Incorporating heterogeneous adoption rates in new product diffusion: A model and empirical investigations

This paper presents a stochastic model of the adoption process for durables that explicitly incorporates heterogeneity in adoption rates among the consumers. The model assumes that the individual adoption times follow the Weibull distribution. Heterogeneity in adoption rates is represented by the gamma distribution. The resulting Burr distribution is more general than the Bass model, fits data as well as the Bass model estimated using OLS regression, and has parameters that can be used to make inferences about individual adoption behavior without being influenced by spurious aggregation effects.Special thanks are due to Professor Donald Lehmann for providing numerous suggestions and encouragement at all stages of the study. Thanks are also due to Professors David Schmittlein and Richard Colombo and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier draft of the paper.     

Information diffusion and new product consumption: A bass model application to tourism facility management

This article applies models to measure and to understand how information diffusion influences tourists' consumption patterns. The study uses administrative data on a new festival's attendance and advertising. Bass's [Bass FM. A new product growth for model consumer durables. Manage Sci 1969;15(5):215-227] model and a modified version [Horsky D, Simon LS. Advertising and the diffusion of new products. Mark Sci 1983;2(1):1-18] to allow for advertising's effect. Results imply effectiveness of front loaded advertising. This result is due to increasing purchases that result from word-of-mouth information diffusion. However, a model with an effect of advertising is accepted as well as a model with no consideration of advertising budget. Examination of consistency and conceptual issues with models raises the need for models that are more realistic for the tourism product. A specific concern is developing models appropriate to analysis of attendance at a limited-duration innovative event (e.g., new product) held at a host to impact longer-term attendance of the host.     

Asymmetric information in commodity futures markets: Theory and empirical evidence

This article examines the theoretical and empirical implications of asymmetric information in commodity futures markets. In particular, it formulates and tests a theoretical model that recognizes two distinct categories of traders: hedgers, who participate in both spot and futures markets, and speculators, who participate only in the futures market. Speculators are assumed to possess differential information about the realized values of selected random variables. Multiperiod futures market equilibria are derived under competitive conditions, and the ability of futures markets to forecast changes in equilibrium spot market prices are examined. The key variable is shown to be the randomness and informational asymmetry in the aggregate supply by participating hedgers in the spot market, whose absence turns out to be the major determinant of the revelation of informational asymmetry. Moreover, under the assumption of independence of error forecasts for prices and spot market supplies, it is shown that futures market equilibrium ends up with linear expressions for prices and futures contract volumes. These linear expressions are then used to develop empirically testable models. The main empirical implications in these models revolve around the role of the basis as a predictor of future spot price changes. The paper provides an empirical investigation of these implications, using three commodities traded on the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange (WCE). © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 18:803–825, 1998     

Familiarity and competence diversity in new product development teams: Effects on new product performance

When developing new products, most firms use cross-functional teams, but research on the effect of functional diversity on new product performance returns heterogeneous results. We propose a measure of competence diversity that is more comprehensive than the common functional diversity proxy. Empirical findings, based on a survey of 142 product and sales managers, support the improved predictive validity of our scale. We further observe a mediating effect of the instrumental use of information in the competence diversity–new product performance relationship. Finally, we discuss the moderating effect of familiarity among team members on the relationship between competence diversity and the instrumental use of information. All authors contributed equally to this article and are listed in random order.     

Investigating the roles of online buzz for new product diffusion and its cross-country dynamics

This research investigates the roles of online buzz activities in influencing the speed and scope of new product diffusion and also the interactive dynamics of online buzz activities within and across countries. This study applies a diffusion model with two latent adopters and a log linear model to monthly sales and online messages collected from major online communication sites in five different countries. The empirical study evaluates two different roles of online buzz: (1) accelerating the new product diffusion process by influencing imitation tendency; and (2) expanding potential market size. In addition, the empirical study shows the interactive dynamics of online buzz activities within and across countries, and provides some information on what encourages online buzz activities, and how they interact with each other within a country and across countries.     

The role of networking alliances in information acquisition and its implications for new product performance

The premise of Austrian economics on entrepreneurial discovery suggests that mutual knowledge about market participants defines who will acquire potential information about opportunities to bring future products into existence. Building upon this argument, this research investigates the role of networking alliances in information acquisition and its lagged effect on the new product performance of the firm. By using a longitudinal analysis, the study shows that a firm improves its new product performance as it increases the number of repeated partners and its centrality position relative to others in the technology collaboration network.     

Asymmetric roles of business ties and political ties in product innovation

This study investigates the asymmetric roles of business ties and political ties in innovation processes. The study posits that business ties strengthen organizational competence and enhance the environmental fit. In contrast, political ties increase the environmental fit but ossify organizational internal routines. The study uses an extensive survey on 766 Chinese firms across multiple sectors to test hypotheses. The empirical results provide strong supports for hypotheses by showing that: (1) business ties have a positive impact on product innovation, indicating that despite different types of business ties, they share common features in enhancing product innovation; (2) political ties have an inverted U-shaped relationship with product innovation, indicating that the positive effect of political ties on product innovation would diminish as the costs of political ties outweigh the benefits.     

Pricing a new product: Eurotunnel

Eurotunnel, due to open in 1993, will link Great Britain with mainland Europe. Massive cost overruns have cast some doubts on its future profitability, but this article shows how its cost structure gives it critical advantages in pricing against its competitors. The prospectus assumption is that Eurotunnel and the ferries will charge broadly similar fares. In this article, we show that substantially undercutting ferry charges is a far more profitable strategy. Moreover, this result holds even if consumers regard the tunnel as a superior service and is robust to any response by the ferries themselves. Their best strategy is to seek niche markets and avoid direct competition with the tunnel. The article draws parallels for other firms introducing new products by applying new technology in established markets.     

Sharing product harm information: The effects of self-construal and self-relevance

Product harm information spreading in the marketplace may have profound consequences for companies, public policy makers and consumer well-being. However, limited research is available on what makes consumers share such information with others. This paper examines how self-relevance and self-construal affect the sharing of product harm information and the underlying processes that shape sharing. Five experiments demonstrate that under independent self-construal, highly self-relevant product harm information is less likely to be shared. The reluctance to share highly self-relevant information is attenuated under interdependent self-construal. The differential effects of self-construal are related to self-serving processes and motivations for sharing product harm information with others. The results apply to the sharing of negative information, but not positive information. Companies may use these findings to manage the diffusion of product harm information.     

Development time and new product sales: A contingency analysis of product innovativeness and price

Opposing theories and conflicting empirical results with regard to the effect of development time on new product sales suggest the need for a contingency analysis into factors affecting this relationship. This study uses a unique combination of accounting and perceptual data from 129 product development projects to test the combined contingency effect of product innovativeness and new product price on the relationship between development time and new product sales. The results show that for radically new products with short development times, price has no effect on new product sales. When the development time is long, price has a negative effect on the sales of radical new products. The findings additionally show that price has no effect on sales for incremental new products with short development times and a negative effect for incremental new products with long development times. Together, these findings shed new light on the relationship between development time and new product sales.     

Private labels and new product development

This paper provides a positive theory of private labels in new product development when a non-integrated distribution channel is faced with demand uncertainty. We consider a regular marketing environment in which a manufacturer endowed with a branded product seeks to design a new product to resolve its retailer’s mis-targeting problem and to optimally screen consumers. Assuming that only linear pricing schemes are available and that the retailer learns the state of demand earlier than the manufacturer does, we show that the presence of a private label always improves channel efficiency. Moreover, a private label is more likely to prevail when the existing branded product is a premium item.

Measuring product market efficiency: A new methodology

This paper proposes a new methodology to measure product market efficiency. Our approach is based on the economic theory of product market equilibrium where consumers have incomplete information, and it allows quality to be multidimensional. We illustrate the methodology and compare it with other methodologies including the data envelopment analysis (DEA)-based procedure of Kamakura, Ratchford, and Agrawal (1988). The empirical results show that our model is robust to the precise distributional form of the disturbance term. In addition, our efficiency estimates are always equal to or lower than the DEA estimates of efficiency.     

Time perception in the diffusion of safety hazard information

Under natural marketplace conditions for a period of 12 weeks, the effect of relevance on time perception was examined in the diffusion of safety hazard information about the use of a brand of tampon. As hypothesized, a two-stage log-linear model showed that the relevance of the health hazard threat was positively related to time distortion.     

Country-of-origin effects on product quality judgments: An information integration perspective

Functional measurement methodology is used to examine the simultaneous effects of country-of-manufacture and price information on judgments about product quality and overall product evaluation The results suggest that a simple (constant weight) averaging model adequately accounts for the cognitive algebra used by consumers to integrate country image and price cues Also, the derived scale values for country image and price suggest that these variables produce roughly equivalent (and strong) effects on product Judgments Implications of these results for future research on country-of-origin effects are discussed.     

一个新的产品管理理念:品质管理

编者按:今年3月28日,中国啤酒界的目光齐聚山东烟台,一向不事张扬的烟台啤酒集团在这里郑重向外界宣布:烟台啤酒即日起全面实施纯生化战略. 这是"纯生化"首次出现在国人的视野中;这也是中国啤酒业的又一次重大变革,它带来的将是啤酒标准的重新定义和经营理念的全面刷新,并将引领中国啤酒工业步入一个新时代. 本文说的是啤酒,但其"品质提升"的管理理念对我国所有产品生产厂家都是有深刻的启迪作用的,我们能够从中悟出一些原先尚不十分清楚的发展思路.     

Dimensions of success in new product development: An exploratory investigation

As a key element in survival and sustaining growth, the constant development and re‐development of products has been the subject of many academic and consulting group studies. The specific focus of these studies has often been to identify and describe those factors which determine the outcome of new product developments; the critical success factors in NPD. In order to fulfill their objectives, the studies have focused on many aspects of the management of new product development programmes in companies, and attempted to relate them to a number of alternative outcomes. This has called for the measurement of “success” itself. Unfortunately, there is very little consensus amongst the studies regarding how best to operationalize “success”, and researchers have employed a variety of measures, focused on different levels of analysis, sought data from different sources and used different data collection methods. This paper examines the performance measures used in several major NPD studies and shows how success “measures” have been treated as financial and non‐financial. In addition, attention is drawn to the problems inherent in the different definitions of success. Finally, using data from an empirical survey, the relationship between financial and non‐financial outcomes is examined.     

德尔福的汽车多媒体新产品及技术

在美国拉斯维加斯举行的2001年国际消费类电子产品博览会上,全球规模最大的零部件供应商德尔福汽车系统宣布,将把移动多媒体产品大举推向汽车市场.     

Substance versus trappings in new product management

When firms experience a faster pace of change in their markets and in the technology used they frequently have to turn to developing new products in order to safeguard their competitive position. This paper identifies possible formal organisation designs for developing new products and discusses a method for understanding the different ways in which firms actually undertake the detailed tasks involved. New avenues for further practically orientated research are identified.