Together They Do Not Innovate: Group Entitativity of Top Management Team and Consumer Perception of Brand Innovativeness

This research explores how background information of a brand’s top management team influences consumers’ perception of brand innovativeness and their downstream purchase intention and behavior. Six studies demonstrate that low (vs. high) group entitativity of a brand’s top management team increases the perception of perspective diversity among its members, which in turns leads to heightened consumer perception of brand innovativeness. Consistent with this mechanism, this effect is further found to be dismissed when the lay belief that divergent thinking enhances innovation is challenged. Moreover, low (vs. high) group entitativity of top management team increases consumers’ purchase intention and behavior when they have a purchasing goal for innovative products or when the brand’s products are positioned as innovative products.