Understanding the links between technological opportunism, marketing emphasis and firm performance: Implications for B2B

The capability of firms to sense and respond to changes in technologies, called technological opportunism, is of growing importance to managers as a source of competitive advantage. However, exactly how technological opportunism impacts firm performance is still not clearly understood. Furthermore, the role of marketing in this relationship, if any, has yet to be examined. Understanding this relationship is critical for marketing managers not only for determining strategic investments of resources but also for demonstrating marketing return on activities. This paper explores the links between technological opportunism and firm performance. The results show that technological opportunism has a strong positive impact on key measures of performance such as firm sales, profits and market value. Importantly, marketing emphasis is the mechanism through which the technological opportunism-performance relationship is achieved. Finally, the impact of marketing emphasis on B2B firms is different than that for B2C firms, highlighting the importance of these activities for B2B marketing managers.     

The impacts of marketing and operations capabilities on financial performance in the UK retail sector: A resource-based perspective

Drawing upon the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm, this study investigates the relationships among marketing capability, operations capability, and financial performance. Using archival data of 186 retail firms in the UK, we find that that marketing capability has a significant impact on operations capability, and that operations capability is significantly and positively related to retail efficiency. The results also suggest that operations capability fully mediates the relationship between marketing capability and financial performance. The findings of this study provide practical insights for practicing managers to consider when developing functional capabilities in order to achieve superior financial performance.     

Stakeholder Orientation and Acquisition Performance

Research summary : In this article, we study how a firm's stakeholder orientation affects the performance of its corporate acquisitions. We depart from prior literature and suggest that orientations toward employees, customers, suppliers, and local communities will affect long‐term acquisition performance both directly and through its interactions with process characteristics, such as preacquisition relatedness and postacquisition integration. Analyses of data on a sample of 1884 acquisitions show overall a positive association between acquirers' stakeholder orientation and acquisition performance. In addition, we find support for a positive moderation of business relatedness on the performance impacts of stakeholder orientation. Structural integration has a similarly positive moderation effect only for some of the stakeholder categories. Managerial summary : Does collaboration with stakeholders during an acquisition pay off in terms of performance? The results of this research show that it is worth engaging stakeholders during the M&A process, but that the efficacy of involvement practices may depend on the type of stakeholders and the characteristics of the acquisition. While acquiring firms that take account of suppliers and local communities consistently overperform in their acquisitions, the inclusion of employees might be not beneficial (and even harmful) when the target firm operates in a dissimilar business or when managers do not plan to maintain it as a separate entity. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How does CEO tenure matter? The mediating role of firm‐employee and firm‐customer relationships

While the direct influence of CEO tenure on firm performance has been examined in the strategy literature, the underlying channels of influence have remained largely unexplored. This article draws upon the career seasons paradigm, learning perspectives, and marketing literature to examine whether firm‐employee and firm‐customer relationships are the pathways through which CEO tenure influences firm performance. Results from the analysis of a large data set reveal that: (1) CEO tenure has a positive and linear association with firm‐employee relationship strength but an inverted U‐shaped association with firm‐customer relationship strength; (2) industry uncertainty intensifies these associations; and (3) firm‐employee and firm‐customer relationship strength mediate the effects of CEO tenure on firm performance. These findings have implications for a more balanced and nuanced view of CEO tenure. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Psychosocial antecedents of communication,trust, and relationship effectiveness in new product development projects: a functional manager perspective

The basic differences between marketing managers and their technically trained counterpart managers [e.g., research and development (R&D), engineering, and manufacturing managers] in terms of work experience, training, and differing decision‐making styles have often been suggested as a source of conflict, which acts as a barrier to effective working relationships and integration during new product development (NPD) work. In this paper, we empirically explore this issue by developing and testing a model of psychosocial differences (thought worlds and psychological distance) between the two groups of managers and their effect on communication, trust, and relationship effectiveness during NPD projects. We find that while thought world differences do still matter, it was from a marketing perspective that they had a stronger effect. These findings have implications for top management trying to manage the functional manager interface during NPD projects. We propose a semi‐formalized approach to relationship building that may speed up the acquisition of social data that is often necessary to elevate working relationships to trusting ones and improve the efficiency of NPD work. Our model is tested using data from two samples, 184 technically trained managers and 145 marketing managers from Australian companies involved in NPD work.     

Managers' perception of relationship management in heterogeneous markets

Relationship management holds many promises of becoming a new paradigm in marketing and management. However, the development of relationship marketing is still difficult to accomplish in heterogeneous markets, since different management practices are needed in markets ranging from homogenous segments of customers with the same preferences to customers with individual demands for customized services. This paper investigates managers' perceptions of relationship development in heterogeneous markets. Results from a survey of 135 branch bank managers show that they perceive that the more heterogeneous the market, the more difficult to achieve relationship development. The study also finds that more difficult relationship development leads branch managers to perceive a more centralized locus of realized strategy. This suggests that firm relationship development needs to focus more on customer orientation and that realized strategies need to be at a local level to support this.     

Teamwork Barriers in Japanese High-Technology Firms: The Sociocultural Differences Between R&D and Marketing Managers

Building and maintaining internal harmony is a fundamental concern for managers in many Japanese firms. Discussions of Japanese management practices often point to the intense socialization of new recruits, the rotation of employees through different functions, and the significant role of seniority in determining salary levels and promotions. Considering this emphasis on harmony, can we reasonably assume that the orientations of Japanese R&D and marketing managers do not differ in any ways that may pose significant barriers to teamwork between their departments? X. Michael Song and Mark E. Parry test this assumption by examining the sociocultural differences between R&D and marketing managers in Japanese high-technology firms. Using responses from both R&D and marketing managers in 223 firms, their study groups the respondents’ employers as either low- or high-integration firms. They examine the sociocultural differences between the R&D and marketing managers in the study along five dimensions: time orientation, bureaucratic orientation, professional orientation, tolerance for ambiguity, and preferences for high-risk, high-return projects. Contrary to expectations, the responses reveal several significant differences between the R&D and marketing managers in this study. Compared to their colleagues in marketing, the Japanese R&D managers in this study generally have a stronger preference for high-risk, high-return investments. The R&D managers in the study also have a longer time orientation than the Japanese marketing managers. However, marketing managers from the high-integration firms in the study have a longer time orientation than their counterparts in low-integration firms. Compared to the R&D managers, Japanese marketing managers in the high-integration firms studied have a greater tolerance for ambiguity. And relative to managers in low-integration firms, marketing and R&D managers in the high-integration firms in this study typically have a more bureaucratic organization. Perhaps most important, a significant number of R&D managers in this study perceive the marketing managers in their firms to have higher organizational status. Specifically, responses from R&D managers indicate that they perceive their marketing colleagues to have higher salaries, more power, and brighter career prospects. Such perceptions may foster morale problems among R&D professionals in these Japanese firms, and thus require management intervention to ensure that R&D performance does not suffer.     

Resource acquisition strategies in business relationships

Integrating the IMP Group approach with aspects of the resource-based view of the firm, we seek to develop and test a typology of relationship strategies based on different resource acquisition foci. For this purpose, we conducted interviews with thirty CEOs and other senior marketing managers in the UK and the USA. In-depth content analysis identified five main resource acquisition strategies (RAS) behind building business relationships: money bonds, new market bonds, utilization bonds, intellectual bonds, and credibility bonds. We further carried out a quantitative study with 658 senior managers in the USA to test for the generalizability of our findings. Results of a one-way repeated ANOVA and multinomial logistic regression analysis show significant differences between the five RAS for business relationships. However, a pair-wise comparison provides evidence for the existence of hybrid strategies. In addition, an investigation of the association between the RAS of business relationships on the one hand, and business strategy on the other, revealed equifinality of alternative business strategies vis-à-vis the applied relationship strategy. Finally, our analysis revealed no significant differences between the distributions of RAS types for knowledge intensive versus non-knowledge intensive business services. However, we found that RAS distribution is significantly associated with company size.     

Is all communication created equal?: an investigation into the effects of communication mode on perceived information quality

Enhancing communication between functions is crucial to successful product development and management. Previous work in the product innovation management literature has made two implicit assumptions. First, that increasing the frequency of information dissemination from one function to the other always improves the perceived quality of the information received. The second assumption is that all types of interfunctional communication carry equal weight in the decision‐making process of the target of that communication. The current study develops a typology of communication modes, which suggests a rationale for why these assumptions may not be true. The empirical findings of the study, based on a survey of 504 nonmarketing managers indicate that the relationship between total communication frequency and perceived information quality (PIQ) is nonlinear. Specifically, the study finds that marketing managers can either communicate too little or too much with nonmarketing managers. If they interact too infrequently, they run the risk of not understanding the way to most effectively communicate market information. If they communicate too much, they may overload the manager with too much information and erode the overall quality of the information sent. In addition, some modes of communication are more effective in improving perceptions of the quality of market information. For instance, regular e‐mail sent by marketing managers seems to have no effect on perceived information quality. On the other hand, e‐mail sent with supporting documentation can have a strong positive effect on perceived information quality. Impromptu phone calls by marketing have less positive effects than scheduled phone calls. Interestingly, too much of the wrong types of communication actually seem to reduce perceptions of perceived information quality, and consequently the likelihood that market information will be used. The study also suggests that certain kinds of communication are better for manufacturing managers and others more effective in sharing information with R&D managers. For instance, disseminating information through written reports seems to reduce perceived information quality. This is particularly true for R&D managers. On the other hand too many meetings can reduce perceptions of PIQ, particularly on the part of manufacturing managers. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Firm–specific competencies determining technological innovation: A survey in Greece

This paper investigates the ‘importance’ and ‘awareness’ of firm–specific competencies as determinants of technological innovation in the context of a European newly industrialised country. A literature–based portfolio model was developed including 17 established innovation–determining factors, related to the firm’s technical, market, human resource and organisational competencies. The ‘importance’ of those factors as determinants of innovation in the Greek industry was tested with a survey of 105 manufacturing firms. Using correlation and regression analyses the author classified the competencies into ‘major importance’, ‘moderate importance’ and ‘unimportant’ ones. ‘Major importance’ determinants of innovation included the intensity of R&D, strength in marketing, proportion of university graduates and engineers in the staff, proportion of staff with managerial responsibility, proportion of professional staff with previous experience in another company and incentives offered to the employees to contribute to innovation. The ‘awareness’ of the important competencies differentiating Greek innovative companies was tested by comparing the above ‘objective’ results with the perceptions of the responding managers. The perceptual analysis confirmed the importance of the statistically–driven variables at the aggregated level. At the level of the individual variables, a number of inconsistencies were identified. The managers overestimated the importance of international work experience of professional staff and of training and underestimated the importance of the potential contribution of shop–floor employees. Relating the results to the Greek institutional context, the study’s general finding was that the important determinants of innovation were scarce in the Greek business environment. The highly innovative companies were the ones to overcome country–specific innovation barriers, such as negligible industrial R&D, general weakness in marketing, outdated educational system, limited labour mobility and cultural problems with involving shop–floor employees in the innovation process.     

Market orientation and organizational performance: A comparison of industrial versus consumer companies in mainland China using market orientation scale (MARKOR)

Although not conclusive, past empirical marketing strategy studies conducted in the United States and western European countries suggested a strong positive relationship between market orientation and a company's performance. The objective of this study is to investigate the reliability and validity of the market orientation construct in a very different socioeconomic, cultural, and business environment of Asia. Specifically, using the Kohli and Jaworski [J. Mark. 54 (1990) 1] MARKOR scale, this study investigates the market orientations of Chinese business managers who operate in a select number of industrial and consumer goods industries in urban China. Previous research has predicted a positive relationship between market orientation and performance, on the assumption that market orientation provides a firm with a better understanding of its environment and customers, which ultimately leads to enhanced customer satisfaction. Study results indicated that there were statistically significant differences between market-oriented and non-market-oriented Chinese managers in terms of their responses to market orientation scale statements. As well, a higher level of market orientation of Chinese companies operating in the Beijing area was discovered. This is rather encouraging because there is a large body of marketing literature that supports the argument that higher levels of market orientation would lead to better organizational performance. The managerial and public policy implications of the study are also discussed.     

The structure of ownership and corporate acquisition strategies

In this study, we examine in an agency‐theoretic context the influence of executive equity stakes upon corporate strategy and firm value. We argue that beneficial, risk‐increasing corporate strategies may initially be emphasized but non‐value‐maximizing, risk‐reducing strategies may subsequently be emphasized as managers expand their stock ownership. We alternatively contend that stock options may have a consistently positive impact on firm risk taking and acquisition returns. The empirical findings are supportive of our expectations. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Blocked But Not Tackled: Who Founds New Firms When Rivals Dissolve?

Research summary: This article examines the role of competitive shocks in creating opportunities for new firm foundings. I argue that the sudden dissolution of rival firms may release resources that create opportunities for firm formation, particularly among employees facing impediments to capturing value in their current organizations. Analyzing microdata from the legal services industry, I use unexpected deaths of solo‐practicing attorneys as quasi‐exogenous sources of rival dissolution. Results indicate that these shocks increase the odds of founding by about 30%, with stronger effects among attorneys with weaker social connections or higher competition for promotion. The article thus highlights the role that founders play in reallocating dissolved rivals' resources while demonstrating that founding may be an important outlet for “blocked” employees to capture value from opportunities. Managerial summary: This article finds that the shutdown and dissolution of a rival organization may spur employees to found new firms. As a consequence, managers may find it valuable to pay attention to employees' turnover intentions following the dissolution of a rival. Findings suggest that employees who are having trouble advancing in the firm may be the most likely to found a new organization when a rival dissolves, so managers may want to focus retention efforts on these individuals. To the extent that managers wish to capture customers, employees, and other resources that were formerly attached to a dissolved rival, managers may wish to be aware that they could be in competition with their own employees for these resources and opportunities. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Relationship satisfaction: An overlooked marketing channel safeguard

Transaction specific investments (TSIs) are investments that a marketing channel firm makes to create value for a particular channel relationship. TSIs transform the relationship by creating barriers to exit or lock-in situations because the investing party cannot leave the relationship without incurring substantial costs. This situation may compel the investing party to engage in opportunism to recoup the value of the specific investments, particularly when they are not satisfied with the relationship. We argue, therefore, that relationship satisfaction may serve as an important safeguard when TSIs have been made. Further, we argue that monitoring ease will interact with the moderating effect of relationship satisfaction on the relationship between TSIs and opportunism. Data were collected from 296 hotel general managers and 37 hotel headquarters' field representatives in the U.S. and Canada to test these possibilities. We found that relationship satisfaction indeed serves as an important safeguard, particularly when the partner has difficulty in monitoring the firm.     

Factors influencing the relative importance of marketing strategy creativity and marketing strategy implementation effectiveness

It seems logical that performance is maximized when a business produces a creative marketing strategy and achieves marketing strategy implementation effectiveness. However, cultural tensions and resource competition may make it difficult, or impossible, to achieve both. Contingency theory suggests that market and/or firm level influences may exist that make one or the other more important. Thus, it is important for researchers to investigate those conditions so that we can provide managers with guidance regarding where to allocate their resources. The study reported in this article assesses the impact that environmental conditions and business unit strategy have on the relative importance of marketing strategy creativity and marketing strategy implementation effectiveness. We discuss implications for managers and scholars.     

Managerial ties and firm performance in an emerging economy: Tests of the mediating and moderating effects

Although the literature documents the direct effects of managerial ties on firm performance, the empirical results are divergent and inconclusive. To explain these disparities, this study (1) develops and tests a model that establishes the role of external resource acquisition as a salient mediating mechanism through which managers’ business and political ties influence firm performance; and (2) examines the moderating role of environmental turbulence that further explains the impact of managerial ties on resource acquisition (the mediator). Results from a survey of 253 firms in China indicate that resource acquisition plays a partial mediating role in the relationships between the two sub-dimensions of managerial ties and firm performance. Environmental turbulence shows a curvilinear (i.e., inverted U-shaped) moderating effect on the business ties–resource acquisition relationship, whereas it dampens the positive effect of political ties on resource acquisition. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

The Effect of Increased Regulation on Capital Costs and Manual Labor Requirements of Nuclear Power Plants

The purpose of this study is to expand previously published work in examining the attitudes of financial managers towards the investment tax credit. This article specifically investigates and analyzes the perceptions that financial managers have with respect to the impact of the ITC in the input allocation decisions of the firm. This research indicates that financial managers do not believe that the ITC is an important inducement to investment behavior. More importantly, the ITC does not often result in employing capital that requires hiring additional employees. However, this research indicates that there might be an important exception to this. There appears to be a marked relationship with respect to those who stated that the ITC resulted in purchasing new technology and respondents who staled that the ITC resulted in increasing employment. In limited cases, therefore, the ITC appears to lead to an expansion o1 the work lorce through capital formation.     

A dynamic capability view of marketing analytics: Evidence from UK firms

While marketing analytics plays an important role in generating insights from big data to improve marketing decision-making and firm competitiveness, few academic studies have investigated the mechanisms through which it can be used to achieve sustained competitive advantage. To close this gap, this study draws on the dynamic capability view to posit that a firm can attain sustained competitive advantage from its sensing, seizing and reconfiguring capabilities, which are manifested by the use of marketing analytics, marketing decision-making, and product development management. This study also examines the impact of the antecedents of marketing analytics use on marketing related processes. The analysis of a survey of 221 UK firm managers demonstrates: (a) the positive impact of marketing analytics use on both marketing decision-making and product development management; (b) the effect of the latter two on sustained competitive advantage; (c) the indirect effect of data availability on both marketing decision-making and production development management; and (d) the indirect effect of managerial support on marketing decision-making. The research model proposed in this study provides insights into how marketing analytics can be used to achieve sustained competitive advantage.     

How anticipated employee mobility affects acquisition likelihood: Evidence from a natural experiment

This study draws on strategic factor market theory and argues that acquirers' decisions regarding whether to bid for a firm reflect their expectations about employee departure from the firm post‐acquisition, suggesting a negative relationship between the anticipated employee departure from a firm and the likelihood of the firm becoming an acquisition target. Using a natural experiment and a difference‐in‐differences approach, we find causal evidence that constraints on employee mobility raise the likelihood of a firm becoming an acquisition target. The causal effect is stronger when a firm employs more knowledge workers in its workforce and when it faces greater in‐state competition; by contrast, the effect is weaker when a firm is protected by a stronger intellectual property regime that mitigates the consequences of employee mobility. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Enhancing organizational sensemaking: An examination of the interactive effects of sales capabilities and marketing dashboards

Current marketing research highlights the direct effects of marketing resources on firm performance. Few studies, however, examine how such resources interact with one another and contribute to the strategic actions, such as sensemaking. In this study, we investigate how sales capabilities and performance monitoring via marketing dashboards influence a firm's sensemaking. The results from our study suggest that sales capability and the use of marketing dashboards not only contribute directly, but also have an interactive effect, highlighting the importance of integrating both sales and marketing operations. Further, we find evidence that sensemaking influences cost control and enhances customer relationship performance, suggesting that sensemaking has the potential to simultaneously impact both cost efficiency and growth.