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There are different views on how to gain a sustainable competitive advantage (SCA) for firms. This topic has become an important research area in strategic management. The purpose of this paper is to provide an approach for Chinese firms to use as a springboard to identify sources of SCA through marketing innovation.

Based on a cursory review of the generic literature on how to gain SCA, this paper considers innovation as a primary source of a firm's competitive advantage. From a practical viewpoint, marketing innovation is identified as a significant source of SCA, especially for those firms operating in the dynamic and competitive Chinese economic environment. Through an analysis of marketing innovations at the Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd in China, an approach is developed to help managers identify their unique sources of SCA through marketing innovation.

This study reveals marketing innovation results from a considered analysis of the various marketing factors in the environment and the inter‐relationships between these factors. Subsequently, new sources of SCA can be identified, based on a firm's previous sources of competitive advantage. In this process, different types of competitive advantage are viewed in a holistic framework, which provides the basis for improving firm performance.

The approach developed in this paper offers a basis for managers to identify their firm's unique SCA through marketing innovation.

The paper provides insights for academics and professionals in the field and adds to the literature on emerging economies and SCA.

Previous studies focus on the direct effects of marketing analytics on entrepreneurial performance, but few explore the underlying mechanisms. Drawing on affordance theory, this study explores pathways through new product innovation (NPI) for the effects of marketing analytics on business performance. NPI is a market-based innovation concept comprising customer- and competitor-driven NPD and incremental innovation.

Using survey data collected from UK-based entrepreneurial firms operating in the IT and telecoms industries, we apply confirmatory factor analysis and a sequential structural equation model to test the mediating role of NPI in the effect of marketing analytics on market performance and financial performance.

The results show that marketing analytics enhances business performance through competitor-driven but not customer-driven NPD. Although using marketing analytics to generate customer knowledge for existing product innovation may enhance market performance, this positive effect becomes negative when competitor-driven NPD is undertaken to improve existing product innovation.

This study makes significant contributions to the innovation and NPD literature. It delves deeper into the existing view on the positive contributions of customer engagement to business value creation, revealing the significance of competitor knowledge to enhance business performance through marketing analytics, particularly in the context of IT and telecoms entrepreneurial firms.

This study aims to investigate an under-researched area, an international marketing perspective, based on international dynamic capability, environmental sustainability and organizational marketing performance in gamification and non-gamification-based organizational culture (OC). This paper deepens the understanding of gamification-based and non-gamification-based OC influence on innovation capability and environmental and organizational marketing performance through the theory of organizational creativity and the theory of administrative behavior (AB).

The authors collect data from firms that abide by the ISO 14091 certifications to ensure the proper quality standards. Primary data from 384 firms are used to test the hypotheses. The results would help firms invest in technological solutions by practicing creativity over time. Additionally, the study helps explore how AB is critical in steering technological creativity for making firms climate-conscious.

The study's findings identified that OC has a positive influence on technological innovation capabilities and environmental innovation capabilities. Technological innovation capabilities have a beneficial impact on environmental sustainability. Environmental sustainability appears to have a substantial correlation with technological innovation skills. Environmental innovation capabilities positively impact environmental sustainability and organizational marketing performance. A moderating effect of gamification on the international dynamic capabilities within a relationship between organizational culture and environmental innovation capabilities exists.

The investigation is confined to understanding how gamification-based and non-gamification-based organizational marketing culture affects innovation capability, environmental sustainability and organizational performance through the lens of theory of organizational creativity and theory of AB.

The purpose of this study is to propose a model of a value cocreation strategy (VCS) for analyzing how enterprises adopt innovative, marketing, and design strategies to achieve their performance goals through cocreation.

In the present study, a case study was conducted to establish a preliminary model. Subsequently, 1,000 NPD project managers in information and communications technology industries were approached to complete a two-stage questionnaire survey. The first survey investigated the VCSs they adopted for their marketing, innovation and design activities (valid questionnaires recovered=283). The valid respondents completed a second survey measuring their NPD performance 18 months after launching a new product (valid questionnaires recovered=247).

A conceptual was constructed to explain the effects of innovation marketing and design cocreation strategies on NPD performance. A partial least squares method was used to test the model showing a good fit between the model and the survey data, indicating the applicability of the proposed model. The innovation marketing and design cocreation strategies of the enterprises affected their NPD performance. Enterprises adopting diverse cocreation strategies improved their NPD performance. The cocreation strategies in the model were independent and mediating variables to NPD performance. A qualitative comparative analysis was performed to examine which strategy configurations affected NPD performance and to explore any regular patterns in them. Finally, a cluster analysis was conducted to investigate four cocreation strategies: market development, technology improvement, cost direction and customer service.

Whether different industry categories involve different characteristics and whether different corporate cultures cause inconsistent result in value cocreation warrants further in-depth investigation. In addition, the two surveys conducted in this study were separated by 18 months, and thus, only the short-term NPD performance could be presented. Future studies are recommended to conduct an extensive exploration of different industries, administer long-term surveys, investigate the different levels of influence of various types of enterprise on the proposed research model or examine the degree of difference in the mechanisms and methods adopted for elevating innovation performance.

Enterprises can reference the proposed approach to optimize their product development and services according to their organizational resources and market advantages to increase their market coverage.

This study was the first empirical study to examine critical factors, such as product innovation, marketing, design and value cocreation strategies, and NPD performance by administering two-stage surveys. Enterprises can reference the proposed method according to their organizational resources and market advantages to develop products and services efficiently and face the ever-changing market.

Previous research focused on open innovation (OI) suggests that enterprises benefit from adopting the journey; however, the relationship among OI, marketing journey and knowledge-intensive innovation marketing activities (KIIMA) remains unclear. The present study proposes a conceptual model of the marketing journey linking heterogeneous modes of marketing collaboration to knowledge-intensive activities.

The conceptual model was tested via ordinary least squares (OLS) linear regression based on a sample of data drawn from the Eurostat database.

The results indicate that strategies are a robust proxy for evaluating KIIMA, and partnerships, heterogeneous sources of knowledge and different marketing modes for collaboration among European knowledge-intensive firms are core antecedents of KIIMA, such as new-product development and marketing innovation, as well as firms' sustainable competitive advantage.

This study fills the gap by tracking the role of the journey within marketing collaborations on KIIMA, and it intervenes in the debate about interactive marketing innovation mechanisms. The study contributes to OI, knowledge management and the marketing literature by identifying the heterogeneous modes for marketing collaborations under which the marketing journey enhances knowledge-intensive activities such as those for marketing innovation.

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the concept of innovative marketing and how it manifests itself in the context of small‐to medium‐sized enterprises.

The literature relating to the characteristics of SMEs, and innovative marketing are reviewed to identify the key elements of innovative marketing and SMEs. This review and the key elements identified contribute to an overall conceptualisation of innovative marketing for SMEs.

The discussion considers and provides a description of innovative marketing in SMEs. Innovative marketing does not just relate to products, new product development, and technological development but is also evident in other aspects of marketing related activities and decisions and is very specific to the context and needs of the SME.

The focus of this paper is on taking the relevant themes from the literature and considering them in the light of SME marketing and in the context of SME business activities.

The purpose of this paper is to adopt a customer‐centric value creation perspective to provide insights into the contribution of business orientations, especially marketing orientation and innovation orientation to the creation of customer‐centric value (customer equity and brand performance).

To undertake this examination, a model was developed and then tested to validate its applicability in the context of both developed and developing economies. The paper includes partial least squares.

The findings demonstrate that being marketing‐oriented and innovation‐oriented appears to be important in creating customers, keeping them, and increasing add‐on selling to them and rewards the firm with greater brand performance in the marketplace. Importantly, these relationships are universally held across developed and developing business environments. Interestingly, marketing orientation was found to contribute more to the creation of customer‐centric value than innovation orientation in developing business environment, whereas the opposite was found in the context of developed business environment.

The data incorporate only the subjective measures of customer‐centric value. Future studies can use financial measures to complement the self‐reporting approach used in this paper. This dual‐approach to measuring the value of customers to the firm (customer equity) and brand performance would provide additional insights into the customer‐centric marketing literature.

The findings suggest that managers should strive to develop a high level of marketing orientation and innovation orientation as two efficient ways to achieve higher levels of customer equity. They are also advised that if their firms are more effective in acquiring potential customers, retaining current customers, and enhancing add‐on selling, they see their brands perform better. Importantly, the findings also provide guidance for managers on how to allocate their resources to key business activities (e.g. marketing and innovation) in the context of international business (developing versus developed business environments).

This study contributes to customer‐centric marketing theory by enhancing understanding of the contribution of marketing and innovation to the creation of customer‐centric value in different business environments. This study also contributes to the business orientation literature by demonstrating the utility of a cultural‐behavioral approach in measuring marketing orientation and innovation orientation.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how specialised capabilities including absorptive capacity and marketing capabilities influence innovation commercialisation in manufacturing and service firms in Nigeria. The authors hypothesise that absorptive capacity measures including openness and formal training for innovation, and marketing capabilities encompassing new product marketing and marketing innovation are positively associated with innovation performance.

The authors examine commercialisation of innovation within the profiting from innovation (PFI) and dynamic capabilities (DC) framework and use data from the 2012 Nigeria Innovation Survey to test the hypothesis by means of a Heckman sample selection model.

The authors find that absorptive capacity measures comprising openness and formal training are positively associated with innovation performance. The authors also find that marketing capabilities as indicated by new product marketing and marketing innovation are positively associated with innovation performance.

The authors acknowledge that firms undergo continuous changes and that there may be the presence of unobserved or unmeasured heterogeneity. Taking into cognisance that Nigeria is a federal state, cultural diversity and economic factors are likely to differ widely between geographical regions. Also, while the proposed conceptual framework offers a deeper understanding of innovation performance, examining how integrating activities of the R&D department, human resource department and marketing department affect innovation commercialisation is likely to provide more meaningful insights.

The role that inter-organisational learning and intra-organisational learning play in driving innovation performance provide managers with a basis for incorporating absorptive capacity building programs that boost employees’ ability to recognise and apply valuable external knowledge to commercial ends. Similarly, firms may benefit from offering marketing capabilities development programs. Furthermore, innovation policies in Nigeria are generally designed to focus on fostering innovation activities aimed at developing innovative output. Accordingly, government support explicitly targeting new product marketing and marketing innovation is likely to play a vital role in the successful commercialisation of innovation in Nigeria.

This study fuses the PFI and DC framework to examine why innovating firms may not necessarily succeed. This area of study has received scant attention in sub-Saharan Africa given that extant literature focusses on value creation as opposed to value capture.

This study aims to offer and validate an integrated marketing capability-product innovations framework. Particularly, it aims to examine the role of adaptive marketing capability in enabling market ambidexterity and incremental as well as radical product innovation. Also it intends to investigate the moderating role of transformational leadership between adaptive marketing capability and market ambidexterity.

Manufacturing firms in Pakistan, an emerging economy, are taken as the context for this study. A designed survey questionnaire is used for data collection. Partial least square technique is employed to empirically validate and test the hypothesized model with a sample of 192 manufacturing firms. Particularly, the two-stage approach in SmartPLS is used to validate measurement models, and structural equation modeling technique is used to test the proposed hypothesis.

The findings not only confirm that adaptive marketing capability is instrumental to both incremental and radical product innovations but also reveal that adaptive marketing capability serves an important antecedent to market ambidexterity shedding new lights on its mediating role in the relationship of adaptive marketing capability with incremental and radical product innovations. Moreover, the results find that the effectiveness of adaptive marketing capability to support market ambidexterity may involve a possible trade-off between exploitation and exploration when the leaders exhibit a low or high level of transformational leadership behavior.

This study contributes to outside-in strategic perspective and contextual ambidexterity literature by revealing the role of adaptive marketing capability as an important enabler of market ambidexterity which, in turn, allows the firm to simultaneously introduce incremental and radical product innovations. In this way, this study advances the current understanding of the antecedents and consequences of contextual ambidexterity. Also, this study provides insight into the types of capabilities needed for the firm's contextual and employees' behavioral adaptation to simultaneously manage exploitation and exploration within the same business unit which was lacking in the previous literature. Further, this study also offers a novel understanding of the conditional role of transformational leadership between adaptive marketing capability and market ambidexterity.

Briefly reviews previous literature by the author before presenting an original 12 step system integration protocol designed to ensure the success of companies or countries in their efforts to develop and market new products. Looks at the issues from different strategic levels such as corporate, international, military and economic. Presents 31 case studies, including the success of Japan in microchips to the failure of Xerox to sell its invention of the Alto personal computer 3 years before Apple: from the success in DNA and Superconductor research to the success of Sunbeam in inventing and marketing food processors: and from the daring invention and production of atomic energy for survival to the successes of sewing machine inventor Howe in co‐operating on patents to compete in markets. Includes 306 questions and answers in order to qualify concepts introduced.