News > 2019 > PhD student Alexis Perron-Brault wins in Venice

PhD student Alexis Perron-Brault wins in Venice

Award for the Best Doctoral Research Project at the AIMAC Conference

July 11, 2019

HEC Montréal PhD student Alexis Perron-Brault won the award for the best doctoral research project at the 4th Doctoral Symposium, part of the 15th International Conference on Arts and Cultural Management (AIMAC), held at the Ca' Foscari University of Venice from June 23 to 26.

Photo credit: Félix Perron-Brault

Entitled Customer Engagement and New Product Adoption in the Music Industry: The Importance of the Fit between Brand and New Product Innovativeness, the project was co-directed by Professors Danilo Dantas and Renaud Legoux. Using the music industry as a context for the study, it examines the relationship between customer engagement and the adoption of new projects, based on the mediating effect of the perceived product value. “We tested our model on 184 customers, and the results showed that this relationship is influenced by the fit between the innovativeness of the brand and that of the new product,” Alexis explained. “Consequently, customers who are strongly engaged have a positive perception of new songs only when their innovative sound is similar to that of previous albums.”

“We tested our model on 184 customers, and the results showed that this relationship is influenced by the fit between the innovativeness of the brand and that of the new product,” Alexis explained. “Consequently, customers who are strongly engaged have a positive perception of new songs only when their innovative sound is similar to that of previous albums.”

The project was praised for its very high-quality arguments, and was chosen more specifically for the rigour and appropriateness of its methodological approach, its creativity and originality, the quality and completeness of references, its clarity, its potential contribution to research in management of arts and culture, and its writing style.