When soliciting novel product ideas from the “crowd,” companies may opt to show a prototype in order to steer the generation of ideas in the desired direction. On the one hand, the more features the prototype incorporates, the larger the potential for activating relevant knowledge in memory that may serve as a basis for generating novel ideas. On the other hand, it increases the risk of fixation on the incorporated features, which may inhibit the generation of novel ideas. Based on the “dual pathway to creativity” theory, which identifies the depth and breadth of exploration of one’s knowledge base as cognitive pathways to the generation of novel ideas, we argue that the number (and type) of features included in the prototype in combination with the design goal, that is, generating ideas for functional versus aesthetic product improvements, determines whether the positive effects outweigh the negative effects. With a functional design goal, we find that exposure to a prototype with more features leads to more novel ideas as a result of a more thorough exploration of one’s knowledge base. However, with an aesthetic design goal, exposure to a prototype with more features leads to less novel ideas because of a narrower exploration. The latter effect is driven by people’s tendency to consider the whole or gestalt of the prototype when generating aesthetic ideas. This negative effect can, thus, be mitigated by stimulating people to employ a nonholistic, piecemeal thinking style.This paper was accepted by Ashish Arora, entrepreneurship and innovation.

Purpose: Both foreign and local companies frequently name their brands in foreign language on the market of developing countries, and some of them choose to disclose the brands' country of origin to consumers. The purpose of this research is to investigate the joint effects between the practices of disclosing the actual country of origin of the brands and the language of the brand names on consumers' purchase intention for foreign brands and local brands in developing countries.Design/methodology/approach: The proposed hypotheses were tested in two studies, namely an experiment and a field experimental survey, with stimuli from two product categories.Findings: The results of the two empirical studies with Chinese participants consistently demonstrate that revealing the actual country of origin of the brands undermines consumers' purchase intention for local brands that use foreign brand names, but does not impact consumers' purchase intention for foreign brands that use local brand names.Originality/value: This research first investigates the effects of adapting the brand names into local language of developing countries for brands from developed countries on consumers' purchase intention, which provides new insight into the literature on foreign branding and country of origin effects as well as practical implications for brand managers.

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