Relationship between the Beacon Product and Dominant design for digital music players

• Main Authors: Krisel Sy Cao Yao, 李如金
• Other Authors: Yi-Nung, Peng
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/66db85

碩士 === 元智大學 === 企業管理學系 === 98 === This research was done to study the relationship between beacon Product and dominant designs for digital music players. Over the last decades, evolution on music industry transpired. The emergence of MP3 didn’t just create a substantial impact on music industry but at the same time revolutionized the way people listened to music. Vast amount of firms in the music industry eventually recognized this market opportunity and started introducing various models of digital music players with different features. Hence, we chose digital music players as the sample for this research. In this study, the concept of beacon product was discussed. The beacon product theory serves as a good justification behind the formation of dominant designs. Peng (2006) introduced beacon product theory wherein the relationship between consumer preference and innovative features was emphasized and is assumed to be an antecedent for market takeoff. However, during his preliminary study, this relationship was not directly examined. This study further examined the relationship among these variables and also their influence in relation to the popularity of a beacon product, in this case iPod. This study was achieved through performing a content analysis study on online consumer reviews of iPod buyers and non iPod buyers alike. And compared to all the other literatures, the main focus of their study is usually the firms’ strategies, but in this study, we are focusing on consumers’ preference. In the recognition of these innovative features as the cause for the formation for dominant designs comes the study of beacon product using consumer reviews at Amazon.com. The results of the data analysis show that some innovative features of an iPod are greatly preferred by consumers. In conclusion, we can still say that there is a partial relationship between innovative features and the formation of beacon product which will eventually lead to the emergence of dominant design.