Attributes of product advantage and choices for manufacturer–retailer formal governance: the case of new product launch
Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics
ISSN: 1355-5855
Article publication date: 19 November 2021
Issue publication date: 16 August 2022
Abstract
Purpose
This study examined how the technological (tech) advantage and market advantage of new products influence the level of formal channel governance and, in turn, affect the success of new products in the presence of relational governance.
Design/methodology/approach
The hypotheses are tested using the partial least squares approach to analyse survey data collected from 392 retailers of customer goods in China.
Findings
The results indicate that tech advantage and market advantage lead to an increase in retailers' transaction-specific investments (TSIs) and contract explicitness, respectively; the positive effect of market advantage on a retailer's TSIs will gradually decrease and will even become negative beyond a certain point. The relational governance mechanism can substitute for the effects of contract explicitness on improving new product success.
Originality/value
This research provides a new perspective for understanding new product advantage and exerts an initial effort to empirically distinguish between tech advantage and market advantage. It enriches the innovation literature by examining the governance of new product launches through retailers and explores the effects of formal and informal governance on channel cooperation performance in the new product launch stage.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the financial support provided by China National Natural Science Foundation (grant number 71672014; 71702046); MOE (Ministry of Education in China) project of Humanities and Social Sciences (grant number 21XJA630006); the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (grant number 2019CDSKXYJG0037); Chongqing Technology and Business University High Level Talent Fund (No. 1855033); Chongqing Social Science Planning Project (2017YBGL150). The authors contributed equally to the paper and are listed randomly.
Citation
Zheng, S., Qian, L. and Yang, P. (2022), "Attributes of product advantage and choices for manufacturer–retailer formal governance: the case of new product launch", Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, Vol. 34 No. 8, pp. 1761-1777. https://doi.org/10.1108/APJML-05-2021-0366
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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