Search results

Expert systems are computer systems, built through interaction with actual experts, that mimic human experts within a narrow domain. This paper describes the development of an expert system, NEWPRODEX, designed to screen industrial product concepts, identify potential financial successes, and diagnose opportunities for concept enhancement to improve its chances of success on the international marketplace. A running example illustrating a sample application of the NEWPRODEX system is provided. The concluding section discusses directions for model improvement.

Posits a stagewise learning process involved in the building of brand equity: brand birth; the creation of brand awareness and associations; the building of quality and value perceptions; the emergence of brand loyalty; and the launching of brand extensions. Also reports on an empirical study which explored the evolution, existence and extensibility of brand equity in a particular business‐to‐business market. Concludes with practical implications for managers in business‐to‐business product or service firms.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the interaction of pricing strategies with other aspects of launch, in particular, timing, logistics/inventory strategy, and coordination with support organizations, and the effect on profit and competitive performance.

The paper presents an empirical study of 215 recent new product launches, focusing on pricing and other strategic and tactical launch decisions and the resulting profitability and competitive performance. Clusters of new product launches are identified and the profitability and competitiveness of each cluster are discussed.

The paper finds that some clusters are related to greater success than others. The most profitable and competitively successful cluster contained launches supported by solid market research and marked by good timing decisions. By contrast, the least profitable/successful cluster were higher price launches unsupported by adequate research.

The study is limited by the fact that the sampling frame is made up of members of a professional association of product development and management, and may therefore be more representative of “best practice” in new product development (NPD) than of NPD in general. The authors believe the use of the key informant method is justified in this study, however this method has been criticized in the past.

The pricing decision for a new product is sometimes oversimplified as a “high‐low” or “skimming versus penetration” choice. The study finds that the actual effect of pricing on ultimate success is much more complex, and that one must consider not only price level, but also the timing of the launch, the logistics and inventory strategy, the extent of market research, testing, and planning, and so forth.

Business‐to‐business service marketing has received comparatively less attention in the academic literature than business‐to‐business product marketing; much of the service marketing literature discusses the ways in which services and products are different. Compares service marketing to product marketing in the industrial sector from the perspective of customer value creation. Results of a study of managers in the telecommunications industry provide some insight into criteria used by customers to evaluate services and products. According to the results, more similarities than differences exist between service and product marketing in the industrial sector. Managerial implications of this finding are presented.

Examines how the business products‐marketing firm acquires knowledge about its customers. Objectives include identifying the most effective means by which organizations can acquire customer knowledge, and the specific kind of knowledge which firms should strive to possess about their customers in order to create value. Puts forward two key premisses regarding where customer knowledge acquisition efforts should lie, and what the results of these activities should be. Presents the results of an empirical study conducted in the telecommunications industry on this topic. Concludes by drawing managerial implications.

Luxury goods manufacturers may find it profitable to enter a different demographic segment, and several strategies are available to do so. Nevertheless, such market expansion can be risky, and the luxury goods company must avoid tarnishing the equity contained in the luxury brand. This study examines the effects of a co-branding strategy between luxury brands and retailers on consumers’ evaluation of the luxury brand's image. We use information integration theory (IIT) as the basis for our study, as it can be used to explore how attitudes are formed and changed as new information is combined with existing cognitions and thoughts. A theoretical model based on IIT is built and empirically tested using a sample of 240 Taiwanese adult consumers. We conduct an experimental survey study in which we manipulate luxury brand familiarity and product and brand fit between luxury brand and the co-brand, and assess prior-attitudes and post-attitudes toward the luxury brand and attitudes toward the co-brand. We find support for many of our hypotheses: prior-attitudes toward the luxury brand is positively related to the attitude toward the co-brand, brand fit is related to attitudes toward the co-brand, and brand fit is marginally related to the post-attitude toward the luxury brand. Other hypotheses, however (such as those regarding product fit) were not supported. We conclude by discussing our theoretical and managerial contributions.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on two objectives. First, to investigate how two consumer innovativeness measures (domain‐specific innovativeness (DSI) and general innovativeness (GI)) in a highly globalized product market (i.e. laptop computer) are related to two widely used demographics, country and gender. Second, to examine how innovativeness affects a series of consumer decisions such as information search, opinion dependency, and store choice.

The authors build a conceptual model linking two important demographics (i.e. country and gender) and consumer innovativeness (both DSI and GI), and test it using binomial logistic regression, with a sample of 614 respondents from Korea, China, and the USA.

Results are generally consistent with the authors' hypotheses. The two consumer innovativeness measures are significantly influenced by the two demographic factors, and product‐specific innovativeness shows more plausible results than GI. Furthermore, consumers' decision processes were found to have idiosyncratic patterns regarding consumer innovativeness and the two demographic moderators.

The study may have demographical bias for two reasons: use of only limited metropolitan samples and a somewhat unbalanced sample in gender and occupation.

In the early stage of new product launch, DSI will be dominantly useful in market segmentation and targeting rather than GI. However, management should not overlook variability of countries and genders since consumers show idiosyncratic patterns in their decision processes.

The paper explores the field of consumer innovativeness studies using comparison of the two dimensions of consumer innovativeness measurements. Also, the study reconfirms the importance of demographics on consumers' decisions in the early stage of highly globalized product markets.

The resource‐based view (RBV) of the firm has gained much attention in recent years as a means to understand how a strategic business unit obtains a sustainable competitive advantage. In this framework, several research studies have explored the relationships between resources/capabilities and firm performance. This paper seeks to extend this line of research by explicitly modeling the heterogeneity of such relations across firms in various different industries in exploring the interrelationships between capabilities and performance.

A unique latent structure regression model is developed to provide a discrete representation of this heterogeneity in terms of different clusters or groups of firms who employ different paths to achieve firm performance vis‐à‐vis alternative capabilities. An application of the proposed methodology to a sample of 216 US firms were provided.

Finds that the derived four group latent structure regression solution statistically dominates the one aggregate sample regression function. Substantive interpretation for the findings is provided.

The paper contributes to the understanding of the performance effects of investing in capabilities in the RBV framework, which has previously been lacking, especially in the areas of information technology capabilities.

Recent studies have conceptualized market orientation into two distinct components, responsive and proactive market orientation. The purpose of this paper is to examine the environmental antecedents that lead to the adoption of a responsive or proactive market orientation.

Drawing upon the market orientation literatures, and using theory derived from environment strategy research as a starting point, a conceptual model is developed in which environmental factors are antecedent variables influencing the responsive and proactive market orientation. To test the conceptual model, data were collected from 308 companies across a wide range of industries.

The results show that responsive market orientation is positively related to market turbulence, technological turbulence and competitive intensity. On the contrary, proactive market orientation is negatively related to market turbulence, technological turbulence, and competitive intensity.

The paper makes a theoretical contribution in that it extends the market orientation literature and examines what environmental antecedents affect responsive and proactive market orientation. The paper also makes some managerial recommendations.