Transforming brand core values into perceived quality: A Volvo case study
Journal article, 2020

Core values are an important part of Volvo Car Group’s and Volvo Trucks’ strategic development plans. These two companies share the same core values, quality, safety, and environmental care, but they approach these values in different ways. This study seeks to understand how industry professionals and customers perceive these core values and the attributes that are associated with them, using semi-structured interviews with industry professionals from both companies and quantitative survey methods with customers. The purposes of this study are to investigate how designers convey core values to customers through product attributes and how customers perceive those core values through the same attributes. Such an understanding reveals the commonalities and discrepancies between the perspectives of producers and customers, and can contribute to more effective design processes that communicate company values in the early product development phases.

Communication

Product development

Core values

Automotive design

Perceived quality

Author

Kostas Stylidis

Chalmers, Industrial and Materials Science, Product Development

Steven Hoffenson

Stevens Institute of Technology

Monica Rossi

Polytechnic University of Milan

Casper Wickman

Volvo Cars

Chalmers, Industrial and Materials Science, Product Development

Mikael Söderman

Volvo Cars

Rikard Söderberg

Chalmers, Industrial and Materials Science

International Journal of Product Development

1477-9056 (ISSN) 1741-8178 (eISSN)

Vol. 24 1 43-67

Subject Categories

Production Engineering, Human Work Science and Ergonomics

DOI

10.1504/IJPD.2020.106448

More information

Latest update

4/30/2020