Externally Directed and Internally Directed Market Launch Management: The Role of Organizational Factors in Influencing New Product Success

Introducing new products remains a critical challenge for managers. Consumer acceptance of new products is key to new product success and requires the effective implementation of market launch activities. The present study describes the relationship between different types of market launch activities and market‐related, time‐related, and financial market launch success. The study's framework extends previous work on launch management by complementing the view that launch activities are predominantly outwardly directed with the notion that launch management can also be inwardly directed. More specifically, launch activities can both target customers as the external audience, for example, via communication and pricing, and address an internal audience, such as management and sales personnel, for example, using departmental coordination or employee incentives. The study also sets out to investigate how situational factors impact the relative effectiveness of both externally directed and internally directed launch activities in engendering successful new product launches. In particular, product newness, technology drivers, and firm size are considered as relevant variables. Structural equation analysis of data on 178 new products across industries provide empirical evidence that market launch success depends on the intensity of both externally directed and internally directed market launch activities. With regard to the overall impact of internally directed activities, the findings confirm that organizational factors and antecedents indeed play a critical role in new product launch and its respective performance with internally directed activities having an even stronger impact on time‐related and financial success than outwardly directed instruments. Specifically, these internal activities are often viewed as idiosyncratic resources that are hard for competitors to observe and are therefore more difficult—if not impossible—to replicate compared to externally directed activities in market launch. The paper clearly pinpoints that the successful launch of new products is a complex task that also necessitates the implementation of internally directed launch activities. Fast market penetration requires coordination among the different internal players as well as support from top management. Furthermore, the financial objectives of the market launch can only be met if employees and executives both receive the necessary incentives and support to effectively execute the new product introduction. The study also demonstrates that moderators impact the strength of the effectiveness of these two different types of market launch activities. This research provides important implications for launch management by advocating that the two foci on external and internal constituencies should not be pursued in isolation but that instead, the opposite is true.     

The Conceptualization of Nonprofit Marketing Orientation: A Critical Reflection and Contributions Toward Closing the Practice–Theory Gap

In this article three generations of research addressing the marketing construct in nonprofit organizations are critically analyzed: (a) market orientation in nonprofit organizations, (b) societal orientation, and (c) research contributions aiming to close the existing practice–theory gap on this topic. A qualitative study among 24 nonprofit marketers is conducted in Canada and Germany to develop a construct labeled nonprofit marketing orientation. It includes the dimensions of brand orientation, supporters’ orientation, commercial orientation, and service orientation. Furthermore, the authors describe the nomological net of nonprofit marketing orientation to present interconstruct relationships and to inform future research.     

The taste for variety: A hedonic analysis

This paper derives a hedonic price function for a household's consumption bundle. In a panel-data analysis for households' expenditures on 182 different soft drinks we find that consumers have a preference for variety in food consumption, ceteris paribus.     

HYSTERESIS AND THE NAIRU IN THE EURO AREA

This paper analyses the Nairu in the Euro Area and the influence that hysteresis had on its development. Using the Kalman‐filter technique we find that the Nairu has varied considerably since the early 1970s. The Kalman‐filter technique is applied here using explicit exogenous variables. In order to test for hysteresis, the dependence of the Nairu on actual unemployment and long‐term unemployment is estimated and found to be significant for the Euro Area and Germany, respectively. The existence of hysteresis effects implies the possibility of a long‐run non‐superneutrality of monetary policy.     

OVERTIME WORK AS A SIGNALING DEVICE†

This paper provides an explanation for the empirically proven relationship between overtime and future benefits. We suggest an internal signaling model, in which a worker signals his value to the employer by supplying unpaid overtime. In our empirical analysis, we examine whether overtime has in fact a signaling component. Variations in collectively bargained hours between industries are exploited, as they imply different overtime thresholds for workers with the same number of actual hours. Using data from the German Socio‐Economic Panel Study for the years 1993–2004, a positive signaling value of unpaid overtime is found for West German workers.     

Courts and contract enforcement in transition agriculture: theory and evidence from Poland

The paper investigates theoretically and empirically the role of courts for contract enforcement in transition agriculture. In a survey of 306 Polish farmers conducted in 1999, only 38.5% respondents reported to believe that they could use courts to enforce contracts with their most important customer. Furthermore, those who believed the legal system could be used would accept significant financial losses before taking action. We develop a theoretical model, based on the costs and benefits of court enforcement, which captures the boundary between contracts to be regarded as 'enforceable' and 'not-enforceable' and, simultaneously, the threshold of taking legal action. The empirical analysis strongly supports our model: (1) the farmers' responses can be explained by cost-benefit calculations regarding the use of courts, (2) the legal 'enforceability' of contracts depends not only on the efficiency of the legal system but also on the attributes of the transaction, the contracts and the relationship between buyer and seller and (3) the threshold of taking legal action is significantly influenced by indirect costs of court enforcement, such as the disruption of a valuable business relationship, and by the availability of alternative enforcement mechanisms.     

Transforming Human Resources in the New Economy: Developing the Next Generation of Global HR Managers at Deutsche Bank AG

This article illustrates how global player, Deutsche Bank, has managed to achieve a change of direction for its HR function: becoming a strategic partner to the business. Follow the authors step by step in this transformational process to see how this change management program developed from strategy to action, making every HR professional at DB a change agent. Find out how strategic competency definition, human resource development, and state‐of‐the‐art information technology acted as levers to engage Deutsche Bank's HR community on this journey. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

To Go or Not to Go: Emigration from Germany

Abstract. This study analyses the qualitative aspects of emigration from Germany, taking account of economic and non-economic reasons. The reported willingness to emigrate from Germany in the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) is explained for men and women by three groups of variables: individual characteristics, household characteristics and regional characteristics. It transpires that the educational background and West German residency positively affect the willingness to emigrate, whereas German nationality, age and the family situation are mostly negatively correlated with it.     

Bildungsinvestitionen – wirksames Heilmittel gegen soziale Ungleich heit?

Despite the educational expansion since the 1960s and the rise of the average education level, there has been no significant decrease in education inequality or in its persistence across generations during the past decades in Germany. This depressing realisation is not held by all authors; some others identify positive developments in education. The explanation for underinvestment in people is that these investments generate only long-run returns. In order to reduce social inequalities, further investments in education are necessary. These investments should be target oriented and focus on reducing inequalities in the use of early education and care institutions, as well as on increasing the quality of these institutions. Individuals with lower education levels should be especially targeted to participate in further training, because higher formal qualifications will both insulate them from labour market risks and generate a more favourable social environment for their children. Furthermore, there should be more investments into education at the regional level. Large imbalances in regional participation in further education and training highlight the lack of local universities to act as a local push factor. Fast internet access in rural areas and “freeing” time resources through sabbaticals could improve participation in lifelong learning.