Supporting new product commercialization through managerial social ties and market knowledge development in an emerging economy

University of Tasmania, Australi

Mastering the complementarity between marketing mix, brand management, customer relationship management capabilities to enhance new product performance

Purpose: This study addresses the extent that the deployment of and complementarity between marketing mix, brand management, and customer relationship management capabilities provide firms the capacity to transform their market knowledge into effective responsive actions that help to achieve new product success. Methodology: A questionnaire was used as the primary means of data collection. Data from 160 large B2B firms across a variety of industries in Iran were analyzed using partial least squares regression to test the hypothesized paths. Findings: The results show that (a) market-oriented firms are better at deploying marketing mix, brand management, and customer relationship management capabilities, and these capabilities help to drive new product performance and (b) the complementarity between these marketing capabilities enhances the firm’s capacity to achieve new product success more than deploying each capability in isolation. Contributions: In contrast to many existing studies, this study is the first to examine the role of marketing mix, brand management, and customer relationship management capabilities and their complementarity as intervening mechanisms in the relationship between MO and new product performance. Further, this study extends the marketing literature by investigating the role of different forms of marketing capabilities in a complementary fashion in the context of a Middle-Eastern economy

Driving service innovativeness via collaboration with customers and suppliers: Evidence from business-to-business services

Service innovativeness represents a key source of competitive advantage and a research priority. However, empirical evidence about how service firms successfully offer novel and meaningful services is scarce, particularly in the context of business-to-business (B2B) service firms. Drawing on the B2B collaborative perspective and KBV, we aim to investigate when customer and supplier collaboration are more beneficial to drive service novelty and meaningfulness. Using data of 186 B2B service firms, the results reveal that collaboration with customers and suppliers are not equally beneficial to drive both novelty and meaningfulness and their outcomes can be amplified or lost under specific conditions. Customer collaboration is more beneficial to increase novelty in the presence of exploratory learning and employee collaboration. Contrary, supplier collaboration drives novelty only at higher levels of exploratory learning. Further, supplier collaboration is more beneficial to improve meaningfulness at higher levels of employee collaboration. Finally, the positive outcomes of both customer and supplier collaboration disappear in the presence of knowledge tacitness. Our findings provide new insights about drivers and contingencies that affect different aspects of service innovativeness

Supporting new product commercialization through managerial social ties and market knowledge development in an emerging economy

While it has been advocated that the generation and application of market knowledge shape marketing capabilities to commercialize new products, the weak institutional environment makes access to critical market knowledge challenging in emerging economies. Critically, managerial social ties with business and political institutions may complement the firm’s market orientation (MO) to obtain market knowledge that is not available in the open market in emerging economies. This study draws attention to the differential roles of business and political ties in complementing or inhibiting the effects of market orientation on exploratory and exploitative marketing capabilities in one of the “Next Eleven” emerging economies, Iran. The results help firms operating in emerging economies to identify the conditions under which business and political ties help to overcome institutional limitations, complement market-oriented efforts, and successfully commercialize new products

Unlocking solution provision competence in knowledge-intensive business service firms

Business services markets are very competitive and a key challenge for knowledge-intensive business service (KIBS) firms is delivering effective solutions for business customers. As solution providers, KIBS firms need to invest competencies that supports their capacity to solve customers’ problems. We examine how KIBS firms address this challenge by investigating how solution-provision competence (SPC), as a firm-level competence, contributes to the delivery of effective solutions, and how and when KIBS firms leverage SPC to transform knowledge gained from various search paths into effective solutions for customers. The results show that distal search enriches knowledge diversity, which helps foster solution-provision competence but only up to a point, after which the relationship turns negative, with distal search showing a diminishing effect on solution-provision competence. In addressing the diminishing returns of distal search to solution-provision competence, we show that higher levels of proximal search and strategic flexibility reverse the diminishing effect of high levels of distal search on solution-provision competence; however, employee collaboration did not help counter the diminishing returns (e.g., marginal benefits). Finally, we demonstrate that solutionprovision competence helps KIBS firms offer effective solutions tailored to business customers’ specific needs

The contingent value of marketing and social networking capabilities in firm performance

Recent research shows a continued interest by scholars in understanding the extent that firms develop and deploy marketing capability in an effort to enhance their market- and financial-performance. In conjunction with the marketing literature, relational governance scholars suggest that social networks can provide access resources and knowledge required to perform business activities which assist in achieving performance objectives. Yet, the literature is almost silent about the extent that social networks assist market oriented firms in their efforts to develop superior marketing capability to enhance performance. The findings from a survey of 160 firms in an emerging Middle Eastern economy show that market oriented firms are better at developing and deploying marketing capability when the levels of business, political, and academic ties are high

Achieving new product success via the synchronization of exploration and exploitation across multiple levels and functional areas

While ambidexterity has been identified as a critical prerequisite for new product success, synchronizing exploration and exploitation in practice represents a multifaceted enigma. Ambidexterity is not in reality limited to a single organizational level, or a specific functional area. Firms become ambidextrous when corporate-level exploratory and exploitative strategies interact with operational-level exploratory and exploitative capabilities across multiple functional areas. Data from a sample of technology-intensive industrial firms using a multi-informant design shows that operational-level exploratory and exploitative product innovation and marketing capabilities allow firms to implement corporate-level exploratory and exploitative strategies in the context of new product development (NPD). Further, the findings reveal that the integration of exploratory product innovation-exploratory marketing and exploitative product innovation-exploitative marketing are significant for the implementation of exploratory and exploitative strategies over deploying each capability in isolation. Finally, we show that the implementation of exploratory and exploitative strategies drives new product success through creating distinct positional advantages to customers in the form of both differentiation and cost efficiency. These positional advantages help to better explain the effects of exploratory and exploitative capabilities on new product market performance

Examining market entry mode strategies via resource-based and institutional influences : empirical evidence from a region-within-country economy context

This research has two major purposes. The first is to develop and test a framework for market entry mode choice drawing on the resource-based theory and institutional theory in the context of region-within-country from marketing perspective. On this issue resource-based influences and environment influences are key drivers of entry mode strategies. Specifically, the central proposition is that a firm selects market entry strategies that its resources (firm characteristics, product characteristics, and firm size) can support and this selection also depends on the firms’ perception of two environments (home market characteristics and host market characteristics). The second is to test the theoretical framework within the special situation of Hong Kong firms’ entry modes into Mainland China as a specific economic region-within-country context. A mail survey was used to gather data from 208 senior executives of Hong Kong firms undertaken. The results show that firm characteristics, product characteristics, home market characteristics, and host market characteristics (but not firm size) significantly influence the choice of equity mode entry mode strategies for firms from Hong Kong entering other economic zones within Mainland China.10 page(s