Green process innovation: Where we are and where we are going

Environmental pollution has worsened in the past few decades, and increasing pressure is being put on firms by different regulatory bodies, customer groups, NGOs and other media outlets to adopt green process innovations (GPcIs), which include clean technologies and end-of-pipe solutions. Although considerable studies have been published on GPcI, the literature is disjointed, and as such, a comprehensive understanding of the issues, challenges and gaps is lacking. A systematic literature review (SLR) involving 80 relevant studies was conducted to extract seven themes: strategic response, organisational learning, institutional pressures, structural issues, outcomes, barriers and methodological choices. The review thus highlights the various gaps in the GPcI literature and illuminates the pathways for future research by proposing a series of potential research questions. This study is of vital importance to business strategy as it provides a comprehensive framework to help firms understand the various contours of GPcI. Likewise, policymakers can use the findings of this study to fill in the loopholes in the existing regulations that firms are exploiting to circumvent taxes and other penalties by locating their operations to emerging economies with less stringent environmental regulations.publishedVersio

Market orientation, marketing capability, and new product performance: the moderating role of absorptive capacity

The recent marketing literature identifies market orientation and marketing capabilities as key concepts that firms should use to achieve their competitive advantages. Previous research also confirms cross effects of these dimensions in firms' performance. The present study extends the literature on this subject by introducing absorptive capacity (AC) as a moderator of the relationship among market orientation, the interaction of market orientation and marketing capability, and firms' new product performance. This study empirically examines the research model using survey data from 188 manufacturing firms in Sweden. The findings confirm previous studies that claim a positive relationship among market orientation, marketing capability, and new product performance. More importantly, the results indicate that AC positively moderates the relationship between market orientation and firms' new product performance. Furthermore, the findings suggest that experts should consider AC as a competitive factor in line with the complimentary effect of market orientation and marketing capability. This consideration would contribute to explain better firm-related performance, such as new product performance

How collaborative innovation networks affect new product performance: Product innovation capability, process innovation capability, and absorptive capacity

The current literature has investigated the direct relationship between collaborative innovation networks and new product performance, but the results are inconsistent. This research aims to explore the role of product and process innovation capabilities as two distinct mechanisms through which collaborative innovation networks improve new product performance. The study also examines the contingent effects of absorptive capacity on the relationship between collaborative innovation networks and the two innovation capability dimensions (i.e. product and process innovation). Survey data from 258 respondents from the Iranian high and medium technology manufacturing industries indicates the need for caution when developing collaborative innovation networks. We found that the effects of collaborative innovation networks on either product or process innovation capability are significant only in the presence of absorptive capacity. This finding suggests that the level of collaboration with different partners can enhance firms' innovation capabilities only if the focal firm's managers have developed the capacity to scan and acquire external knowledge. Our analyses further indicate that in the presence of absorptive capacity, only collaboration with research organizations and competitors have a positive effect on product innovation capability. In the case of process innovation capability, collaboration with research organizations and suppliers are the most important factors

Biseparating Maps on Fréchet Function Algebras

Let and be strongly regular normal Fréchet function algebras on compact Hausdorff spaces and , respectively, such that the evaluation homomorphisms are continuous on and . Then, every biseparating map is a weighted composition operator of the form , where is a homeomorphism from onto and is a nonvanishing element of . In particular, is automatically continuous

Relationship learning and international customer involvement in new product design: The moderating roles of customer dependence and cultural distance

This study focuses on relationship learning and its implications for international customer involvement during the design stage of the new product development (NPD) process. It utilizes relationship learning capability perspective to investigate the linkages between relationship learning, international customer involvement, and suppliers' performance. We also investigate whether customer dependence and cultural distance moderate the association between (a) relationship learning and international customer involvement and (b) international customer involvement and supplier performance. Using 264 respondents from Chinese manufacturing firms that have international customers, this study identifies that international customer involvement partially mediates the link between relationship learning and supplier performance. Furthermore, customer dependence strengthens, and cultural distance weakens, the effect of relationship learning on international customer involvement. However, only cultural distance negatively moderates the relationship between international customer involvement and supplier performance

Relationships of Stressors and Opportunism in Cross-border Exchange Partnership Contexts: When and How Monitoring Matters

Transaction costs economics work has argued that monitoring procedures are needed to evaluate the extent to which overseas partners comply with their obligations. We posit that the transactional theory of stress can also inform on how to distinguish opportunists from non-opportunists. Synthesizing these two theories and using a three-study, multimethod design, we examine whether different types of stressors influence opportunism, and how and under what conditions such links are moderated by monitoring. Based on separate surveys of 209 Chinese subsidiaries’ and 232 Chinese suppliers’ cross-border intrafirm and interfirm partnerships with headquarters and buyers, respectively—in conjunction with an add-on experimental study conducted in the US—the results suggest challenge and hindrance stressors impact opportunism differently. The former exhibits a U-shaped, and the latter a positive, relationship with opportunism. We thus observe the importance of both the level and type of stress. Further, the international exchange context matters for monitoring’s efficacy. Monitoring steepens the U-shaped challenge stressors–opportunism relationship in intrafirm (not interfirm) partnerships. It however weakens the positive hindrance stressors–opportunism relationship in interfirm (not intrafirm) partnerships. The findings inform managers on when and how to use monitoring to control challenge and hindrance stressors’ links to opportunism in these contexts

The impact of alternative financial supply chain management practices on supply risk: A relationship quality and buyer relative power perspective

Despite increasing attention being paid to financial supply chain management (FSCM) practices as key factors that enable firms to gain competitive advantage, there is limited research on the consequences of such practices and their impact on buyer-supplier relationships. In particular, the existing literature lacks evidence of how FSCM practices can help buying firms to manage their supply-side risk. Using the two theoretical angles of relationship quality and buyer relative power, this study empirically examines the impact of FSCM practices on supply risk. Based on a cross-sectional survey of 244 manufacturers in Iran, the results show that depending on the quality of the buyer-supplier relationship and the level of buyer relative power, different FSCM practices should be implemented to mitigate supply risk. Our empirical findings present important implications for both theory and practice

When customer involvement hinders/promotes product innovation performance: The concurrent effect of relationship quality and role ambiguity

Despite recent attempts to explain the nature of customer involvement, the question of how to curb its negative effect on product innovation has yet to be explored. This study focuses on the association between customer involvement and developers’ product innovation performance, and relies on relationship management theory and the role hazard perspective to explore what levels of relationship quality and role ambiguity, which coexist in partnerships, can turn ineffective customer involvement into a successful strategy. Using a survey of 273 manufacturing firms, we found an inverted U-shaped relationship between customer involvement and product innovation performance, and verified that the interplay of relationship quality and role ambiguity significantly moderate this association. We unpack the role of our moderators by developing a 2 × 2 matrix of high versus low levels of role ambiguity and relationship quality, and exploring the nature of the association between customer involvement and product innovation performance in each quadrant