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Successful firms are important sources of productivity, employment and economic stability in societies. As the micro-level origins of firm innovations are increasingly attracting attention amongst innovation scholars, the purpose of this study is to investigate the role of managerial innovativeness, i.e. small firm managers' innovative behaviour for firm performance. Specifically, the present study investigates managerial innovativeness as a predictor of small firms' product innovativeness and market performance.

This research model suggests that managerial innovativeness is positively linked to firms' market performance and that product innovativeness partially mediates the relationship between managerial innovativeness and market performance. The model was tested using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) with a dataset (N = 93) collected from small logistics firms in South-Eastern Finland.

The findings support the authors' hypotheses and show that managerial innovativeness had a direct effect on firms' product innovativeness and market performance. The authors also found that firms' product innovativeness mediated the relationship between managerial innovativeness and firms' market performance.

This is one of the few studies that shed light on and show that managerial innovativeness is significantly and positively related with small firms' product innovativeness and market performance, whereas earlier research tended to focus on managers' personalities, traits, characteristics or managerial actions, leaving managerial innovativeness unexplored.

Organisational innovativeness is a broad concept involved in a firm’s proclivity to innovate. As such, widely varying conceptualisations and operationalisations of this construct appear to be the main cause of major deficiencies in the research of organisational innovativeness determinants. This article suggests a shift in emphasis from organisational to product innovativeness. After defining this concept, it selectively addresses how the investigation of product innovativeness as a dependent variable could contribute to further research and theory development. The benefits of such an investigation are far from restricted to the recommendations made herein. However, such recommendations are meant to intrigue scholars into conducting similar investigations on product innovativeness, a rather overlooked aspect of organisational innovativeness.

This study attempts to reveal product platform strategy via business-to-business (B2B) platform ecosystems. The authors advance the views of platform ecosystems in the innovation literature by introducing a contingency perspective that underscores the role of market, organizational and technological innovativeness in product platform strategy.

This study explores three contingent factors, specifically market innovativeness, technological innovativeness and organizational innovativeness that affect the product platform strategy of high-tech firms. The theoretical model is empirically validated using survey data from 191 high-tech firms.

Using a data set of high-tech manufacturing firms, the results show that product platform strategy is positively related to firm performance. Additionally, the results provide evidence supporting the positive moderating effect of the three-way interaction among market, organizational and technological innovativeness on the contribution of product platform strategy to firm performance.

A platform product strategy is a determining factor in firm performance that requires firms to have a “fit” with their innovation activities. This study contributes to theoretical development at the intersection of product platform strategy and innovativeness.

When firms seek to align their technological innovativeness with their organizational innovativeness, the benefits of such innovativeness may be more pronounced in a platform product context. Moreover, the results may help guide platform managers and decision makers in identifying and securing appropriate innovation activities to enhance product platform strategies.

This study provides a product platform strategy in B2B platform ecosystems and shows how different innovation activities interact to improve the product platform strategy.

Most research on branding highlights the role of associations for a single brand. Many firms, however, have multiple brands and/or different versions of one brand. The latter is largely the case for many corporate brands. This paper aims to broaden the understanding of corporate brand associations and their transfer within the firm’s brand and product portfolio. In particular, this paper also examines the concept of corporate brand innovativeness and the influence of brand architecture as supportive and restrictive boundary conditions for its transfer.

This conceptual paper explains the nature, benefits and challenges of corporate brand innovativeness within the context of a firm’s brand architecture. On the basis of a literature review, the authors provide an overview of the domain and derive avenues for future research.

Research and practice have not fully realised the importance of corporate brand images for supporting a firms’ product portfolio. In particular, (corporate) marketing managers need to consider the potential value of favourable perceptions of corporate brand innovativeness across products and the moderating role of brand architecture.

More empirical research is needed to understand the reciprocal relationship and transfer between corporate and product brand associations and equity.

A corporate marketing perspective allows firms to use corporate brand associations to support products and services for that brand. This paper discusses perceived corporate brand innovativeness as one particularly important corporate brand association.

The authors discuss the use of corporate brand associations under the consideration of brand architectures and boundaries and draw on several research streams in the brand management literature. Much of the branding and innovation literature centres on the product level; research on corporate brand innovativeness has been relatively neglected.

This paper aims to examine whether perceived brand innovativeness has a positive effect on new product evaluations, which individual variables mediate and moderate this effect and whether perceived brand innovativeness is reinforced by new product launch.

A total of 387 adults residing in France took part in a two-stage study. The two-stage research design aimed to investigate the effect of the introduction of a new product on brand perceptions. The innovation context used to test the hypotheses was the launch of a new electricity meter in the French market.

Brand innovativeness affects the way consumers evaluate new products launched by the brand. This effect is mediated by perceived newness and moderated by functional, hedonic and social consumer innovativeness. In addition, attitudes toward the brand improve as a result of the new product launch.

Future research should test these hypotheses with other product categories and populations to provide external validity for the results and further investigate lack of support for some of the hypotheses.

The study’s findings highlight that the ability to develop and launch innovative products is not only know-how that is critical to innovation management but also a brand attribute stored in consumers’ minds that facilitates acceptance of the brand’s future new products.

This research addresses the underexplored question of how brand innovativeness and new product launch are interrelated. Extensive research has indeed shown the importance of customer-based brand equity and brand knowledge in evaluation and acceptance of new products. However, research on customer-based brand equity so far has paid limited attention to brand innovativeness. This research provides new findings on the relationship between brand innovativeness and new product evaluations.

This article aims to examine the impact of leadership styles on new product development (NPD) and how product innovativeness of NPD projects moderates this impact. The results reveal the implications of different product innovativeness for leaders of NPD projects in achieving successful outcomes.

Data were collected through a questionnaire survey of NPD team members who were involved in NPD. Participants were employees from different departments, including research and development (R&D), quality control (QC), production and marketing. These individuals worked in innovative manufacturing industries such as automotive and auto parts and electronics.

Results show that transformational leadership has a significantly positive effect on new product success and NPD speed, whereas transactional leadership has a significantly negative effect on both outcomes. Furthermore, the positive impact of transformational leadership on new product success for high innovativeness is stronger than for low innovativeness. In addition, the negative impact of transactional leadership on both new product success and speed for high innovativeness is stronger than for low innovativeness.

First, the sample size was fairly small because of limited access to middle-level management and low willingness to share information involving the firms' production. Second, since both transformational and transactional leaderships are multidimensional, each dimension may affect performance in different ways. Third, the respondents were mainly from a single department which could omit varying perspectives.

The research findings provide recommendations on how different leadership styles support team members to effectively perform NPD tasks in either high or low innovativeness.

This study extends the theory of leadership by providing a holistic understanding of how leadership styles affect NPD performance. It also extends the understanding of how the impact of two different leadership styles on NPD performance is moderated by product innovativeness.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the moderating impact of product innovativeness on the new product market success‐organizational integration relationship. Design/methodology/approach – A mail survey research approach was used that gathered 131 completed survey instruments from NPD managers in the electrical products, medical devices, and the heavy construction equipment industries. Findings – This research confirmed that organizational integration during NPD processes and the innovativeness of new products are associated with new product market success. This study also discovered that product innovativeness does not moderate the organizational integration‐new product market success relationship.

This study's findings may not be generalizable to industries beyond those studied, the studied relationships may change when new product projects are appended to one another, and it may be necessary to take into account several dimensions of product innovativeness to ascertain the relationship between product innovativeness and new product market success.

This study's results imply organizational integration can be increased to increase the market success of new products; new product developers should integrate marketing and R&D during NPD projects; and the innovativeness of new products can be increased without affecting the organizational integration‐new product market success relationship. Originality/value – The investigation of the following research questions contributes to NPD knowledge. How is new product market success related to NPD organizational integration? How is new product market success related to a product's innovativeness? To what extent does the innovativeness of new products moderate the relationship between new product market success and organizational integration?

This study aims to draw on the malleable nature of processing fluency to identify the role of consumer expectation in generating diverging effects of metacognitive experiences on perception of product innovativeness and product evaluation. It also examines critical boundary conditions to offer a more sophisticated understanding of the interactive effect of expectation and processing fluency.

Studies 1, 2A and 2B recruited 1,922 online participants, and Studies 3 and 4 recruited 644 college students. The authors manipulated product innovativeness expectation by exposing participants to expert reviews of new products, and processing fluency by presenting product detail in either easy-to-read font/color contrast or difficult-to-read font/color contrast. Subsequently, perceived product innovativeness and product evaluation including actual product adoption were measured.

When a product was expected to be innovative (ordinary), feelings of difficulty with processing its detail increased (decreased) perceived innovativeness and, in turn, interest in purchase. The observation occurred only when a credible external source (vs firms) generated the innovativeness expectation or consumers’ elaboration level was not high. Furthermore, when innovativeness became associated with negative implications, perceived innovativeness no longer enhanced but impaired purchase intention.

Studies used incrementally new products only. Really new products involving a high adoption risk might produce a diverging effect. The findings need to be replicated with higher involvement products. An ideal level of difficulty with comprehending product information was not examined in the present research.

Results carry significant weight for firms who seek to draw consumer attention to their new products by choosing an optimal format of product presentation. The findings suggest that they can proactively administer a proper level of ease/difficulty with comprehending product detail depending on the extent of product innovativeness and target audience.

Extant research has not addressed how the malleable nature of processing fluency systematically affects innovativeness perception and product evaluation. The key contribution of this paper to the metacognition literature is the role of consumer expectation that alters the meaning of metacognitive experiences in relation to innovativeness perception. In addition, this is one of the first to empirically investigate perceptual processing fluency in the elaboration likelihood model theory.

Recent technological turbulence stemming from Industry 4.0 provides managerial opportunities and challenges simultaneously. In this context, the purpose of this study is to explore the role of technological opportunism on innovativeness and discover the impact of innovativeness on new products performance in international markets.

To empirically test the hypotheses, the authors have collected survey data from 237 Korean exporting firms and applied structural equation modeling.

Empirical results indicate that technological opportunism, which represents technology sensing and responding capability, has a positive and significant influence on both exploratory and exploitative innovativeness. Also, explorative and exploitative innovativeness have positive and significant effects on new product performance in international markets.

This study highlighted the importance of technology sensing and responding capabilities to capture emerging opportunities, which may arise from Industry 4.0 technologies. In addition, sensing and responding capabilities will help a firm create a culture that values innovative proclivity, and in turn, will lead to superior new product performance in international markets.

Despite extensive scholarly interest in Industry 4.0, previous studies have neglected to address the potential impact of Industry 4.0 within the domain of new product development and its performance. Also, there have been several calls from the literature to address the managerial and strategic issues surrounding the Industry 4.0 phenomenon. In this study, the authors attempted to fill the research gaps in Industry 4.0 research studies through empirical examination.

This paper aims to examine how consumers’ perceptions of innovativeness affect an important brand performance metric: consumer brand loyalty. Specifically, the mediating role of perceived quality in this relationship is explained using signaling theory.

The conceptual model was tested in two empirical studies for three global consumer electronics brands in two product categories. Data were collected using a mall-intercept approach from consumers at a major shopping precinct in a metropolitan city. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The results provide compelling evidence for the proposed mediation relationship. Study 1 shows that perceived quality fully transmits the impact of brand innovativeness on to brand loyalty. Study 2 confirms this mediation relationship.

The results can help product managers in their brand management and promotion of new products.

Emerging research on consumer-level effects of innovativeness provides conflicting advice regarding how consumers’ perceptions of brand innovativeness affect intangible assets such as loyalty toward the brand. The present research reconciles contradictory findings in the literature by uncovering a different route through which consumer perceptions of brand innovativeness affect a key brand performance metric: brand loyalty. Specifically, the present study fills an important knowledge gap in the innovativeness literature and deepens our understanding of the relationship between brand innovativeness and brand loyalty by empirically examining and confirming the role of a hereto overlooked intervening variable, perceived quality.