The „Research Seminar Series“ held by the WU's Marketing Department helps to connect our Faculty with international scholars from the Marketing field. They are invited to present their latest research and discuss the current trends and developments in all major areas of marketing. The seminar is open to all WU faculties and students.

Talk by Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan, University of Houston (US): “Inclusive Design Transformation” (with DEEPA CHANDRASEKARAN & BJ ALLEN)

Inclusive design is an emergent industry trend in which organizations design marketplace offerings to meet the needs of a more diverse customer base, specifically recognizing consumers who are often unseen, unheard, or invisible to mainstream marketers. Despite burgeoning interest in inclusive design, there is surprisingly little research on how firms can effectively embrace an inclusive design approach in their new product development (NPD) process.

This research seeks to close this critical gap: by (1) conceptualizing inclusive design transformation (IDT) for marketing organizations, (2) identifying the opportunities and challenges associated with IDT, (3) providing insight into how IDT can be achieved, embedded, and sustained, and (4) illustrating the impact of an inclusive design mindset on innovation during the NPD process.

Utilizing a theories-in-use approach, we rely on interviews with a broad array of inclusive design practitioners to elicit grounded insights that reveal a four-stage process (SAGE – Seeding, Activation, Germination, and Emergence) that characterizes IDT in organizations. We use insights from each of these four stages to shed light on how organizations can create a culture that embraces inclusive design. Our findings inform both marketing theory and practice and offer a rich agenda for future research in inclusive design transformation.

For all dates of the upcoming Marketing Research Seminar Series, please click here.

https://www.wu.ac.at/en/marketing/research/research-seminar-series/