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to overcome country–specific innovation barriers, such as negligible industrial R&D, general weakness in marketing, outdated educational system, limited labour mobility and cultural problems with involving shop–floor employees in the innovation process.     

Differential Potency of Factors Affecting Innovation Performance in Manufacturing and Services Firms in Australia

Whether or not industrialized nations are experiencing a fundamental shift from a manufacturing- to a service-based economy may be a matter of debate. However, the service sector is clearly growing at an explosive rate, particularly in comparison with manufacturing. With this in mind, we need to better understand how the successful development of new services differs from that of new products. Such understanding requires identifying the critical success factors for new service development (NSD), as well as contrasting them with the factors underlying successful new product development (NPD). Kwaku Atuahene-Gima describes the results of a study comparing the innovation activities of Australian services firms and manufacturers. The study explores managers' perceptions of the factors necessary for successful NSD and NPD. In addition to comparing the differing perceptions of managers of services firms and manufacturers, the study highlights implications of these differences for managers striving for improved NSD. Services and manufacturing firms focus on similar factors for improving innovation performance. However, the relative importance of those factors depends on the type of firm. The critical factor for services—the importance accorded to innovation activity in the firm's human resource strategy—ranks third in importance for manufacturers. Manufacturers focus primarily on product innovation advantage and quality. In contrast, service innovation advantage and quality ranks third in importance for service firms. Surprisingly, technology synergy is found to have a negative effect on new service performance. If a new service is a close fit with a firm's current technologies, competitors will likely be able to quickly imitate the new service. As a result, NSD efforts based on technology synergy will not provide a competitive advantage. Compared to manufacturers, successful service firms must place greater emphasis on the selection, development, and management of employees who work directly with the customer. Through effective self management, these contact personnel shape the quality of the customer relationship. In addition, their close contact and potentially long-term relationships with customers make such employees an important source of new ideas in the firm's NSD process. Such relationships also cast contact personnel in a make-or-break role in the launching of new services.     

What Factors Determine International Real Estate Security Returns?

We use constrained cross-sectional regressions to disentangle the effects of various factors on international real estate security returns. Besides a common factor, pure country, property type, size and value/growth factors are considered. The value/growth measure that is used in this paper provides for each security the relative importance of the value and growth components, rather than a binary classification. The value/growth factor is found to be volatile and to have a substantial effect on returns over the period February 1990–April 2003. Country factors are the dominant factors, and size is shown to have a negative impact on returns. Statistical factors derived by means of cluster analysis explain about one third of specific returns on international real estate securities. The implication for portfolio managers is that failing to recognize the importance of the various factors leads to the portfolio being exposed to systematic risk.     

Identifying and prioritizing critical success factors for conflict management in collaborative new product development

Conflict management is crucial to the success of client-supplier collaborative new product development (NPD). This paper examines the critical success factors of conflict management in collaborative NPD. Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), the importance of 4 categories of success factors, namely relationship management, conflict handling system, new product development process management and communication, totally 13 factors, are prioritized. The results show that communication management, trust and commitment to the collaboration are the most important factors. Based on the factors identified, a hierarchy model of conflict management is proposed, with which clients and suppliers can formulate action plans for better conflict management.     

上海旅游业创新能力影响因素评价模型研究

采用结构方程模型建立评价指标体系,对上海旅游业创新能力的影响因素进行评价,模型中的路径系数即为上海旅游业创新能力影响因素的重要程度,影响旅游业创新能力的关键因素包括企业核心文化、行业惯例、行业内体制、产业内运作流程等因素。     

Competition in government and industry procurement contracting

This study explores government and industry procurement official's perception of inhibiting factor importance to competition in Federal contracting. Within the government sector as well as the industrial sector there are no significant differences in perceived factor importance. However, between the industry and government sectors significant differences in perceived factor importance do exist. The study also reveals some commonality of factors identified by both sectors as important inhibitors to competition.     

Buyers differ in evaluating suppliers

This article discusses the industrial buyer's vendor evaluation in light of past vendor performance. A conjoint analysis approach was used to determine the relative importance of factors and the levels of performance. This evaluation indicated that industrial buyers can be classified into classical decision model categories.     

Segmenting buyers in different types of organizations

Organizational type is presented as a potentially important company specific characteristic that affects the organizational buying process. Factor analysis and multiple discriminant analysis are utilized to demonstrate that differences in the importance associated with purchasing related factors exist among purchasing managers from commercial, non-for-profit, and government organizations. Finally, the managerial usefulness of organizational type as a macrosegmentation variable is discussed.     

Why are there glitches in product development?

Managers and scholars emphasize the importance of inter‐departmental integration to successful product development and emphasize the importance of product development capabilities to firm performance. Interdepartmental integration can increase shared knowledge; this in turn can reduce the severity and incidence of seemingly unnecessary and costly mistakes leading to more efficient and effective product development. This paper examines the sources of shared knowledge problems across functional and product‐based groups. Using interviews, product development plans, and time‐sheet data, we look at the underlying factors behind two sources of knowledge sharing problems: (1) a serial product development process (i.e. little or no face‐to‐face communications) and (2) ineffective use of integrating mechanisms because of sticky knowledge. For each problem source, we find two key causal factors. We discuss the problems, their factors, and the implications for management and theory.     

Top manager and network effects on the adoption of innovative management practices: a study of TQM in a public hospital system

This paper reports findings from a study that combined two theoretical perspectives—top manager and network/institutional—to examine the factors influencing organizations to adopt innovative management practices. The study setting was a system of public hospitals and the innovation was Total Quality Management (TQM). Study results indicate that both top manager and network/institutional factors are important determinants of whether and when organizations adopt innovations. However, as predicted, the relative importance of these two sets of factors appears to change as an innovation becomes more widely diffused. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Empirically testing ES success factors in business process reengineering

Previously proposed success factors for Expert Systems implementation are field tested in the context of business process reengineering (BPR) projects. Due to its nature mimicking human expert behavior, ES technology applications in BPR provide a unique opportunity to study major organization changes within a relatively short time. Using Pearson correlations and multivariate regression analysis, eight ES implementation success factors proposed in the literature were empirically tested in this study in terms of their importance to the BPR benefits derived from the application. Sixty-two ES applications within E.I. Dupont de Nemours and Company dealing with business process changes significant enough to be called BPR were used. Despite the relatively small sample size, six of the eight success factors were corroborated: user satisfaction with the ES, the importance and difficulty of the business problem addressed, user attitudes toward ES technology and the particular ES project, the degree of user involvement in the ES implementation process, and the ES developer(s) skills.     

A new perspective on a fundamental debate: a multilevel approach to industry,corporate, and business unit effects

We utilized a multilevel approach to both estimate the relative importance of industry, corporate, and business segment effects on firm performance, as well as to demonstrate how it enables the investigation of specific strategic factors within each class of effects. Our results confirmed previous findings suggesting that although business segment effects carry the most relative importance, industry and corporate effects are also important. Among the findings regarding specific factors, we found that industry concentration and munificence, as well as the resource environment provided by corporate parents, impact performance. These findings suggest that investigators should consider both industry and corporate environments when examining performance. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Critical success factors in coopetition: Evidence on a business network

Coopetition in the literature of business networks has been discussed as a base strategy to potentiate competitiveness. This research investigates the main inter-relationship factors among the companies that are part of a network involving cooperation and competition, as well as their relationship in coopetition. This research discusses these questions through a review of the literature on coopetition and its application in business networks, basing the analysis on the critical success factors (CSF). Our analysis is conducted in the gastronomic industry, obtaining results through an exploratory investigation, conducted by applying the model suggested by Petter (2014) in a business network, attesting the means of the critical success factors and their correlations on the suggested dimensions and on coopetition. The main results for the critical success factors in coopetition indicate the importance of governance to maintain business networks, of cooperation to leverage innovative competencies, and that companies that have lower competencies regarding financial resources are more engaged in cooperation.     

基于服装陈列的消费行为研究

随着服装市场竞争日趋激烈、越来越多的服装企业开始意识到以消费为主导的市场竞争策略的重要性。在对服装陈列相关要素和消费者购买行为的相关理论进行分析的基础上,采用定性和定量相结合的方法,总结归纳出对消费者购买行为产生重要影响的服装陈列的各个因子。在此基础上进行了实践调查和实证分析,并采用聚类分析的方法,得到细分人群。     

高技术产业发展的影响因素及其数据检验

本文运用统计数据分析了经济发展水平、科技投入包括资金投入与人力资源投入，企业制度与企业规模等对高技术产业发展影响。此外，对于一些不能获得统计数据的因素，通过调查问卷，分析其是否存在影响作用以及不同影响因素重要性的排序。通过分析发现我国高技术产业具有向东部经济发达地区进一步集聚，以及大型化的趋势。高技术产业的科技投入也具有边际效益递减的规律，大型企业在高技术产业发展中具有主导作用，在众多影响因素中，大多数调查对象认为制度因素是影响高技术产业发展最重要的因素。     

US consumers' perceptions of the importance of following the US dietary guidelines

This study examines the factors affecting perceptions by US consumers about the importance of following each type of healthy diet recommendation based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Results generally suggest that individuals from the Northeast and non-metropolitan areas, males, less educated, not on a special diet, and those who have a lower perception of the overall importance of nutrition when food shopping are generally less likely than their counterparts to perceive individual diet recommendations as important. Income, age, and body mass index also are significant factors for some individual healthy diet recommendations. Understanding consumers' perceptions about the importance of choosing healthy diets is an important preliminary step in changing dietary behavior and nutrition policies. Given worldwide trends toward Westernized diets and resulting increases in related health problems, the findings of this study may have relevance not only in the US but also globally.     

The Role and Determinants of Concession Sales in Movie Theaters: Evidence from the Spanish Exhibition Industry

The importance of concession sales in the movie exhibition industry is widely acknowledged among economists and other social scientists that have studied this industry in the past. Despite this recognition, the lack of appropriate data has constrained existing studies that document the role that concessions play in movie theaters. Using detailed weekly movie theater data on concession sales, box office revenues and transaction characteristics from a major exhibitor in Spain, we shed light on the relation between concession sales and the following factors (i) theater attendance, (ii) non-traditional channels of ticket distribution, (iii) audience composition, and (iv) theater and market specific factors.      

Industrial buying in high-tech markets

This article examines the buying behavior of purchasers of high technology laboratory instrumentation. Research was undertaken with 54 organizations. The primary objective of this article is to analyze the buying process and to identify and determine the relative importance of the factors influencing supplier selection in high technology markets.     

Value-creation-capture-equilibrium in new product development alliances: A matter of coopetition,expert power,and alliance importance

Alliances are often thought to be longer lasting and lead to better results when they are perceived as equal and fair in terms of how efforts and rewards are distributed. This study conceptualizes the value-creation-capture-equilibrium (VCCE) as the relative inputs and efforts made by alliance partners to create and capture innovation-related value. We seek to better understand the determinants of the VCCE in dyadic new product development (NPD) alliances. We focus on three factors from a focal firm's perspective: (1) the coopetition intensity with the alliance partner (i.e. simultaneous competition and collaboration), (2) the expert power of the alliance partner, and (3) the relative importance of the particular NPD alliance. We hypothesize that coopetition intensity stabilizes the VCCE. Furthermore, we assume that the partner's expert power and the focal firm's relative alliance importance negatively moderate the relationship between coopetition intensity and the VCCE. Based on a dataset of N = 471 NPD alliances of high-tech firms, we find partial support for our hypotheses and contribute towards a better understanding of the factors influencing the VCCE in NPD alliances.