importance that customers give to the aesthetic, symbolic and emotional value of products leads companies to approach the product design as a means to create a competitive advantage. Considering that competing through design involves the development of new product languages and signs, the ability to develop products that convey innovative meanings and values to users becomes a critical factor of success. Each product has a particular language and meaning on which companies can innovate. This kind of innovation requires access to dispersed and tacit knowledge about socio-cultural trends and emerging phenomena in society, which lends itself to a discourse on design. Designers can support companies by accessing, interpreting and exploiting the knowledge about emerging socio-cultural models and latent market needs. The purpose of this paper is to explore and analyse the characteristics of designer portfolios developed by innovative and successful companies. Design/methodology/approach - An empirical study is conducted on the designers of 91 Italian furniture companies to analyse the contribution of designers to company innovation and to consumer preferences. By analysing 630 different collaborations between companies and designers over the development of 1,722 products, the paper explores different strategies adopted by companies to collaborate with designers. Specifically, the authors compare three dimensions of the designer portfolio that are developed by different groups of companies: size, internationalisation and multi-nationality. The authors use the analysis of variance formula to identify characteristics of designer portfolios that were significantly distinct in their achievement of innovation and consumer interest. Findings - The empirical results suggest interesting managerial applications in terms of modalities to access designers: for example, innovative companies often collaborate with designers coming from different nations. One possible explanation for this is that the combination of different approaches and cultural frameworks may allow innovators to capture stimuli and emerging phenomena in socio-cultural contexts far from their territorial boundaries, consequently developing innovative product languages and meanings. Originality/value - This is one of the few quantitative studies that analyze the relationships between collaborative innovation strategies and performances.