Enhancing Innovation Via the Digital Twin

A Growing Number of Firms Are Seeking to Leverage Emerging Technologies, Such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and 3D Printing, to Enhance their Innovation Efforts. These Seemingly Distinct Technologies Are Currently Coalescing into an Encompassing New Technology Called the Digital Twin. This Technology Allows Innovative Firms to Create a Digital Replica of a Physical Entity that Evolves over its Life Cycle. This Article Explores the Implications of the Digital Twin for Innovation Theory and Practice. First, We Examine the Connection between the Digital Twin and Three Related Technologies (I.e., 3D Printing, Big Data, and AI). Second, We Create a Typology of Four Categories of Digital Twins (I.e., Monitoring, Making, Enhancing, and Replicating) and Illustrate their Relevance for Innovation Management. Third, We Offer a Set of Four Case Studies that Exemplify This Typology and Illustrate How Digital Twins Have Been Put into Practice. Fourth, We Craft a Set of Digital Twin-Related Future Research Directions that Encompasses a Broad Range of Innovation-Related Topics, Including Service Innovation, Co-Creation, and Product Design. We Hope that Our Examination of the Digital Twin Serves as a Catalyst to Help Advance Innovation Thought and Practice in This Intriguing New Domain

Religious socialization among Malaysian Muslim adolescents: a family structure comparison

Despite the plethora of research on correlates of adolescent religiosity, few studies have examined the contribution of socialization factors to adolescent religiosity in the context of non-Western Muslim samples from different family contexts. To address this gap, the current study explored the contribution of parenting (direct socialization) and community engagement (indirect socialization) factors on religiosity among 895 Malaysian Muslim high school students from single-/non-parent and two-parent families. T-test results showed that religiosity was higher for students from two-parent families than single-/non-parent parent homes. After controlling for (a) social desirability, (b) gender and (c) school type, the hypothesized factors of: parental attachment, parental religious socialization, parental supervision, youth organization involvement, school attachment, and mosque involvement significantly predicted religiosity for the full sample of students from both types of families. Hierarchical regression results further revealed that while both indirect and direct parental socialization factors were stronger predictors of religiosity for two-parent families than single-/non-parent families, direct parental socialization effects were more robust. Implications of the findings are discussed

Exploring differential effects of product and service innovations on industrial firms' financial performance

Eggert A, Thiesbrummel C, Deutscher C. Exploring differential effects of product and service innovations on industrial firms' financial performance . In: Rindfleisch A, ed. Challenging the bounds of marketing thought. AMA Winter Marketing Educators' Conference 2013 ; AMA educators' proceedings Volume 24 ; Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, 15 - 17 February 2013. Red Hook, NY: Curran Associates; 2013: 119-120

The Safety of Objects: Materialism, Existential Insecurity, and Brand Connection

Over the past 2 decades, a large body of research has examined how materialism is formed and how this value influences well-being. Although these studies have substantially contributed to our understanding of materialism, they shed little light on this value's relationship to consumer behavior. Our research seeks to address this gap by examining the influence of materialism on self- and communal-brand connections. We ground our conceptualization in terror management theory and suggest that materialistic individuals form strong connections to their brands as a response to existential insecurity. We test this premise by conducting a national survey among 314 adults as well as an experiment among 125 college students. Our results provide broad support for our thesis and suggest that the fear of death encourages materialistic individuals to form strong connections with their brands. (c) 2008 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..