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This study aims to investigate how contractual vs. informal governance influences the performance of collaborative innovation projects considering their exploitation vs. exploration character.

Data are collected from a sample of 218 companies that have developed innovative projects in collaboration with other organizations. Regression models are estimated to test the hypotheses.

The results indicate that contractual governance is the most effective for co-exploitation projects compared to informal governance. Specialization in either contractual or informal governance is more effective for co-exploration projects.

Developing collaborative innovation projects with other organizations is an alternative for firms to innovate either by exploiting complementary assets or by exploring new opportunities. Thus, the success of the collaborative innovation project is significantly affected by the way the collaboration is governed. On the one hand, for co-exploitation projects, companies should rely on contracts to improve their performance. On the other hand, for co-exploration projects, governance may specialize in either contracts or informal mechanisms to reach higher performance.

Despite previous studies analyzing the effect of contractual or informal governance on the performance of collaborative innovation projects, no research has focused on comparing simultaneously these effects, by using the innovation character of the project of co-exploitation or co-exploration as a moderator. Therefore, this paper explores comparatively the most effective type of governance mechanism for co-exploitation and co-exploration projects.

This study aims to analyze the moderating role of a firm’s alliance learning capability. The aim is to investigate the comparative performance of developing exploitation (or exploration) activities in collaboration with others vs adopting a go-it-alone posture.

The authors compare high levels of co-exploitation (or co-exploration) that represent the collaboration stance vs low levels of co-exploitation (or co-exploration) that characterize the go-it-alone posture. Data were collected using a sample of 262 manufacturing firms that developed exploitation-based innovations and 239 exploration-based innovations. Regression models were used to test the hypotheses.

Empirical results suggest that the best performance is reached by firms that exploit or explore collaborating with others at high levels of alliance learning capability. In contrast, firms perform better by going alone in exploitation activities at low levels of alliance learning capability.

Firms may complement internal efforts of exploitation or exploration by co-developing knowledge with other organizations for higher performance. However, collaborating with others is not free of drawbacks, and, under certain circumstances, the go-it-alone strategy is more convenient.

This paper provides evidence of the role of a firm’s alliance learning capability in determining the differential performance of carrying on exploitation or exploration activities in collaboration with others vs adopting a go-it-alone stance. Thus, it offers an alternative perspective in the literature on organizational learning and innovation management, in contrast with the exploitation and exploration balanced perspective of ambidexterity, by explaining how alliance learning capability fosters firm performance combining exploitation or exploration at organizational and inter-organizational levels.

The purpose of this paper is to add to the existing knowledge about how firm performance is influenced by their involvement in collaborative innovation. The contextual resource-based dimensions improve the participating firm’s performance through its impact on the job-related attitudes of the firm’s personnel.

Hypotheses were tested using structural equation model to analyze a set of data collected through surveys among a sample of Colombian manufacturers.

This study provides empirical evidence that contributes to the scarce research in the open innovation arena about how human resources influence performance in the inter-organizational collaborative innovations. In particular, it offers strong support for the key mediating role of the employees’ job-related attitudes in the relationship between complementary capabilities and innovation culture as value-creating conditions, and the participating firm’s ultimate sales and financial performance.

The results may be affected by the context of the data set. Further studies considering the influence of specific contextual variables, such as the type of innovation, the national culture or the type of partner, could yield richer insights that would help validate the results of this study.

This study provides useful information for managers. As well as creating the required conditions to add value in the collaborative innovation, they should work to guarantee the better job-related outcomes for the employees involved in collaborative innovation projects.

This research contributes to the open innovation literature. It posits the employee’s attitudes toward collaborative innovations as a factor of the utmost importance in determining how the external collaboration affects internal performance.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify how responsive market orientation (RMO) and proactive market orientation (PMO) create competitive advantage.

Nonlinear and interaction effects are tested by applying hierarchical regression analysis to a sample of 272 Colombian manufacturing companies.

The results show that although market orientation promotes the competitive advantage of a business, both approaches – responsive and proactive – exhibit saturation effects and a positive interaction.

The main limitation of this study is the cross-sectional design and the use of a single source for data collection. It is suggested that future research includes different orientations combined with these two market orientations – responsive and proactive – for achieving competitive advantage. In addition, further studies could replicate this analysis for different environmental conditions.

This paper simultaneously evaluates the nonlinear and complementary effects of RMO and PMO. From a strategic standpoint, it presents an empirical confirmation of the familiarity trap, the failure trap and the positive effects of combining RMO and PMO.

This study aims to extend the proposal of Holmqvist with regard to organisational processes of learning and their impact on firm performance.

Based on a survey of 187 firms, the paper shows that certain organisational processes of learning are related to innovation performance. Further, it investigates the moderating role of product radicalness on such relationships.

Based on a survey of 187 firms, the paper shows that certain organisational processes of learning are related to innovation performance. Further, it investigates the moderating role of product radicalness on such relationships and proves that the other two types of organisational learning processes are not related to innovation performance.

The innovation performance of collaboration between firms has not received a great deal of attention in the literature. This research paper offers some guidelines on how to obtain great advantages from this collaboration.

Inter‐firm knowledge sharing and learning constitute one of the main avenues to improve supply chains' performance in today's business environment. This paper aims to examine how effective different governance mechanisms are in promoting knowledge transfer, learning and performance in supply chains.

Following on from the literature in inter‐organizational learning, transaction costs economics, business‐to‐business relational marketing, and supply chain management, a model is presented and tested using structural equations modeling. Data were collected from 219 Colombian apparel manufacturers.

This paper finds that from more influential to less, social mechanisms of governance, hostages and behavioral control favor knowledge sharing, learning and performance in supply chains. Output control exerts a negative influence on learning in supply chains.

Governance has a key role in promoting transparency and learning in supply chains. Future research should analyze whether it impacts on the firms' learning intent.

Knowledge sharing and learning have a positive influence on the supply chain's performance. Results of the study suggest that the supply chain's competitiveness lies in the adequate governance of the interfirm relationships, i.e. by using trust, hostages and behavioral control to support knowledge exchange.

Compared with studies that limit their analysis to the impact of one specific type of governance mechanism, generally trust, the paper for the first time jointly examines the role of several types of governance on knowledge‐sharing in supply chains, on learning and on performance. This allows a comparison of the different mechanisms in terms of their safeguarding and coordination role.

The purpose of this paper is to study whether the effectiveness of innovation in improving a firm's performance varies in different competitive situations and to analyze whether the competitive forces act as a motivator or as an inhibitor.

The paper formulates some hypotheses from the literature review. These hypotheses are tested using structural equation modelling with data collected from 218 manufacturers.

The findings show that small firms must invest in innovation preferably when competitive forces are more intense. Moreover it is found the positive role that market orientation plays in promoting innovation and performance, no matter the level of the competitive forces.

A decision had to be taken on the range of concepts and the domain used for measuring each concept. For future research the paper suggests considering different types of innovations (e.g. incremental vs radical) to get a more precise explanation of the set of relationships considered in this research.

SMEs have to use product innovation in accordance with their competitive situation. When competitive pressure is low, SMEs should be cautious about exaggerating investments on product innovation, whereas investments in other type of market oriented behaviours could be more productive. On the other hand, firms should focus on innovations based on market orientation when the competitive forces expose them to a harsh environment.

This paper provides a clarification of the reasons that may be behind a positive, a negative, or a non‐significant moderating effect of the firm's competitive forces on the market orientation‐product innovation relationship in small manufacturers.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the circumstances under which the retailers' use of the buying group's brand name may benefit them.

A sample of 121 retailers of home appliances, members of a buying group, provided useful information about the key variables of interest in this study through self‐administered questionnaires. That information was used to test the research model and the hypotheses proposed in the paper.

The data show that the retailer's use of the buying group's brand name is more capable of improving the retailer's economic satisfaction with the buying group when differentiation is perceived to be a source of competitive advantage, when environment is perceived as more dynamic and when the retailer is strategically integrated in the relationship with the buying group.

Sample is restricted to a limited type of retailers: retailers of electric appliances integrated in buying groups.

The implications extracted are of special interest for buying groups managers about the potential of the buying group's brand to generate value to the buying group's members.

Brand equity in business‐to‐business markets is still an under‐researched and very descriptive topic. Specifically, in the context of retailers' buying groups, the issue is completely missing. This paper reflects the current interest in brand research into non‐consumer relations by empirically demonstrating that brand equity is not only useful but also a powerful tool to explain value creation in business relationships.

With the use of unilateral control, the leader in a channel dyad (source) leads the activities of its partner (target) to achieve its own goals. Although there are numerous studies that have found a positive effect of a company's unilateral control on its own performance, the effects on the target's performance remain unexplored, even though this is essential to explain the long‐term survival of the relationship. In this research, the concept of attributed performance, defined as the fraction of its own performance that the target attributes to the relationship maintained with the source, is addressed postulating a number of hypotheses about the direct effects of unilateral control and the moderating role of the source's fair behaviour. In a sample of companies involved in channel partnerships, strong evidence is found about the positive effects of unilateral control on attributed performance, and the moderating role of the source's distributive and procedural fairness.

The purpose of this study is to develop and test a conceptual model of the moderating effect of customers’ value consciousness (CVC) on the relationship of store image (SI) with four dimensions of the perceived risk associated to the purchase of a store brand over a manufacturers’ brand, and the direct effect of those variables on the perceived unfairness of manufacturers’ brand prices.

A mall-intercept survey of 600 shoppers in Colombia (South America) gathered data on their consumption experiences of a store brand and manufacturer’s brand across six product categories and two supermarket chains.

Results suggest that SI exerts different influences on the four categories of perceived risk, the strength of which varies with value-consciousness. Perceptions of the price unfairness of manufacturers’ brands are attenuated by the financial and functional risk of buying store brands but increased by the social and psychological risk.

The findings may not be generally applicable to other shopping contexts or customers. The functional perspective on SI may mean that the results are not directly comparable with other studies adopting different perspectives.

For retailers, the key implications concern awareness and management of customers’ perceptions of relative risks and the impact of value-consciousness on the use of SI as a heuristic decision-making cue. For manufacturers, they are the need to demonstrate clear product differentiation as a rationale for higher prices.

This is the first study to encompass value-consciousness, SI, perceived risk and perceptions of price unfairness in a single field survey.