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This study investigates the role of functional area-specific managerial schemas on the attempt of strategic renewal at a large medical devices developer and manufacturer during a period of high environmental dynamism. Using data from a 16-month field study on managerial work related to the strategy process, I examine how functional area managers attempted to (re)configure organizational capabilities in response to various environmental challenges. While I did not find any disagreement between functional area managers related to what those challenges were, I did find fundamental disagreements related to what capabilities the organization can muster as a response. More specifically, disagreements surfaced in relation to how these capabilities should be assembled, and ultimately acted as triggers for the contestation of existing shared frames between functional area managers. These findings add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that there exist large differences between how managers within an organization interpret what the organization is capable of, and more specifically link these differences to the organization’s ability to adapt to environmental changes by showing how they impact the assembly of new capabilities deemed necessary for a successful response.

The purpose of this research is to review empirical research on customer involvement in innovation and identify future research directions that can better connect this research with marketing strategy literatures and offer opportunities for further theoretical development.

We conduct a review of empirical articles published in eight leading marketing and innovation journals between 2001 and 2017.

The review shows that the literature on customer involvement in innovation is highly diverse and fragmented, lacking a common understanding of what constitutes customer involvement in innovation and its theoretical underpinnings. There exists a multitude of conceptualizations of customer involvement in innovation, which limits effective accumulation of domain knowledge. A large number of studies have taken the customer’s perspective to examine their motivation to participate and ability to contribute, whereas less research has been done from the firm’s perspective to understand how firms may effectively manage the well-recognized challenges of customer involvement as well as the implications of customer involvement for long-term innovation strategy and overall performance. Based on the review, we offer recommendations for future research.

We identify important questions for future research that are highly relevant for the practice of customer involvement in innovation.

We provide a systematic review of the rapidly growing empirical research on customer involvement in innovation. We evaluate key points of differences in the literature and offer a synthesis that helps identify opportunities for future research.

This chapter addresses the dynamics in inter-organizational relations. The authors probe the value networks so prevalent within contemporary ­manufacturing to put forward that their basic cooperation/competition duality manifests itself in practical terms as capability, appropriation, and governance paradoxes. The authors conducted a longitudinal ethnographic study aimed at capturing the process by which inter-organizational collabor­ation in ­manufacturing value networks is enacted. Our study finds that inter-organizational relations are “nested” in that a relationship plays out over an interpersonal network where the inter-organizational relationships are a framework for action, while simultaneously interpersonal interactions affect how the inter-organizational relationships take shape and evolve. Furthermore, we found that inter-organizational dynamics is essentially a stratified process. Solving particular and concrete problems at the surface level, with regard to specific collaboration issues between organizations, simultaneously shapes truces with regard to the underlying capability, appropriation, and governance paradoxes.

After pioneering, but insular, work on the conceptualization and measurement of customer value in business markets undertaken in the 80s and 90s, interest in this topic is substantial since the beginning of this decade. Despite this recent interest, marketing scholars concur that value in business markets is still an under-researched subject. This contribution to the debate is threefold. The paper first proposes an own model of customer value conceptualization in business markets; based on several rounds of testing this theoretically grounded model in managerial practice indications exist to conclude that this model may offer benefits over current models.

Secondly, the paper provides a comprehensive survey of pricing approaches in industrial markets. The paper integrates this literature overview with own empirical findings. Concurrently the paper summarizes extant research on the link between pricing approach and profitability in industrial markets. The paper thirdly proposes a framework for value delivery and value-based pricing strategies in industrial markets. Proposing such a framework is both useful as well as necessary. Useful, since this framework guides new product development and pricing decisions and assists in the implementation of price-repositioning strategies for existing products; necessary, since the theoretical and practical adoption of value-based delivery and pricing strategies may have suffered from the lack of a unifying conceptual framework. Two case studies, one involving the pricing decision for a major product launch at a global chemical company, the other involving value delivery at an industrial equipment manufacturer, illustrate the practical applicability of the proposed framework.

This paper makes a contribution to the discussion on micro-foundations of dynamic capabilities – actions and interactions in organizations that enable continuous organizational renewal. More specifically, we propose the idea that dynamic capabilities of an organization are a positive function of corresponding dynamic capabilities of individual and collective actors in the organization. Further, we develop the assumption that not only individual acts of managers but also those of individuals and teams without managerial responsibility relate to dynamic capabilities of the organization. Following a holistic view, we also take into consideration empowering working conditions as an enhancing factor of this function. To examine these roots of dynamic capabilities, we use a multi-level model of competence provided by Wilkens, Keller, and Schmette (2006) that operationalizes the concept of dynamic capabilities provided by Teece (2007) on a concisely behavioral base. We investigated our hypotheses with a standardized questionnaire in a case study of a German plant engineering company with 112 participants and found primary support for our assumptions. Our results show an impact of individual dynamic capabilities on dynamic capabilities of the organization that is mediated by team dynamic capabilities. Psychological and social–structural empowerment moderated this relationship. A case-specific interpretation and implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Strategy researchers have become fascinated with the possibilities for developing theoretical perspectives rooted in knowledge and intellectual assets as drivers of superior performance. However, there have been many different schools of thought, each with its own conceptualization lenses and operationalization approaches. In this chapter, we focus on three schools of thought: (1) knowledge as stocks; (2) knowledge as flow; and (3) knowledge as a driver of an organizational capability. We use them to: (a) lay out the distinct approaches to conceptualization and operationalization of strategy-related concepts; and (b) identify specific ways to enhance theory-method correspondence. We believe that considerable progress could be made towards developing a knowledge-based view of strategy but only when accompanied by serious attention to measurement and methodological issues.

Intent refers to a firm's initial propensity to view collaboration as an opportunity to learn (Hamel, 1991, p. 90). Comparing the intent to form alliances between Western and Japanese firms, Hamel indicates that most Western firms possess substitution intent to substitute their competitiveness in a specific area for their own lack of skills, whereas the Japanese partners seem to have explicit learning intent to actually internalize their partners’ skills. When the internalization intent is strong in a company, the skills and knowledge acquired from the partner are important to the growth of the whole company (Hamel, 1991). However, if both partners possess equal intent to internalize the other's skill, distrust and conflict may occur to threaten the stability of alliances (Hamel, Doz, & Prahalad, 1989; Madhok, 2006).

Understanding the impact of marketing-related investments on market-based assets is a fundamental issue for marketers. In this study we address the relationship between product-related investments and communication-related efforts, with respect to a basic intangible market-based asset: consumer-based dimensions of brand equity. We draw from a longitudinal study of pre-purchase brand attribute data derived from consumer panels, conducted within the context of the U.S. automotive market. Brand equity dimensions are statistically related to marketing investments and contextual factors of “region of origin” and “global brand reach,” employing a seemingly unrelated regression model. The results reveal a positive effect of communication-related investments, as measured by annual advertising expenditures, on all dimensions of brand equity except luxury image. Product-related investments, as indicated by a brand's innovativeness, positively affect brand image but negatively affect perceived economy. Region of origin and global brand reach have mixed effects on the consumer-based dimensions of brand equity.

We challenge the premise that the CEO's job is to keep the corporation alive and thriving at all costs and under all circumstances. We briefly review the differing normative views of strategic management theorists and organizational theorists about organizational inertia. We then develop an economic model of incumbent behavior in the face of challenger competition that accommodates complementary assets. The model predicts and describes conditions under which organizational inertia, as subsequent organizational failure, is optimal. We then extend the logic and propose that the failure of entrepreneurial firms does not necessarily imply the failure of entrepreneurs. We conclude with a call to study “exit” as a viable strategic option.