The Influence of Product Design Evaluations on Investors’ Willingness to Invest in Companies: Theory and Experiment with Finnish Individual Investors

ock market evaluate companies’ product design as part of their investment considerations. The purpose of this article is especially to address that question. After hypotheses were developed about the influence of product design evaluations on investors’ investment interest, an experimental study was conducted among Finnish individual investors. The results of the study demonstrate that product design creates strategic distinction for a company not only among customers in the product market but also among investors in the stock market. Indeed, investors’ favorable evaluations of a company’s product design are shown to significantly increase their willingness to invest in the company’s stock. The results provide new and interesting insights into the broader socioeconomic impacts of product design in the investment context, as well as valuable implications for the practice of design management.