Overdesign e sviluppo del nuovo prodotto: un’indagine sul ruolo dei bias cognitivi nei processi decisionali dei Progettisti

[Autom. eng. transl.] Targets. The article addresses the issue of overdesign, that is the designers' tendency to develop products / services that are superior to the actual needs of customers. In particular, the objective is to verify if and to what extent the cognitive biases determine this phenomenon and what role the product pricing and measurement systems of the Designers perform with respect to the distancing mechanisms of the decisions. Methodology. A survey was conducted which enabled the collection of 149 useful questionnaires, among the designers of companies operating in design-based sectors. Results. The collected data, subjected to a factor analysis, showed the existence of 3 forms of overdesign and 6 categories of cognitive bias. Through a regression analysis, it was found that the bias of the designers are significant drivers of the three forms of overdesign. The impact of pricing and performance measurement systems seems to be rather limited. Search limits. This work presents the peculiar limits of studies based on surveys. In particular, in order to verify the validity of the emerged evidence, it would be necessary to broaden the sample under analysis and, above all, to replicate the study in different sectoral contexts with respect to those observed. Practical implications. This study highlights the role of cognitive bias in influencing the overdesign and emphasizes the need to understand how to make a "debias" of decision-making processes. In this regard, the present work has verified the effectiveness only of a limited number of solutions that previous studies hypothesize to be useful in these contexts. Therefore, it is necessary to deepen the study of the tools useful to mitigate cognitive biases and the related consequences on the overdesign. Originality of the work. This study deepened an aspect of innovation processes, that is overdesign, using the "behavioral" perspective, which is a recent trend in new product development studies.