Integrating service and design: the influences of organizational and communication factors on relative product and service characteristics

The aim of this study is to identify the organizational and communication antecedents, and evaluate the consequences on relative product and service characteristics, of the use of service-sourced information by product designers during new product development. An empirical study of 121 product design managers demonstrates that a firm’s market orientation is improved by a healthy working relationship between product designers and service employees. Such a relationship motivates designers to use service-sourced information disseminated to them, enhancing both product and service characteristics of the new offering. The authors discuss how communication channels and information content affect the information use of product designers. Product designers value written information most. Information use does not relate to the frequency of receiving verbal or electronic information. Information about product ergonomics positively influences product designers’ perceptions of the information, whereas information on product aesthetics negatively influences their perceptions.

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The market value impact of indirect ties within technology alliances

Researchers have typically studied the relationship between technology alliances and market value from a direct tie or dyadic perspective. Yet any given technology alliance is typically embedded in a network of indirect ties created by the alliance partners’ relationships with other firms. We argue that whether an indirect tie enhances or detracts from the market value a firm creates in a technology alliance depends upon factors related to inter-firm competencies at both an alliance- and partner-level of analysis. Empirical analysis of abnormal stock returns reveals support for the hypothesized contingent relationship between indirect ties and value creation within technology alliances. Theoretically, the paper clarifies opposing perspectives in the literature regarding the performance implications of indirect ties and identifies market value as a hitherto unrecognized effect associated with this type of tie. Managerially, the findings improve marketers’ ability to leverage the complex interactions that occur between technology alliances in a value-creating manner.

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Institutional changes, wars and stock market risk in an emerging economy: evidence from the Israeli stock exchange, 1945–1960

In an effort to understand the determinants of economic growth in an emerging economy, we analyze the effects of institutional reforms, wars and political events on the risk level of the Israeli stock market between 1945 and 1960. We find that the anticipation of wars did not have any effect but the end of skirmishes actually raised the risk on the stock market. Domestic political instability also increased the stock market risk. Finally we find that most legal reforms did not matter much.

The Crash of 1882 and the Bailout of the Paris Bourse

The crash of the French stock market in 1882 presented the Paris Bourse with its worst crisis of the nineteenth century. Its structure was similar in key respects to today’s futures markets, with a dominant forward market leading the Bourse to adopt a common fund to guarantee transactions and liquidity. While this mutualization of risk protects clients and brokers from idiosyncratic shocks, it is generally assumed that it also provides considerable protection against systemic shocks, as no twentieth century exchange has been forced to shut down. Using new archival data, this paper shows how a stock market crash overwhelmed the Bourse’s common fund. Only an emergency loan from the Bank of France, intermediated by the largest banks, prevented a closure of the Bourse.

The desired level of market orientation and business unit performance

Existing studies of market orientation have hypothesized that the strength of the market orientation/performance relationship depends on environmental variables such as market turbulence, technological turbulence, and competitive intensity. To date most empirical studies have failed to confirm these hypotheses; however, these studies (1) assumed that performance is a linear function of the achieved level of market orientation and (2) tested whether environmental uncertainty moderates this relationship. A complementary explanation for the impact of environmental variables on a firm’s market orientation arises from studies of organizational behavior that link the need for coordination and control to environmental uncertainty and organizational strategy. Building on this perspective, the authors argue that (1) environmental uncertainty influences the desired level of market orientation and (2) the gap between the desired and achieved levels of market orientation influence business unit performance. The authors test these hypotheses with data collected from multiple respondents in 308 US firms. The data analysis confirms that the desired level of market orientation is a function of market turbulence, competitive intensity, technological turbulence, and innovation strategy. In addition, the desired level of market orientation positively influences the achieved level. Finally, when the achieved level of market orientation is less than the desired level, business unit performance is a negative function of the gap between the desired and achieved levels of market orientation.

The effects of mid-career military enlistment on civilian career prospects: evidence from the Australian banking industry during World War II

This paper uses personnel records of employees from an Australian bank to analyse the labour market consequences of career interruptions due to voluntary military service during the Second World War. The records contain the employees’ career position and pay histories, and pre-war outcomes are used to control for selection bias caused by non-random enlistment. It is shown that, despite losing human capital during the War, upon their return veterans did not face a wage penalty relative to non-volunteers. Finally, evidence from non-wage outcomes suggests that the absence of a wage penalty was a form of positive discrimination by the Bank.

Panic in the plains: agricultural markets and the panic of 1893

Nearly every previous study of the 1893 bank panic acknowledges its regional concentration in the Western states yet few provide any in-depth study of what caused such a distinct regional pattern. Here, I recast the 1893 crisis as having its origins in agricultural markets and then spreading to Western banks that were highly exposed to agricultural shocks. Negative shocks to agricultural yields and the relative importance of the wheat crop for specific states emerge as important explanations for the regional pattern of bank closures and thus for the panic itself.

Romer revisited: long-term changes in the cyclical sensitivity of unemployment

In this paper we employ microeconomic evidence on the unemployment experiences of American males to evaluate the sensitivity of unemployment to business cycle fluctuations in the late nineteenth century as compared to the mid-twentieth century. Our results indicate a substantial decline in the value of the Okun coefficient (from −0.65 to −0.32) between the 1890s and the 1960s. These findings challenge Christina Romer’s interpretation that the measured decline in cyclical volatility of unemployment over the twentieth century was created by improvements in the statistical record. Rather, it was changes in the underlying dynamics of the labor market over the cycle, most notably the transition to procyclical productivity patterns and the shift from an added to a discouraged worker effect among secondary workers, which may be summarized as the development of modern labor market behavior, that account for the declining cyclical sensitivity of employment and the drop in the cyclical volatility of unemployment over the century.

Marketing with integrity: ethics and the service-dominant logic for marketing

This paper examines a tendency within existing marketing scholarship to compartmentalize ethical issues. It also shows how this tendency can cause ethical tensions and conflicts in marketing practice. The emerging service-dominant (S-D) logic for marketing, as proposed by Vargo and Lusch, is explored as an example of an approach to marketing that overcomes this tendency. The S-D logic is found to be a positive development for marketing ethics because it facilitates the seamless integration of ethical accountability into marketing decision-making. Specific recommendations are made for improving the ethical climate in marketing using marketing performance measurement theory and practice.

Marketing and innovation in the Drucker Management System

Peter F. Drucker is well known for stating that there is only one valid purpose of a business: to create a customer. And that there are only two basic business functions: marketing and innovation. The body of material on management that he produced contains frequent references to this purpose and these functions, but Drucker never distilled the specific tasks within his management approach that result in implementing this purpose and these functions. This paper distills the executive practices and tasks that are necessary to implement this purpose and these functions and it does so using a systems framework.

Harmonizing conflict in husband–wife purchase decision making: perceived fairness and spousal influence dynamics

To market important products to families successfully, salespeople must understand how couples behave in concert to resolve conflict across major decisions. The authors develop a model of spousal fairness and test it with a study of multi-period family purchase decision making. The results show that a spousal sense of fairness serves as a mechanism for contemporary couples to harmonize conflict over time in family decisions. Specifically, spouses’ perceived fairness mediates the relationship between spousal prior influence and spousal decision behavior in subsequent decisions. Spouses also consider their partner’s perceptions of fairness when taking action to restore fairness. Moreover, the effects of perceived fairness are moderated by spousal traits of empathy, egalitarianism, and empowerment in a gendered pattern.

The treatment effect of borders on trade. The great war and the disintegration of Central Europe

This paper investigates the impact of changes in national border demarcation on economic integration. It treats the national breakups in Central Europe due to WWI as a natural experiment. The set-up allows to control for selection bias when estimating the impact of national borders on trade. A gravity model of trade is used to analyze goods-specific trade among Central European regions. The main results are, first, that systematic deviations of the observations under “border treatment” are found. Regions pairs that became separated by a new national border after WWI, tended to have below average levels of economic integration already before the war. A comparison of actual and biased result for goods-specific trade yields a difference of between 21 and 86% ad-valorem tariff equivalent, and might well be higher for certain goods. Second, the analysis indicates that cross-border integration was indeed lower after WWI but that this change was economically significant only for certain sectors. Third, in the interwar period, international trade was less diverted by borders first established after the war than by borders existing already before WWI. The results stress the importance of relative barriers to trade in attenuating the adverse effects of WWI on economic integration.

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Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Understanding West German economic growth in the 1950s

We evaluate explanations for why Germany grew so quickly in the 1950s. The recent literature has emphasized convergence, structural change and institutional shake-up while minimizing the importance of the postwar shock. We show that this shock and its consequences were more important than neoclassical convergence and structural change in explaining the rapid growth of the West German economy in the 1950s. We find little support for the hypothesis of institutional shakeup. This suggests a different interpretation of post-World War II German economic growth than features in much of the literature.

The effect of market orientation and its components on innovation consequences: a meta-analysis

While there is a rich body of research on market orientation’s effect on business performance, much little attention has been given to its effect on innovation consequences. This is the first meta-analytic effort to study the independent effects of market orientation components (customer orientation, competitor orientation, interfunctional coordination) on innovation consequences. Also, it is the first meta-analysis to study the impact of contextual characteristics on the way market orientation affects innovation consequences. The study finds that market orientation components positively affect innovation consequences but that competitor orientation’s effect depends on a minimum level of customer orientation. The study also suggests that the relationship between market orientation and innovation consequences is stronger in highly competitive environments but weaker in technology turbulent ones. Finally, findings suggest that the relationship is stronger in large firms, service companies, and in countries characterized by high individualism and high power distance national cultures.

See no evil,hear no evil,speak no evil: a study of defensive organizational behavior towards customer complaints

Despite substantial benefits of an effective complaint management for companies, there is ample evidence that many firms do not handle customer complaints appropriately. This paper aims at providing a theoretical explanation for this surprising phenomenon. Drawing on psychological and organizational theory, the authors introduce the concept of defensive organizational behavior towards customer complaints as well as provide a rich conceptualization and operationalization of this phenomenon. Moreover, in an empirical study, they systematically analyze how defensive organizational behavior towards customer complaints is driven by organizational antecedents and, based on a dyadic data set, how it affects customer post-complaint reactions.

The quest for a fiscal rule: Italy, 1861–1998

The Italian fiscal history is characterised by a number of fiscal consolidations. In this study, we characterise fiscal policy in terms of non-linear deterministic processes. We find that government spending and taxes can be described as being non-linear trend stationary processes instead of unit roots. A long run equilibrium relationship—a non-linear co-trend—does exist between the two series, fulfilling the intertemporal government budget constraint. We interpret this result as evidence of a long run fiscal rule that different policy makers have adopted, putting public finance in balance.

On the importance of matching strategic behavior and target market selection to business strategy in high-tech markets

Business strategy is fundamentally concerned with the actions required to create superior customer value in the firm’s target markets with the ultimate goal of achieving superior performance. Marketing theory suggests that two critical marketing activities required to achieve this end are: (1) the adoption of appropriate strategic behaviors (i.e., customer-oriented, competitor-oriented, technology-oriented) and (2) targeting of the appropriate market segments (i.e., innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, laggards). This study builds on prior research which demonstrates that the strategic behavior—firm performance relationship is contingent on the firm’s strategy by examining this relationship in high tech markets and by considering the incremental contribution of appropriate target market selection. Responses from 160 senior marketing managers in high-tech firms reveal strong support for our framework. Thus, this study provides useful guidance to executives and managers in high-tech firms regarding the steps that they should take to increase their probability of success.

From preventive to permissive checks: the changing nature of the Malthusian relationship between nuptiality and the price of provisions in the nineteenth century

The Malthusian “preventive check” mechanism has been well documented for pre-industrial England through evidence for a negative correlation between the marriage rate and the price of wheat. Other literature, however, speculates that the correlation was in fact positive from the early nineteenth century. This paper uses the cointegrated VAR model and recursive estimation techniques to document the changing relationship between nuptiality and the price of wheat from 1541 to 1965. The relationship is indeed positive from the early nineteenth century to the First World War. A simple theoretical model shows that this result is not in fact inconsistent with a stylised Malthusian mechanism, and can be understood within the context of an increasing dominance of shocks to aggregate demand rather than to aggregate supply.

Structural change and growth accelerations in Asia and Latin America: a new sectoral data set

Recent studies of economic growth have moved from explaining average trends in long-term growth to study growth accelerations and decelerations. In this paper we argue that the standard shift-share analysis is inadequate to measure the contribution of sectors to accelerations in productivity. We present a modified shift-share method, which takes account of surplus labour in agriculture and accounts for the contribution to growth from expanding sectors. We apply this novel methodology to the GGDC 10-sector database, which is a new data set with annual time series of value added and persons employed for the ten main sectors of the economy. The data set covers 19 countries in Asia and Latin America spanning the period from 1950 to 2005. We find that growth accelerations are explained by productivity increases within sectors, not by reallocation of employment to more productive sectors. Challenging conventional wisdom, productivity improvement in market services is more important than productivity growth in manufacturing.

Product intelligence: its conceptualization,measurement and impact on consumer satisfaction

In the last decade, companies have developed a large number of intelligent products. Due to the use of information technology, these products operate somewhat autonomously, cooperate with other products, or adapt to changing circumstances. Based on a literature review and interviews with practitioners, the present article conceptualizes product intelligence and describes a procedure to measure the construct. The article also explores the link of product intelligence to consumer satisfaction through the innovation attributes of relative advantage, compatibility, and complexity. The article considers practical and theoretical implications and identifies future research directions.