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The purpose of this paper is to bridge the gap in understanding the effects of external involvement on new product market performance. Particularly, the authors investigate the mediating effects of speed-to-market of new products and moderating effects of information technology (IT) implementation.

This study is based on the high-performance manufacturing (HPM) project database collected from 366 manufacturing plants in ten countries and three representative industries. The hierarchical regression analysis is employed to explore the relationships in the model.

The empirical findings indicate that speed-to-market of new products positively and significantly mediates the relationship between customer involvement and new product market performance. The results also demonstrate that IT implementation moderates the relationship between external involvement and speed-to-market of new products. More importantly, the findings reveal that supplier involvement is less likely to lead to the enhancement of speed-to-market if the firm is not able to establish a higher level of IT implementation.

This analysis uncovers the way of how customer and supplier involvement are related to new product market performance, and highlights the importance of IT implementation in absorbing and exploiting external resources.

This paper moves us from a simplistic understanding of external involvement to a more nuanced and complex model which is closer to reality. The obtained findings highlight the importance for manufacturers to establish speed advantage of new products and implement IT as an enabler.

The purpose of this article is to present a model that compares the switching costs that consumers face when they buy pioneering and follower products.

A study of 255 new products indicates that switching costs are actually higher when switching from an existing product to a pioneering product.

The study shows that people who buy a pioneering product may also face switching costs, if the pioneering product is launched in an existing category where consumers are already familiar with similar products.

The results help to reinforce the view that first movers have advantages and demonstrate that switching costs do not lead to a higher level of consumer retention.

This study provides interesting managerial implications on how to launch new products more effectively when they suffer from switching costs..

Researchers commonly view switching costs as a barrier to market entry that protects enterprises that launch pioneering products and gives them a competitive advantage over those that launch follower products. The underlying idea is that people only experience switching costs when they change to a different follower product, rather than when they purchase a pioneering product instead of the product that they usually purchase.

Owing to intensifying competition and changing trends, the process of new product development has become increasingly important to competitiveness in the brewing industry. Consumers are now demanding more innovative products, thus requiring brewers to find better and quicker ways of introducing new products. This paper through the use of two case studies, aims to capture the essential attributes of new product development in the brewery industry.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the antecedents of speed to market (SM). Further, a model was established on SM with the organizational variables of enacting organizational environment (EOE), organizational infrastructure (OI), project complexity (PC) and creation of collective mind (CCM).

This research was based on structured survey questionnaire data of 415 managers from private and public sector firms in India. The data analysis was carried out with SPSS 20 and AMOS 18 for structural equation modeling.

Research results indicated that the exogenous factors were EOE and OI. PC and CCM were the intervening variables and SM was the endogenous variables. The result indicated that there was significant positive relationship between EOE and PC, EOE and CCM. There was also a significant positive relationship between the variables EOE with PC, OI with PC and CCM with PC. Finally there existed a significant positive relationship between PC and SM and CCM and SM.

This research study was one of the first research studies developing a model on SM with the exogenous variables of EOE and OI and the intervening variables of PC and CCM.

The managers in both public and private sector organizations looking to create and sustain competitive advantage by providing a fast and apt response to market demand by product development can use the inputs from the study. Organizations should be developed in such a manner to enrich the EOE and have a agile and flexible OI. This would help organizations in having CCM and undertake PC. A well-coordinated effort encompassing all these would help the organization to have a fast and steady SM.

This research was one of the very first studies relating SM with EOE, OI, PC and CCM in an emerging market context.

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.

This paper reports on the findings of a study of the development of 63 new products in 36 electronics firms in Ireland. The firms range in size from fewer than ten to over 1,000 employees. They all operate in the electronics sector, developing and manufacturing a variety of products from completely integrated systems to discrete components. A series of questionnaires and interviews was used to collect historical life cycle data of new products. The results presented in this paper focus on the management of the product development process. The relationship between the development process and new product success or failure is examined. The differences between the management of product development in small and large firms are also explored. Small firms report a new product success rate comparable to that of larger firms, suggesting that the factors that are linked to the success of new products may be related to firm size.

Current marketing theory and practice have recognized that exchanges between buyers and sellers are frequently embedded in social relationships. Despite the vast body of research on interorganizational exchange, there has been little effort to address the role of larger social networks in which business‐to‐business services firms operate. This paper seeks to present a model of how social network theory can help in understanding why some services firms manage to reinvent themselves and continue to succeed in a business‐to‐business environment, while others are slow to change and decline.

Drawing on 81 in‐depth interviews conducted with general managers/chief executive officers operating in information technology, and biotechnology business‐to‐business services contexts, we consider the relative importance of both network strength and network openness in driving business performance.

The authors identify both network strength between firms and openness towards new actors as underpinning competitive advantage in business‐to‐business services.

Data were collected for service firms operating in two different industries in two regions. The paper underscores the importance of examining the network properties that connect exchange partners when discussing firm performance in business‐to‐business service contexts.

The paper makes a series of important contributions to the small, but growing literature on services networks and has direct implications for managers.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the underlying impacts of customer orientation on new product development (NPD) performance. Further, this study investigates the moderating effect of top management support (TMS) on the customer orientation-performance relationship.

This study as a unique approach has classified customer orientation into three sub-dimensions: customer focus, customer involvement and communication with customers. And the NPD performance is explored both from financial and nonfinancial aspects.

Based on a sample of 366 high performance manufacturing firms across ten countries, the obtained results of hierarchical moderated regression analyses reveal that customer focus, customer involvement and communication with customers have significantly positive effects on both financial and nonfinancial performance of NPD; TMS positively moderates the relationship between multiple dimensions of customer orientation and NPD performance.

The research extends the customer orientation literature by describing three dimensions of customer orientation and empirically testing their effects on NPD performance. This study also contributes to a deep understanding of the influence factors of NPD performance, both from the financial and nonfinancial aspects. The proposed framework provides a fine-grained analysis to help us understand in what way the customer orientation is linked to performance outcomes.

This study is innovative because it seeks to make a contribution to existing literature from a theoretical perspective by investigating the sub-dimensions of customer orientation and moderating role of TMS.

Examines the strategic implications of a retailer engaging in the in‐house sourcing of its products (vertical integration). A contextual model for the make‐or‐buy decision is developed. Through the use of case material concerning a vertically integrated manufacturer/retailer, Thorntons, the article explores how the model might explain the pattern of vertical integration adopted by a specific organization and the strategy’s implications for competitiveness and strategic development. Problems are identified, including those of maintaining a retail focus, resource leverage and possible difficulties in responding to longer term market developments.

This paper aims to examine the effect of financial bootstrapping strategies (FBS) and strategic improvisation (SI) on business performance (BP). The study enriches our understanding of the contributions of bootstrapping and improvisation strategies toward resource-constrained small businesses during real economic downturns and crises. The potential moderating effect of SI on the relationship between FBS and its dimensions and performance were also examined.

Using the convenience snowball sampling technique, data were collected from entrepreneurs in Tripoli, Libya. Structural equation modeling by means of partial least square bootstrapping resampling was used for the hypotheses testing of the 147 useable responses.

Statistically significant positive relationships were found in the direct relationships between bootstrapping and improvisation with performance. However, there was no significant association found between the delaying payment related bootstrapping and the owner-related bootstrapping with performance. The moderating effect of improvisation had a significant relationship between bootstrapping as an aggregate construct and its dimensions and performance.

Due to the cross-sectional nature of this study which used a small sample that was randomly selected, generalization to the entire population of business ventures should be made with caution.

The negative moderation effect of improvisation on FBS-BP association suggests that entrepreneurs need to be careful in balancing the two strategies so that efforts are no wasted.

While business performance has been studied in various organizations, its examination with financial bootstrapping strategies as a predictor and strategic improvisation as a moderator contribute nascent theoretical insights.