How User‐centric Innovation is Affecting Stakeholder Marketing Strategies: Exploratory Findings from the Music Industry

This paper empirically explores how user‐centric innovation (UCI) in the music industry is affecting how key stakeholder groups are approaching and developing their marketing (and associated management) strategies. The three‐stage interview‐based research methodology consisted of 52 semi‐structured in‐depth interviews with UCI experts and artist managers, as well as representatives from major record labels. The findings make four substantial contributions to theory and practice in the interrelated fields of UCI, marketing and the music industry. First, they provide practical and pragmatic insights for industry practitioners on how different UCI marketing approaches are affecting their management strategies. Second, they take steps towards answering many of the identified gaps in research and knowledge relating to the concept of UCI. Third, they present theoretical models as a foundation for which new UCI marketing theory can be built upon. Last, they offer directions for future research to advance our empirical findings.</jats:p

SPIRE - combining SGI-110 with cisplatin and gemcitabine chemotherapy for solid malignancies including bladder cancer: study protocol for a phase Ib/randomised IIa open label clinical trial

Background Urothelial bladder cancer (UBC) accounts for 10,000 new diagnoses and 5000 deaths annually in the UK (Cancer Research UK, http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-statistics/statistics-by-cancer-type/bladder-cancer, Cancer Research UK, Accessed 26 Mar 2018). Cisplatin-based chemotherapy is standard of care therapy for UBC for both palliative first-line treatment of advanced/metastatic disease and radical neoadjuvant treatment of localised muscle invasive bladder cancer. However, cisplatin resistance remains a critical cause of treatment failure and a barrier to therapeutic advance in UBC. Based on supportive pre-clinical data, we hypothesised that DNA methyltransferase inhibition would circumvent cisplatin resistance in UBC and potentially other cancers. Methods The addition of SGI-110 (guadecitabine, a DNA methyltransferase inhibitor) to conventional doublet therapy of gemcitabine and cisplatin (GC) is being tested within the phase Ib/IIa SPIRE clinical trial. SPIRE incorporates an initial, modified rolling six-dose escalation phase Ib design of up to 36 patients with advanced solid tumours followed by a 20-patient open-label randomised controlled dose expansion phase IIa component as neoadjuvant treatment for UBC. Patients are being recruited from UK secondary care sites. The dose escalation phase will determine a recommended phase II dose (RP2D, primary endpoint) of SGI-110, by subcutaneous injection, on days 1–5 for combination with GC at conventional doses (cisplatin 70 mg/m2, IV infusion, day 8; gemcitabine 1000 mg/m2, IV infusion, days 8 and 15) in every 21-day cycle. In the dose expansion phase, patients will be randomised 1:1 to GC with or without SGI-110 at the proposed RP2D. Secondary endpoints will include toxicity profiles, SGI-110 pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamic biomarkers, and pathological complete response rates in the dose expansion phase. Analyses will not be powered for formal statistical comparisons and descriptive statistics will be used to describe rates of toxicity, efficacy and translational endpoints by treatment arm. Discussion SPIRE will provide evidence for whether SGI-110 in combination with GC chemotherapy is safe and biologically effective prior to future phase II/III trials as a neoadjuvant therapy for UBC and potentially in other cancers treated with GC

Friends with Benefits: Social Coupons as a Strategy to Enhance Customers’ Social Empowerment

Businesses often seek to leverage customers’ social networks to acquire new customers and stimulate word-of-mouth recommendations. While customers make brand recommendations for various reasons (e.g., incentives, reputation enhancement), they are also motivated by a desire for social empowerment—to feel an impact on others. In several multi-method studies, we show that facilitating sharing of social coupons (i.e., coupon sets that include one for self-use and one to be shared) is a unique marketing strategy that facilitates social empowerment. Firms benefit from social coupons because customers who share spend more and report greater purchase intentions than those who do not. Furthermore, we demonstrate that social coupons are most effective when the sharer’s brand relationship is new versus established. For customers with an established relationship, sharing with a receiver who also has an established relationship maximizes potential impact. Together, these studies connect social empowerment to relationship marketing and provide guidance to managers targeting social coupons

Keep them alive! Design and Evaluation of the “Community Fostering Reference Model”

Firms host online communities for commercial purposes, for example in order to integrate customers into ideation for new product development. The success of these firm-hosted online communities depends entirely on the cooperation of a high number of customers that constantly produce valuable knowledge for firms. However, in practice, the majority of successfully implemented communities suffers from stagnation and even a decrease of member activities over time. Literature provides numerous guidelines on how to build and launch these online communities. While these models describe the initial steps of acquiring and activating a community base from scratch very well and explicitly, they neglect continuous member activation and acquistion after a successful launch. Against this background, the authors propose the Community Fostering Reference Model (CoFoRM), which represents a set of general procedures and instruments to continuously foster member activity. In this paper, the authors present the theory-driven design as well as the evaluation of the CoFoRM in a practical use setting. The evaluation results reveal that the CoFoRM represents a valuable instrument in the daily working routine of community managers, since it efficiently helps activating community members especially in the late phases of a community’s LifeCycle

Cui Bono? The Selective Revealing of Knowledge and its Implications for Innovative Activity

Current theories of how organizations harness knowledge for innovative activity cannot convincingly explain emergent practices whereby firms selectively reveal knowledge to their advantage. We conceive of selective revealing as a strategic mechanism to reshape the collaborative behavior of other actors in a firm's innovation ecosystem. We propose that selective revealing may provide an effective alternative to known collaboration mechanisms, particularly under conditions of high partner uncertainty, high coordination costs, and unwilling potential collaborators. We specify conditions when firms are more likely to reveal knowledge and highlight some boundary conditions for competitor reciprocity. We elaborate on strategies that allow firms to exhibit managerial agency in selective revealing and discuss selective revealing's implications for theories of organization and open innovation and for management practice