The effects of entrepreneurial orientation, market orientation, and marketing subunit influence on firm performance

The study investigates how an organization’s entrepreneurial orientation moderates the interplay between market orientation and marketing subunit influence on firm performance. The hypothesized model predicts that the positive interaction between market orientation and marketing subunit influence has a weaker effect on firm performance under conditions of high entrepreneurial orientation. The regression and supplementary analyses provide support for most predictions and, most importantly, for a negative three-way interaction effect: At higher levels of entrepreneurial orientation, the positive moderating effect of marketing subunit influence on the market orientation–business performance relationship is reduced. The authors discuss the managerial and theoretical implications of their findings and provide a number of directions for further research.

Social Relationship of a Firm and the CSP–CFP Relationship in Japan: Using Artificial Neural Networks

As a criterion of a good firm, a lucrative and growing business has been said to be important. Recently, however, high profitability and high growth potential are insufficient for the criteria, because social influences exerted by recent firms have been extremely significant. In this paper, high social relationship is added to the list of the criteria. Empirical corporate social performance versus corporate financial performance (CSP–CFP) relationship studies that consider social relationship are very limited in Japan, and there are no definite conclusions for the studies in the world, because of scant data and the inappropriate methods, especially for supporting linear hypothesis which these studies are based on. In this paper, the CSP–CFP relationship is analyzed by an artificial neural networks model, which can deal with a non-linear relationship, using 10-year follow-up survey data.

The Appropriateness of the Key Account Management Organization

Key account management programs often lack efficiency and effectiveness, as most key account management organizations are inadequately designed for specific customer-supplier relationships. In this paper, a decision model based on transaction cost economics is developed that allows for individualized decision-making on the most appropriate key account management organization: By defining the transaction cost economics determinants uncertainty and frequency more in-depth companies will become able to refine their decision on the key account management organization alternatives with respect to the characteristics of their individual customer-supplier relationship.

The overestimated role of strategic orientations for international performance in smaller firms

This article examines how market orientation (MO) and entrepreneurial orientation (EO) relate to international performance in small firms. Empirically, the article draws on survey data from 188 Swedish SMEs. Results show that strategic orientations have a very limited influence on international performance in these firms. Proactiveness and, to some extent, a market orientation proved positively associated with international performance, while innovativeness and risk taking show no such relationship. Our findings highlight the problems associated with using “traditional” MO and EO constructs in an SME setting and point to the need of developing more appropriate constructs tailored to this context. We also note that the MO construct was developed from a “causal view” of marketing, while successful small international firms rely more on effectuation logic. The article also contributes to the debate between the two dominant perspectives that address firms’ early internationalization processes: the process theory of internationalization and the international new venture perspective, where our results are in favor of the latter.

The business-to-business relationship dimensions in financial services markets

This paper discusses the nature of financial business relationships by drawing on the IMP Group’s theory of industrial relationships. It discusses, among other aspects, the interaction process between banks and their corporate clients, the longevity of relationships, the interdependence between both sides, and the atmosphere of financial services relationships. The conclusions are thought to be interesting and useful for the managers of firms and financial services when setting relationship marketing policies and for academic research on business-to-business services relationships. The field research was done in Portugal and the case method was used.

Manufacturer-owned retail stores

Increasingly, manufacturers sell their products in their own retail stores, and many of these stores appear to be in direct competition with independent retailers; i.e., both types of retail stores are physically co-located. We analyze one way this practice affects the retail market. We find that, when independent retailers compete against company stores (instead of just against other independent retailers), they (1) charge higher prices and (2) are more willing to engage in marketing efforts on behalf of the manufacturer’s brand. Furthermore, when company stores and independent retailers compete in the same market, the company store charges higher prices and provides more marketing effort. Anecdotal data are consistent with these model predictions.

A “New Approach” to Standards and Consumer Protection

As consumer use of information and communication technology (ICT) products grows, the importance of ICT standards in consumer markets also grows. While standards for manufactured products were once developed at the national level in formal standards bodies, standards for ICT products today are more likely to be developed by informal standards bodies that target global markets, creating new challenges for national consumer protection laws. As part of the process of creating a single market, the EU developed an innovative and successful form of “coregulation” known as the “New Approach” that coordinated the work of legislators and standards developers to reduce technical barriers to trade in the internal market. In order to protect consumer interests in markets for ICT products effectively, another “New Approach” is needed to coordinate the work of global ICT standard-developing organizations with the goals of national and regional consumer protection laws, but the institutional challenges facing such a strategy are daunting. The French DADVSI legislation represents progress in this direction; further progress may be possible by adopting “better regulation” strategies.

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.

The importance of non-linear relationships between attitude and behaviour in policy research

The relation between consumers’ attitude and behaviour is of importance in designing marketing and public policy measures. However, many empirical studies find only low effects of attitudes on behaviour. In this paper, we suggest that the conflicting evidence on the attitude-behaviour link is partly due to only extreme attitudes impacting behaviour. That is, possible non-linearities not detected by standard linear models could occur in the relationship between attitudes and behaviour. We present and compare alternative model specifications to assess the non-linear relationship. We test our view using empirical examples relating to the link between environmental concerns and the purchase of organic products, and the link between privacy concerns and the possession of loyalty cards. We find strong support for the appearance of a non-linear relationship between environmental concern and the purchase of organic products, while only weak support for such a relationship between privacy concern and the possession of loyalty cards.

Higher educational services exports: sources of growth of Asian students in US and UK

The paper reviews the recent trends and current developments in the global higher education market with a particular focus on growth of Asian students studying in US and UK. Using pool cross section-time series data over the 1985–2003 period, it is found that different factors affect students from different countries differently. This suggests that the marketing strategies of offshore higher education providers need to be tailored to the specific needs of different markets in order to be successful. The emergence of a number of new players in the higher education export market is also rapidly becoming a major threat to the traditional higher education service exporters.

Modeling CLV: A test of competing models in the insurance industry

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is one of the key metrics in marketing and is considered an important segmentation base. This paper studies the capabilities of a range of models to predict CLV in the insurance industry. The simplest models can be constructed at the customer relationship level, i.e. aggregated across all services. The more complex models focus on the individual services, paying explicit attention to cross buying, but also retention. The models build on a plethora of approaches used in the existing literature and include a status quo model, a Tobit II model, univariate and multivariate choice models, and duration models. For all models, CLV for each customer is computed for a four-year time horizon. We find that the simple models perform well. The more complex models are expected to better capture the richness of relationship development. Surprisingly, this does not lead to substantially better CLV predictions.

The Managerial Law Firm and the Globalization of Legal Ethics

The processes of economic integration induced by globalization have brought about a certain type of legal practice that challenges the core values of legal ethics. Law firms seeking to represent the interests of internationally active corporate clients must embrace and systematically apply concepts of strategic management and planning and install corporate business structures to sustain competition for lucrative clients. These measures bear a high conflict potential with the core values of legal ethics. However, we observe in parallel a global consolidation of these core values through an enhanced cooperation of national professional bodies, the use of international codes, and comparative legal ethics teaching and research. Furthermore, state regulation of the legal profession is concerned with preserving the core values of legal ethics to conserve the lawyer’s role in upholding the rule of law. This article defends that legal ethics is adapting to the pressures exerted by “managerial” approaches to legal practice without this altering core values that underlie legal ethics.

The relationship between FSI advertising style and coupon redemption

We investigate the relationship between free-standing insert advertising style and coupon redemption. Results from two experiments indicate that the propensity to clip a coupon can be enhanced by matching ad tone (emotional vs rational) to the nature of a consumer’s primary motivation with respect to coupon usage. Moreover, this result appears to hold for consumers with both procoupon and anticoupon inclinations.

(Noisy) communication

Communication is central to many settings in marketing and economics. A focal attribute of communication is miscommunication. We model this key characteristic as a noise in the messages communicated, so that the sender of a message is uncertain about its perception by the receiver, and then identify the strategic consequences of miscommunication. We study a model where competing senders (of different types) can invest in improving the precision of the informative but noisy message they send to a receiver, and find that there exists a separating equilibrium where senders’ types are completely revealed. Thus, although communication is noisy it delivers perfect results in equilibrium. This result stems from the fact that a sender’s willingness to invest in improving the precision of their messages can itself serve as a signal. Interestingly, the content of the messages is ignored by the receiver in such a signaling equilibrium, but plays a central role by shaping her beliefs off the equilibrium path (and thus, enables separation between the types). This result also illustrates the uniqueness of the signaling model presented here. Unlike other signaling models, the suggested model does not require that the costs and benefits of the senders will be correlated with their types to achieve separation. The model’s results have implications for various marketing communication tools such as advertising and sales forces.

Quality of past performance: Impact on consumers’ responses to service failure

The conceptual model developed in this paper for the airline industry examines the relationship between quality of past service performance and consumers’ responses to service failures (causal attributions, emotions and satisfaction). The empirical results obtained indicate that for those consumers with higher perceptions of quality the causes underlying service failures are seen as less stable and less controllable by the firm than the causes identified by consumers with lower perceptions of quality. Attributions about the failure not only influence satisfaction directly but also moderate the effect of quality on satisfaction. We also analyse the mediating effect of negative emotions on the relationship between service failure attributions and consumer satisfaction.

eBusiness applications in SMEs of Italian industrial districts: the textile and wood/furniture cases

The paper presents the results of a study dealing with the adoption of eBusiness applications in two Italian industrial districts: the textile district in Como and the wood/furniture district in the area of Brianza. These two districts are part of important “made in Italy” industries, with a high volume of worldwide exports. The goal of the paper is to show how Internet technology is changing the behavior of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in these two local (but with worldwide relevance) districts and to understand how the potential benefits and constraints for SMEs pointed out in several literature contributions are really acting in these districts.

Technological Innovation and Its Impact on Business Model, Organization and Corporate Culture – IBM’s Transformation into a Globally Integrated, Service-Oriented Enterprise

This article investigates the influence of information and communication technology (ICT) on business transformation. First, the general, ICT-driven development lines of globalization and service-orientation are described. Then, an analysis of the IBM Corporation’s transformation over the past 50 years into a globally integrated, service-oriented company illustrates that ICT innovations must be dealt with by simultaneous adaptation of business model, organization and corporate culture. For many companies the ability to manage this change becomes increasingly critical.

Knowledge spillovers and new ventures’ export orientation

We draw on the knowledge spillover literature to suggest that a country’s proportion of export-oriented new ventures represents an outcome of knowledge spillovers that stem from foreign direct investment (FDI) and international trade (export spillovers) as well as a source of knowledge spillovers (entrepreneurship spillovers). To test the hypotheses, we use macrolevel data from 34 countries during the period 2002–2005. We find that the relationship between FDI and international trade on the one hand and a country’s proportion of export-oriented new ventures on the other differs for higher- and lower-income countries. In addition, a country’s proportion of export-oriented new ventures affects the subsequent emergence of new businesses.

The Fair Trade Idea: Towards an Economics of Social Labels

The concept of Fair Trade is applied to the marketing of a variety of goods. In recent years it has met a continually increasing interest among consumers. Different Fair Trade organizations are trying to accomplish an improvement in working and living conditions in developing countries by means of Fair Trade certificates and by paying a price markedly above world market standard. This is meant to lead to the attainment of basic social standards, especially in agricultural production. The article deals with how Fair Trade works and whether the social aims can be achieved by the application of this trade concept. Our main result is that even though efficiency of redistribution through the Fair Trade institutions is lower than through traditional relief organizations, the Fair Trade concept provides an additional incentive to support better living conditions in the Third World. Moreover, it provides a stimulus for producers to reorganize the production process in a socially more acceptable manner even when this is not rewarded by the Fair Trade company.