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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how service firms across two different cultural contexts use their customer involvement capabilities to create competitive advantage. The study further assesses the possible complementarity effect of innovation and involvement capabilities in enhancing firm competitiveness. Lastly, the study draws on the complementarity of capabilities and social institutions to examine whether different cultural contexts explain the use of involvement capability among service firms.

The study sampled service firms from an emerging economy (India) and high-income economy (The UK), which have different cultural contexts (collectivism/individualist) to assess the hypothesized relationship. Data collection processes were adapted to the contexts to optimize reliability and relevance. Multi-group structural equation modeling was used in analyzing the data.

The study finds that cultural contexts explain the positive relationship between customer involvement capability and firm competitiveness such that in collectivist cultures, involvement capability is more positively related to competitiveness but negative in individualistic contexts. However, in both contexts, service firms can through capability bundling increase firm competitiveness. The study found that the complementarity effects of innovation and involvement capabilities were found to be positive in both contexts.

This study departs from previous studies by arguing that customer involvement is a complementary capability that helps exploit the potential of innovation capability of service firms. This study further demonstrates that cultural context defines the effectiveness of involvement capability in achieving firm competitiveness.

The business landscapes in Asia and Africa are predominantly characterized by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) facing significant resource constraints. Understanding the capability dynamics of these enterprises in such contexts carries significant implications for theory and practice. This paper aims to addresses a crucial question of whether increasing customer involvement capability consistently yields the necessary rent for enterprises operating under resource constraints in emerging markets in Asia and Africa. By investigating this question, the paper offers SMEs a more nuanced approach to capability development, enabling them to achieve better returns on their investments.

To ensure the robustness of the findings, data were collected from SME service firms operating in two emerging economies: India (Asia) and Ghana (Africa). Data were collected in two waves to allow for catering to specific environmental conditions not accounted for in the study. Two-stage data analysis was then conducted to test the hypothesized relationships across the two countries.

The findings reveal that customer involvement capability does not always lead to an increase in firm-level competitiveness, and the effect follows an inverted U-shaped pattern. However, the nature of this relationship varies under different market conditions in both contexts. Specifically, in periods of low customer demand and intense competition, the relationship is linear and positive. On the other hand, in periods of high demand and competition, the relationship becomes inverted U-shaped, returning to a direct relationship with firm-level competitiveness.

This paper provides a resolution to the critical issue of whether customer involvement capability consistently delivers firm performance benefits, particularly for resource-constrained SMEs in emerging markets. By explaining how SMEs in emerging markets can fully capitalize on their capability development to optimize their resources, this paper makes a distinctive contribution. Moreover, it sheds light on the importance of aligning involvement capabilities with prevailing market conditions for SMEs to reap the maximum benefits.

Because of the paucity of empirical research on firm-level capabilities of firms for effective customer involvement, the purpose of this study is to evaluate service firms’ capacity to coopt customers to enhance the innovativeness and firm performance relationship. This study conceptualizes involvement capabilities of service firms as a strategic driver that exploits their internal firm assets, which in turn facilitates the positive relationship between innovativeness and firm performance.

Data were collected from 344 managers of service firms across different sub-sectors in an emerging economy. The study first confirmed the constructs through confirmatory factor analysis before analyzing hypothesized relationships. Regression models were specified with robust standard errors to test the hypothesized relationships.

The study found that involvement capability of service firms helps them to exploit their relational assets and create and manage strong customer participation. Additionally, it was found that involvement capabilities enable service firms to capitalize on the competencies of customers, which in turn improves the outcomes of their innovativeness. The results showed that the interaction between involvement capability and innovativeness enhances firm performance significantly.

Service firms can enhance customer participation in the value creation process by increasing their involvement capabilities. The increase in such capabilities will enhance the innovativeness of service firms, thereby improving their financial and non-financial performance.

This study offers guidance on how a firm’s innovativeness and customer involvement work together within the service operation to enhance firm performance.

This study aims to examine the influence of market logics on tendering capabilities and small and medium enterprise (SME) involvement in public procurement, the influence of SME governance mechanisms on tendering capabilities and SME involvement in public procurement and the influence of tendering capabilities on SME involvement in public procurement.

Data was collected from owners/managers of SMEs registered by the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority. The SPSS software and CB-SEM software were used to obtain results on the influence of market logics on tendering capabilities and SME involvement in public procurement, the influence of SME governance mechanisms on tendering capabilities and SME involvement in public procurement and the influence of tendering capabilities on SME involvement in public procurement.

Findings indicated that SME involvement in public procurement is mainly influenced by their governance mechanisms whilst both market logics and governance mechanisms had a positive influence on tendering capabilities of SME firms. Market logics and tendering capabilities had no effect on SME involvement.

The study mainly focussed on SMEs’ involvement in public procurement. The research has implications for decision makers in government and SME firms concerned with enhancing levels of SME involvement in public procurement activities.

Many governments are now focussing on procurement lot sizing so as to increase SME involvement in public procurement. Despite the use of lot sizing, SME involvement in public procurement is still low in many developing countries and also declining in others. Aspects such as market logics and governance mechanisms that may help understand the variations in involvement have not been given significant attention.

Drawing on complementarity theory, the purpose of this study is to posit that social media use enhances the effect of supplier involvement on new product development (NPD) performance, while two key firm capabilities further enhance the moderating effect of social media use: market and technological knowledge-processing capabilities.

To test the hypotheses, the authors used a longitudinal survey of 367 firms, from seven major manufacturing industries: information technology (22.1 per cent), automotive industry (19.6 per cent), chemicals (18.2 per cent), textiles (13.3 per cent), machinery (12.5 per cent), energy (10.1 per cent) and others (4.1 per cent).

The results support the expectation that social media use and two firm capabilities (market and technological knowledge-processing capabilities) enhance the effect of supplier involvement on NPD performance in terms of product innovativeness, market performance and financial performance. Interestingly, post-hoc analyses indicate that supplier involvement has an inverted U-shaped relationship with product innovativeness. In addition, social media use not only strengthens the positive effect of, but also alleviates the negative effect of, supplier involvement in product innovativeness.

The findings of this study provide new evidence that supply chain members’ use of social media better enables them to enhance their innovation performance with supplier involvement.

This study provides practical direction to help manufacturing managers enhance innovation performance outcomes of supplier involvement.

This study makes an original contribution to the supply chain literature by empirically demonstrating the key enablers that increase the efficacy of supplier involvement.

The purpose of this paper is to test links from hotel general managers’ (GMs’) environmental commitment to hotel companies’ environmental management capabilities and then to hotel companies’ involvement in environmental practices. The secondary goal of this study is to identify the common, critical environmental management capabilities in the lodging business context.

In total, 172 GMs, working for hotels affiliated with two state lodging associations located in the northwest region of the USA, participated in this study. GMs’ responses were gathered via an online survey. The structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed model.

The results show that GMs’ environmental commitment affects their firms’ involvement in environmental practices both directly (GMs’ commitment and firms’ involvement) and indirectly via firms’ environmental management capabilities (GMs’ commitment, firms’ capabilities and firms’ involvement). The five common, critical hotel environmental management capabilities are identified: employee training, communicating environmental initiatives to guests, knowledge and skills to implement environmental practices, capital to invest in environmental management and support from employees.

The hotel industry-specific environmental management capabilities enhance hotel practitioners’ understanding of the critical components for the success of hotel environmental programs and assist GMs to effectively prepare and operate their hotels’ environmental initiatives.

This study demonstrates the essential role of individual actors, specifically hotel GMs, in firms’ environmental involvement, and advances our understanding of hotel environmental management in hospitality literature.

This study aims to test the role of a firm’s marketing and technological capabilities in mediating the relationship between customer involvement in information provision (CIP) and customer involvement in coproduction (CIC) and new product performance, while also investigating the impact of the interactive effect of such capabilities. This investigation is at the firm rather than the project level.

A survey-based questionnaire was distributed to senior managers from 101 Taiwanese electronics firms. The research model and hypotheses were evaluated using partial least squares structural equation modeling in SmartPLS 3.

CIP and CIC improve new product performance indirectly through the development of marketing and technological capabilities. CIP has a stronger positive effect on marketing capabilities than CIC. In addition, the interactive effect of marketing and technological capabilities on new product performance is positive and significant.

The data came from a single respondent in each firm, which may lead to common method bias. In addition, the data were cross-sectional in nature, having been collected at a single point in time. This limits the ability to draw causal inferences, as would be possible with longitudinal data. Finally, the data came from a single industry in only one country.

CIC is useful in terms of product idea generation and screening, as well as in helping to effectively learn and combine market knowledge from customers, whereas CIP takes on a more active role in strengthening marketing capabilities. Managers should understand these direct effects of CIP and CIC, as well as their indirect effects on new product performance.

Previous empirical research is largely limited to project-level implications such as innovativeness, advantages and the financial performance of a specific new product; a clear understanding of the strategic, firm-level implications of CIP and CIC in the context of new product development is lacking. The findings highlight the importance of treating CIP and CIC as continuous processes in a firm rather than viewing each in isolation to a specific project.

A Chinese proverb states: “Able people should do more work.” Although working hard is a common workplace phenomenon, does it lead to burnout in capable people? This study aims to examine the interactive effects of superior-perceived capability and subordinates’ self-efficacy on subordinate job demands, job involvement and burnout in frontline employees in the hospitality industry.

Data on 41 superiors and 161 subordinates from 16 hotels in Taiwan were collected. Hierarchical linear modeling is used to examine the research hypotheses.

The findings support the hypothesis that self-efficacy leads to high levels of burnout and job involvement. However, superior-perceived capability has no impact on subordinate job demand, job involvement or burnout. While job demands are positively related to the emotional exhaustion of burnout, job involvement is negatively related to depersonalization of burnout. In addition, job involvement partially mediates the relationship between self-efficacy and depersonalization of burnout.

Based on the job demands–resources theory, this study reveals the fresh point of view for the effect of self-efficacy on burnout. This paper explores the dark-side role of self-efficacy for burnout – higher self-efficacy leads to higher burnout – that is contrary to the findings from previous studies and hinges on Chinese cultural values. In addition, the current study provides guidelines for top managers to protect capable employees from burnout by enhancing intrinsic motivation and job involvement.

This study aims to examine in the context of high involvement exporting Mexican firms a model which suggests that a blend of absorptive and dynamic capabilities is necessary to build and sustain their competitiveness in international markets.

Data were collected from 119 high involvement Mexican exporting firms through informants. Formative and reflective constructs were validated through MIMIC models and confirmatory factor analysis using LISREL. The theoretical model was tested using partial least squares (PLS).

Results suggest that high involvement Mexican exporting firms' capacity to adapt through product design, technology management, manufacturing processes, and cooperative relationships impacts their innovation and market expansion-adaptation capabilities. Nurturing an entrepreneurship orientation is critical to build flexibility, transfer innovation to markets, and drive export performance. Ultimately, performance is determined by the firms' ability to design and develop products through the adoption of improved technologies, a deep understanding of international demands, and an ability to refocus exporting strategies as changes in competitive contexts require.

The design of exporting capabilities in this study only applies to high involvement exporting firms.

High involvement exporting firms sustain growth through the development of exploration (learning), exploitation (expansion-adaptation), and dynamic (innovation, entrepreneurship) capabilities as determinant of performance.

This is the first model that tests relationships among learning, manufacturing flexibility, and market expansion-adaptation and dynamic capabilities such as innovation and entrepreneurship and their impact on performance in high involvement Mexican exporting firms.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of various dimensions of customer relationship management (CRM) on innovation capabilities. Five dimensions of CRM (information sharing, customer involvement, long‐term partnership, joint problem‐solving, and technology‐based CRM) and five aspects of innovation capability (product, process, administrative, marketing, and service innovations) are identified. The one‐to‐one associations between the two constructs are developed and verified.

Data from 107 Taiwanese computer manufacturers are collected. Multiple regression analysis is employed to examine the effects of CRM on innovation capabilities.

The following results are offered: computer manufacturers in Taiwan perform various levels of CRM and, consequently, display different levels of effects on each of the five innovation capabilities. Generally, firms are able to increase their innovation capability by ad hoc CRM; the relationship between customer involvement and process innovation; customer involvement and administrative innovation; and long‐term partnership and marketing innovation are not significant; and technology‐based CRM has positive effects on all five types of innovation.

The findings suggest that not all CRM activities contribute to innovation programs, which clearly indicates the need for applying other mechanisms, such as supplier integration, to form a complete innovation program. Managers should align the development of their supplier management and CRM practices with the desired innovation capability.

The one‐to‐one relationships between CRM practices and innovation capabilities have not been properly examined. The findings suggest the need for more research in this area, and the statistical results provide managers with useful guidelines for implementing appropriate CRM practices to develop specific innovation capabilities to respond to enhanced competitiveness.