Marketing of risky sports: From intention to action

High-risk sports, such as skydiving, parachuting, and hang gliding, have become increasingly popular in recent years. This article uses expectancy-value theory to integrate previous research on risky behavior and risky sports. The model that is developed relates the expected benefits of risky sports to several antecedents; specifically, thrill and adventure seeking, arousal avoidance, role relaxation, and age. Two samples are drawn to represent the general population, as well as people just joining risky-sports clubs. In the general population, the intention to engage in risky sports is related to the ability to arouse curiosity. Other motives, specifically thrill and adventure seeking, become more salient as an individual moves closer to actually engaging in a risky sport. Aviv Shoham (Ph.D., University of Oregon) is a lecturer of marketing, Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management, Technion—Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel. He has published or has forthcoming articles in journals such as theJournal of Business Research, theJournal of Advertising Research, theJournal of International Marketing, theJournal of Global Marketing, theJournal of International Consumer Marketing, and other marketing journals. He is also a frequent contributor to several marketing conferences. Gregory M. Rose (Ph.D., University of Oregon) is an assistant professor of management and marketing at the University of Mississippi. His research has been published or is forthcoming in theJournal of Consumer Research, theJournal of Business Research, theJournal of Global Marketing, theJournal of Business Ethics, theJournal of Applied Social Psychology, Advances in Consumer Research, and other journals and proceedings. Lynn R. Kahle is the James Warsaw professor and department chair of marketing at the University of Oregon. Topics of his research include social adaptation, values, and sports marketing. His articles have appeared in journals such as theJournal of Consumer Research, theJournal of Marketing, Sport Marketing Quarterly, Public Opinion Quarterly, theJournal of Personality and Social Psychology, andChild Development. His books includeSocial Values and Social Change, Marketing Management, andValues, Lifestyles, and Psychographics.     

Interactions between marketing and quality at the SBU level: Influences and outcomes

The management of quality and development of effective cross-functional cooperation have assumed a new strategic importance over the past decade. However, many companies have reported that quality strategies have failed to deliver anticipated performance benefits and that ineffective interfunctional relationships may be to blame. This study explores marketing-quality interfunctional relationships as a potential source of quality strategy implementation failure at the strategic business unit (SBU) level. This study focuses on interdepartmental connectedness, communication and conflict between marketing and quality, and the antecedents and consequences of these dimensions of interfunctional interaction. Using data from a pooled response mail survey, the results suggest that marketing-quality interactions are associated with senior management quality leadership, strategic quality planning process, and control system characteristics. Interfunctional interactions between marketing and quality are found to be only weakly related to relative quality, market performance, and financial performance outcomes. Neil A. Morgan is a university lecturer in marketing and strategy at the Judge Institute of Management Studies, University of Cambridge, England. His research interests focus on strategic issues concerning marketing strategy formulation, marketing implementation processes, and business performance. His work has appeared in theJournal of Business Research, Industrial Marketing Management, British Journal of Management, and other journals. Nigel F. Piercy is Sir Julian Hodge professor of marketing and strategy and chair of Marketing and Strategy at the Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, United Kingdom. His research interests focus on the organizational context of marketing management, market-led strategic change, and the role of process in marketing strategy implementation. His work has appeared in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Advertising, and other journals.     

The role of corporate social responsibility in strengthening multiple stakeholder relationships: A field experiment

This research relied on a field experiment involving a real-world instance of corporate philanthropy to shed light on both the scope and limitations of the strategic returns to corporate social responsibility (CSR). In particular, the authors demonstrate that the impact of CSR in the real world is not only less pervasive than has been previously acknowledged but also more multifaceted than has been previously conceptualized. The findings indicated that contingent on CSR awareness, which was rather low, stakeholders did react positively to the focal company not only in the consumption domain but in the employment and investment domains as well. Stakeholder attributions regarding the genuineness of the company’s motives moderated these effects. Sankar Sen (sankar_sen@baruch.cuny.edu) is a professor of marketing at the Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College, City University of New York. He received his Ph.D. in marketing in 1993 from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on consumer decision making. He is interested, more specifically, in consumer reactions to company actions, particularly in the domain of CSR. His research has appeared inCalifornia Management Review, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Economic Theory, and others. C. B. Bhattacharya (cb@bu.edu) received his Ph.D. in marketing from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1993 and his M.B.A. from the Indian Institute of Management in 1984. Prior to joining Boston University, he was on the faculty at the Goizueta Business School, Emory University. His specific expertise is in the areas of customer retention and the roles of CSR and organizational identification in designing marketing strategy. He served on the editorial review board of theJournal of Marketing from 2002 to 2005 and has published in journals such as theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Marketing, Journal of Applied Psychology, andOrganization Science. He speaks frequently at many academic and business forums and won the William Novelli Best Paper Award at the Social Marketing Conference in 1997. Dr. Bhattacharya received the 2001 Broderick Prize for Research Excellence at Boston University and the Emory Williams Distinguished Teaching Award in 1995, the highest teaching award at Emory University. He is also part of the select group of faculty members onBusiness Week’s Outstanding Faculty list. Prior to his Ph.D., he worked for 3 years as a product manager for Reckitt Benkiser PLC. He has consulted for organizations such as the Hitachi Corporation, Procter & Gamble Company, Bell South, The Prudential Bank, Information Resources Inc., Airwick Industries, Silo Inc., and the High Museum of Art. Daniel Korschun (danielk@bu.edu) is a doctoral candidate in marketing at Boston University. His current research interests include brand management, CSR, and interorganizational relationships.     

Export marketing,interfunctional interactions,and performance consequences

Firms with export operations have internal environments that are often geared toward serving the home market. As a result, export marketing and other business functions compete for resources, which thus increases the likelihood of conflict between them. Using survey responses from more than 700 exporting firms, the authors test a model of the antecedents and consequences of two important interaction variables: exporting’s interfunctional connectedness and conflict. The model explains 52 percent and 49 percent of variance in exporting connectedness and conflict, respectively. The authors identify the key drivers of successful interactions as follows: management commitment, organizational training and reward systems, relative functional identification, centralization, and export employee job satisfaction and commitment. The authors also demonstrate that connectedness is most critical for export success when export markets are in a state of turbulence, whereas conflict is most detrimental when the firm’s export environment is stable. John W. Cadogan (j.w.cadogan@lboro.ac.uk), Ph.D., is a professor of marketing in the Business School at Loughborough University, United Kingdom. His primary areas of research interest are international marketing, marketing strategy, and sales management. He has published on these issues in theJournal of International Business Studies, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theJournal of Business Research, Industrial Marketing Management, theEuropean Journal of Marketing, theInternational Marketing Review, theJournal of Marketing Management, theJournal of Strategic Marketing, and other academic journals. He received his degree from the University of Wales (United Kingdom). Sanna Sundqvist (sanna.sundqvist@lut.fi), Ph.D., is a professor in international marketing in the Department of Business Administration at the Lappeenranta University of Technology (Finland). Her research interests deal with the international diffusion of innovations, market orientation (especially in an international context), and consumers’ adoption behavior. She has published in theJournal of Business Research, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theEuropean Journal of Marketing, theCanadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, and theAustralasian Marketing Journal. She received her degree from the Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland. Risto T. Saiminen (risto.salminen@lut.fi), Ph.D., is a professor of industrial engineering and management, especially marketing, in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management at Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland. His primary areas of research interest are customer relationships and networks in business marketing, pedagogy in industrial engineering and management, and international marketing. He has published on these issues in theJournal of Business and Industrial Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Management, theEuropean Journal of Engineering Education, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theEuropean Journal of Marketing, and theAustralasian Marketing Journal. He received his degree from Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland. Kaisu Puumalainen (kaisu.puumalainen@lut.fi), Ph.D., is a professor in technology research in the Department of Business Administration at Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland. Her primary areas of research interest are innovation, international marketing, and small businesses. She has published on these issues in theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theJournal of Business Research, theEuropean Journal of Marketing, R&D Management, theCanadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, theJournal of International Entrepreneurship, theAustralasian Marketing Journal, and theInternational Journal of Production Economics. She received her degree from the Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland.     

The influence of complementarity, compatibility, and relationship capital on alliance performance

Value creation through alliances requires the simultaneous pursuit of partners with similar characteristics on certain dimensions and different characteristics on other dimensions. Partnering firms need to have different resource and capability profiles yet share similarities in their social institutions. In this article, the authors empirically examine the impact of partner characteristics on the performance of alliances. In particular, they test hypotheses related to both direct impact of partner characteristics on alliance performance and indirect effects through relational capital aspects of the alliance. Empirical results based on a sample of alliances in the global construction contracting industry suggest that complementarity in partner resources and compatibility in cultural and operational norms have different direct and indirect effects on alliance performance. Accordingly, organizational routines aimed at partner selection need to be complemented by relationship management routines to maximize the potential benefits from an alliance. MB Sarkar (Ph.D., Michigan State University) is an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Central Florida. His current research includes strategic alliances, innovation and entrepreneurship, knowledge management, and electronic markets. His research has been published in theStrategic Management Journal, theJournal of International Business Studies, and theJournal of Business Research, among others. Raj Echambadi (Ph.D., University of Houston) is an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Central Florida. His current research interests include investigation of territorial loyalty issues, management of innovations, and estimation issues pertaining to structural equation modeling and Partial Least Squares. His research has been published in theStrategic Management Journal, Multivariate Behavioral Research, and theJournal of Product Innovation Management. S. Tamer Cavusgil (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin) is University Distinguished Faculty and serves as the John William Byington Endowed Chair in global marketing at Michigan State University (MSU). He is also the executive director of MSU's Center for International Business Education and Research, a national resource center. His teaching, research, and administrative activities have focused on international business and marketing. His research has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, and theJournal of International Business Studies, among others. His specific interests include the internationalization of the firm, global marketing strategy, and internationalization of business education. He was the founding editor of theJournal of International Marketing, now published by the American Marketing Association. Preet S. Aulakh (Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin) is an associate professor of strategy and international business at the Fox School of Business and Management, Temple University. His research focuses on international technology licensing, cross-border joint ventures and strategic alliances and strategies of firms from developing economies. His research has been published in theAcademy of Management Journal, theJournal of Marketing, and theJournal of International Business Studies.     

Corollaries of the collective: The influence of organizational culture and memory development on perceived decision-making context

The market-focused learning organization continues to attract attention in the marketing literature. Two central and interrelated aspects of collective learning are organizational culture and memory. The relationship between culture and performance has been demonstrated both theoretically and empirically. This study investigates the influence of culture and organizational memory development on perceptions of managers’ decision-making context. Findings suggest that both organizational culture and memory influence marketing managers’ perceptions of decision-making context. Specifically, managers in externally focused cultures tend to perceive a relatively higher proportion of strategic problems than managers in internally focused cultures, and managers in organic process cultures tend to perceive a relatively higher proportion of unstructured problems than managers in mechanistic cultures. The implications for managerial practice are discussed and avenues for future research outlined. Pierre Berthon is a professor of marketing at the School of Management, University of Bath, United Kingdom. Prior to taking up his present position, he was adjunct professor of marketing at Columbia Business School, University of Columbia, New York. His research interests are eclectic but focus mainly on the areas of management decision making, strategic modes of organization, electronic commerce, and interactive marketing. His work has been published in a wide range of journals, includingSloan Management Review, California Management Review, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Advertising Research, Business Horizons, Omega, andTechnological Forecasting and Social Change. He is coauthor of a textbook on electronic commerce (Electronic Commerce: The Strategic Perspective, published by Dryden). Leyland F. Pitt is a professor in the School of Marketing at Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Western Australia. He has also taught executive programs at the University of Chicago, Columbia University, and the London Business School. His current research focuses on marketing strategy and the marketing/technology interface. His work has been accepted for publication in such academic and practitioner journals as theCalifornia Management Review, Sloan Management Review, Columbia Journal of World Business, Communications of the ACM, theJournal of Advertising Research, theJournal of Business Research, andMIS Quarterly, of which he is also an associate editor. Michael T. Ewing is an associate professor in the School of Marketing at Curtin University of Technology. Before that, he worked for Ford Motor Company. He has taught in Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, the Czech Republic, South Africa, and England. His research and teaching interests include marketing communications, E-commerce, and international advertising. Among others, his work has appeared in theAsian Journal of Marketing, Business Horizons, theJournal of Advertising Research, theJournal of Business Research, theJournal of Marketing Communications, and theInternational Journal of Advertising. He serves on the editorial review board of theJournal of Advertising Research.     

Customer relationship dynamics: Service quality and customer loyalty in the context of varying levels of customer expertise and switching costs

As customer-organization relationships deepen, consumers increase their expertise in the firm’s product line and industry and develop increased switching costs. This study investigates the effects of customer investment expertise and perceived switching costs on the relationships between technical and functional service quality and customer loyalty. Technical service quality is hypothesized to be a more important determinant of customer loyalty than functional service quality as expertise increases. Both technical and functional service quality are hypothesized to have a reduced relationship with customer loyalty as perceived switching costs increase. Three-way interactions between the main effects of service quality, customer expertise, and perceived switching costs yield additional insight into the change in relative importance of technical and functional service quality in customers’ decision to be loyal. Six of eight hypotheses receive support. Implications are discussed for customer relationship management over the relationship life cycle. Simon J. Bell (s.bell@jims.cam.ac.uk; Ph.D., University of Melbourne) is a university lecturer in marketing at the Judge Institute of Management, the business school of the University of Cambridge. His research has appeared in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the Journal of Retailing, theJournal of Business Research, Industrial Marketing Management, andMarketing Theory, among others. His.areas of research interest include organizational learning, sales force management and internal marketing, services and relationship marketing, and corporate social responsibility. Seigyoung Auh (sauh@brocku.ca; Ph.D., University of Michigan) is an assistant professor of marketing at Brock University, Ontario, Canada. His research has been published in theJournal of Economic Psychology, theJournal of Business to Business Marketing, theJournal of Services Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Management, Industrial Marketing Management, and others. His research interests are in application of a resource-based view to marketing strategy, top management team diversity and marketing strategy, customer orientation (customer satisfaction) and loyalty, interface between marketing and entrepreneurship, and services and relationship marketing. Karen Smalley (B.Comm. Hons, University of Melbourne) is an honors graduate in marketing at the University of Melbourne.     

Investigating industry context effects in consumer-firm relationships: Preliminary results from a dispositional approach

Few, if any, past studies have attempted to develop a model to capture and explain industry context variability and hypothesize its effects on consumer-firm relationships. Generally, industry effects are ignored, described, or explained post hoc. Using the notion of consumers' dispositions toward a market, a framework is proposed for understanding the influence of industry context on consumer satisfaction, trust, value, and loyalty in relational exchanges. The empirical results of a survey in two service industries show that industry contexts matter and yield significant direct and moderating effects on consumer-firm relationships. The study underscores the promise of a dispositional approach for providing insights for the theory and practice of relationship marketing, resolvin goutstanding questions, and proposing fruitful areas for further examination. Edwin Nijssen, Ph.D., is a professor of marketing at the Nijmegen School of Management at the University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands. His research interest focuses on strategic and international marketing issues, relationship marketing, brand management, and new-product development. He has published inLong Range Planning, theJournal of Product Innovation Management, Technology Forecasting and Social Change, R&D Management, Industrial Marketing Management, and theJournal of International Marketing and has written several books on marketing strategy. Jagdip Singh, Ph.D., is a professor of marketing at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. His primary areas of research include consumer dissatisfaction and trust, measurement issues—including relationships between theoretical concepts and empirical observations— and the effectiveness of boundary role personnel. He has published in theJournal of Marketing, theAcademy of Management Journal, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Behavioral Research in Accounting, andManagement Science, among others. Deepak Sirdeshmukh, Ph.D., is a visiting assistant professor of marketing at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. His primary areas of research include consumer trust and consumer processing of brand information. He has published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Consumer Research, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and theJournal of Consumer Psychology, among others. Hartmut H. Holzmüeller, Ph.D., is a professor of marketing at the School of Business at Dortmund University, Germany. His research interests include cross-national consumer research and customer relationship marketing. Most of his work has been published in German. His articles also appeared in theJournal of International Marketing, Management International Review, andInternational Business Review.     

Alliance orientation: Conceptualization, measurement, and impact on market performance

Interfirm collaborations have inspired a rich literature in marketing and strategy during the past two decades. Building on this extant work, the authors developed a new construct, alliance orientation, and explored its influence on firms’ alliance network performance and market performance. The authors drew on data collected from 182 U.S. firms with extensive experience informing, developing, and managing strategic alliances in marketing, new product development, distribution, technology, and manufacturing projects. Using structural equations modeling, the authors demonstrate that alliance orientation significantly affects alliance network performance, which in turn enhances market performance. The findings also suggest that market turbulence exerts a significant moderating influence on the relationship between alliance orientation and alliance network performance, whereas the moderating role of technological turbulence on that relationship does not appear to be significant. The study provides evidence that firms’ alliance orientations positively affect their performance in strengthening their alliance network relationships and in managing conflicts with their alliance partners. Destan Kandemir (kandemir@msn.edu) is a research associate in Center for International Business Education and Research at Michigan State University. She earned her PhD in marketing and international business from Michigan State University. Her articles have appeared in theJournal of Business and Industrial Marketing, Industrial Marketing Management, theJournal of International Marketing, and theJournal of Management. Her research interests include firm resources and capabilities, market-oriented knowledge management, and global alliance management. Attila Yaprak (attila.yaprak@wayne.edu) is a professor of marketing and international business at Wayne State University. He received his PhD from Georgia State University. His research interests include cross-national consumer behavior, global marketing strategy, and international alliances. His research has appeared in theJournal of International Business Studies, theJournal of International Marketing, theJournal of Business Research, andPolitical Psychology, among others. S. Tamer Cavusgil (cavusgil@msu.edu) is University Distinguished Faculty and the John W. Byington Endowed Chair in Global Marketing in the Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management, Eli Broad Graduate School of Management, Michigan State University.     

Firm-level export performance assessment: Review, evaluation, and development

Export performance is one of the most widely researched but least understood and most contentious areas of international marketing. To some extent, this problem can be ascribed to difficulties in conceptualizing, operationalizing, and measuring the export performance construct, often leading to inconsistent and conflicting results. This study reviews and evaluates more than 100 articles of pertinent empirical studies to assess and critique export performance measurements. Based on gaps identified in this evluation, guidelines for export performance measure development are advanced, suggesting, however, a contingency approach in their application. Several conclusions and implications for export strategy and future research are derived from this analysis. Constantine S. Katsikeas holds the Sir Julian Hodge Chair in Marketing and International Business at Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University. His main research interests lie in the areas of international marketing and purchasing, global strategic alliances, and competitive strategy. He has published widely in these fields and his articles have appeared inJournal of International Business Studies, Journal of International Marketing, (formerly Columbia)Journal of World Business, Journal of Business Research, Industrial Marketing Management, andManagement International Review, among others. Leonidas C. Leonidou is associate professor of marketing at the University of Cyprus. He obtained his Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Bath, and has research interests in international marketing, relationship marketing, strategic marketing, and marketing in emerging economies. He has published extensively in these fields and his articles have appeared in various journals includingJournal of International Business Studies, Journal of Business Research, Journal of International Marketing, andManagement International Review. Neil A. Morgan is assistant professor of marketing in the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His research interests focus on strategic issues concerning marketing resources and capabilities, and marketing planning and implementation processes and their links with business performance. His work has appeared inJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Business Research, Industrial Marketing Management, British Journal of Management, European Journal of Marketing, and other journals.     

The effects of downsizing on organizational buying behavior: An empirical investigation

To survive in today’s highly competitive markets, many firms are initiating fundamental changes in organizational form and practice. These restructuring efforts are having significant effects on the organization and management of work within customer firms. However, these important changes have been largely ignored in the extant marketing literature. The research presented in this article first describes a general theory of the effects of organizational downsizing. Then, it examines the potential effects of downsizing on buying center structure and purchase participant characteristics. Findings support several of the hypotheses related to the proposed effects of organizational downsizing on the outcome variables of interest. Jeffrey E. Lewin (Ph.D., Georgia State University) is an assistant professor and Chair, Department of Marketing at Western Carolina University. His research interests include business-to-business marketing, relationship marketing, personal selling and sales management, and organizational buying behavior. His work has been published in theJournal of Business Research, theJournal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Advances in Business Marketing and Purchasing, and other publications. He serves on the editorial review boards of theJournal of Business Research and theJournal of Business & Industrial Marketing and is a reviewer for theJournal of Business-to-Business Marketing, theJournal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, andIndustrial Marketing Management.     

Creating a firm-level dynamic capability through capitalizing on market orientation and innovativeness

Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, this study addresses the dynamic capability-generating capacity of market orientation on firm performance. Whereas prior literature has examined environmental turbulence as a contextual condition shaping the market orientation-firm performance relationship, this study takes an internal approach by focusing on existing stocks of resources within the firm while controlling for environmental conditions. A conceptual model is developed that explains how market orientation can be transformed into dynamic capability when complemented by transformational (reconfig-urational) constructs, such as innovativeness. The empirical results support the authors— theory that the effect of market orientation on firm performance is strengthened when market orientation is bundled together with internal complementary resources, such as innovativeness. The authors discuss the findings in the context of varying stages of the product life cycle and at different levels of market development. Bulent Menguc (menguc@brocku.ca), Ph.D., Marmara University, is currently an associate professor of marketing at Brock University, St. Catharines, Canada. His areas of research interest include sales force management and internal marketing, strategic orientations, and cross-cultural research methodology. His research has appeared in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Retailing, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theJournal of Business Research, theJournal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, Industrial Marketing Management, theJournal of Business Ethics, and theEuropean Journal of Marketing, among others. Seigyoung Auh (sauh@yonsei.ac.kr), Ph.D., University of Michigan, is an assistant professor at Yonsei University, South Korea. His research interests are the application of the resource-based view to marketing strategy, the role of top management teams on marketing strategy, and innovation and organizational learning. He has publications in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theJournal of Business Research, Industrial Marketing Management, and theJournal of Economic Psychology, among others.     

Twenty-first-century organizations: Implications for a new marketing paradigm

Conclusion To conclude this commentary, it may be worthwhile to clearly state the research direction that the Achrol article has launched. First, the article begins by identifying the forces that are causing network forms of organizing to spread. If network organizations continue to proliferate, as they are likely to do, then marketing as both a function and discipline must change, too. Second, Achrol helps us to understand network organizations by providing a comprehensive typology that describes the commonly found network forms. Third, the article specifies some of the key variables that need to be examined to build an integrated theory of network management. It is hoped that at some point in the not too distant future, managers can be shown how to design and operate each of the major types of network organizations. Finally, Achrol urges marketing to adopt a paradigm more consistent with the reality of today’s and tomorrow’s organizations. His article is certainly a step in the right direction. His research interests are in new organizational forms, strategic human resource management, and transnational teams. He has written many articles and chapters on strategic management and has coauthored five books, the most recent of which isFit, Failure, and the Hall of Fame: How Companies Succeed or Fail (1994). He has been a visiting scholar at The Amos Tuck School (Dartmouth College) and the Norwegian School of Management. He is currently conducting a study of human resource management practices of 21st-century organizations, which is funded by the Carnegie Bosch Institute for Applied Studies in International Management.     

New product launch strategy for network effects products

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the link between launch strategy decisions and new product performance. Much of that research focuses on investigating successful launch strategies for innovative, high-tech-nology products. With the rapid growth of information technology as one high-technology sector, in certain industries,network effects occur, which change the competitive game. The existing literature offers little decisionmaking guidance to managers on how to successfully introduce a product that exhibits network effects. The authors discuss the influence of network effects on the dynamics of market competition and on consumers' consumption behaviors. They argue that, because of these changes, the priority of particular performance objectives and the impact of specific launch strategies differ for products that exhibit network effects from what current wisdom and empirical results prescribe. These ideas are formalized in a conceptual framework and a series of research propositions. Yikuan Lee is an assistant professor in the International Business Department at San Francisco State University (SFSU). Before joining SFSU, she held a visiting position in the Marketing & Supply Chain Department at Michigan State University. Her research interests include commercialization of innovative products, network effects, new product development, and strategic marketing management in high-technology arenas. Much of her work focuses on how firms integrate marketing and technology competences. She received the Best Dissertation Award and the Best Paper Award at the 1999 Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) International Conference. She also won the 2000 Edl and Edith Darger Dissertation Prize in Management in recognition of outstanding academic achievement. She has published in theJournal of Product Innovation Management. Gina Colarelli O'Connor is an assistant professor in the Lally School of Management and Technology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Her fields of interest include new product development, radical innovation, and strategic marketing management in high-technology arenas. The majority of her research efforts forcus on how firms link advanced technology development to market opportunities. She has articles published in numerous academic journals, including theJournal of Product Innovation Management, Organization Science, California Management Review, Academy of Management Executive, theJournal of Strategic Marketing, theEuropean Journal of Marketing, Psychology and Marketing, among others, and is coauthor of the bookRadical Innovation, How Mature Firms Can Outsmart Upstarts (HBS Press, 2000).     

Marketing strategy: An assessment of the state of the field and outlook

This article provides an assessment of the state of the field of marketing strategy research and the outlook. Using institutional theory, the authors develop an organizing framework to serve as a road map for assessing research in marketing strategy. Their assessment of the state of the field based on a review of extant literature suggests that significant strides in conceptual development and empirical research have been achieved in a number of areas. Several recent developments in the business world, including deconglomeration and increased organizational focus on managing and leveraging market-based assets such as brand equity and customer equity, suggest that marketing is likely to play a more important role in charting the strategic direction of the firm. However, the theoretical contributions of the field to the academic dialogue on strategy leave much to be desired. P. Rajan Varadarajan (Ph.D. University of Massachusetts, Amherst) is a professor of marketing and the Jenna and Calvin R. Guest Professor of Business Administration at Texas A&M University. His research interests are in the areas of corporate, business, and marketing strategy; marketing management; and global competitive strategy. His research has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theAcademy of Management Journal, theStrategic Management Journal, Sloan Management Review, California Management Review, Business Horizons, and other journals. He is coauthor of a textbook entitled,Contemporary Perspectives on Strategic Market Planning. He served as editor of theJournal of Marketing from 1993 to 1996. He currently serves on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Marketing Science, as Chairperson of the Marketing Strategy Special Interest Group of the American Marketing Association, on the Editorial Review Boards of theJournal of Marketing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and theJournal of International Marketing, and as an ad hoc reviewer for a number of journals in themarketing and management disciplines. In recognition of his research and publications, in May 1994, he was awarded the Texas A&M University Distinguished Achievement Award for Research, the highest honor the University bestows. Satish Jayachandran is a doctoral candidate in marketing at Texas A&M University. His research interests include competitive behavior of firms and the impact of organizational performance on subsequent managerial and firm behavior. His research is forthcoming in theJournal of Marketing and has been presented at American Marketing Association and Academy of International Business conferences. His professional experience spans sales and channels management in the computer industry and account management in advertising.     

Schools of thought in organizational learning

This article attempts to bring coherence to the diversity that characterizes organizational learning research. It argues that organizational learning is embedded in four schools of thought: an economic school, a managerial school, a developmental school, and a process school. The article provides a comprehensive analysis of the schools, describes how they differ from each other, and outlines how each of them can be employed effectively. To demonstrate the benefits of theoretical plurality, the four schools are applied to the key marketing topics of market orientation and new product development. Implications for future research in marketing are provided. Simon J. Bell is a lecturer in marketing in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce at the University of Melbourne. Gregory J. Whitwell is an associate professor of marketing in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce at the University of Melbourne. Bryan A. Lukas is an associate professor of marketing and director of the Master of Applied Commerce Program in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce at the University of Melbourne.     

An empirical study of innate consumer innovativeness,personal characteristics,and new-product adoption behavior

This article explores the relationships between innate consumer innovativeness, personal characteristics, and new-product adoption behavior. To do this, the authors analyze cross-sectional data from a household panel using a structural equation modeling approach. They also test for potential moderating effects using a two-stage least square estimation procedure. They find that the personal characteristics of age and income are stronger predictors of new-product ownership in the consumer electronics category than innate consumer innovativeness as a generalized personality trait. The authors also find that personal characteristics neither influence innate consumer innovativeness nor moderate the relationship between innate consumer innovativeness and new-product adoption behavior. Subin Im is currently an assistant professor of marketing at San Francisco State University. His primary scholarly interest includes the organizational aspects of innovation, new-product development for marketing strategy, the consumer side of the innovation adoption process, organizational learning in new-product development, moral hazard and adverse selection model, and research methodology using multivariate statistical techniques. His current research projects include creativity in new-product development, market orientation and innovation, consumer innovativeness, entrepreneurship and organizational learning in new-product development, the development of the creativity measure, the validation of the innovativeness measure, and the testing of nonlinear effects in structural equation modeling. He received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Subin worked in banking and semiconductor industries before he joined academia. Barry L. Bayus is a professor of marketing in the University of North Carolina's (UNC) Kenan-Flagler Business School. Prior to joining the marketing faculty at UNC, Barry worked in both industry and academia. He has also served as an expert witness in patent infringement cases involving high-tech products. His teaching and research interests are in the areas of new-product design and development, marketing analysis and strategy, and technological change. His recent research is concerned with the creation and evolution of new markets and the historical evolution of products, as well as new-product development issues such as speed to market, product life-cycle management, new-product preannouncements, product proliferation, firm entry, and exit timing in dynamically changing markets. Charlotte H. Mason is an associate professor of marketing in the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School, where she leads the MBA Customer and Product Management concentration. Her industry experience includes work for Procter & Gamble, Booz, Allen and Hamilton, as well as consulting projects. Her research focuses on the development and testing of marketing models and applications of multivariate statistics to marketing problems. She is currently investigating issues relating to the analysis and use of large customer databases as well as strategic issues surrounding customer portfolio management. Her research has been published inMarketing Science, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Consumer Research, Marketing Letters, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and theJournal of Business Research. She is on the review boards of theJournal of Marketing Research and theJournal of the Academy of Marketign Science and is coauthor (with William Perreault) ofThe Marketing Game!, a strategic marketing simulation.     

Alliance competence, resources, and alliance success: Conceptualization, measurement, and initial test

This research examines the effect of an alliance competence on resource-based alliance success. The fundamental thesis guiding this research is that an alliance competence contributes to alliance success, both directly and through the acquisition and creation of resources. Using survey data gathered from 145 alliances, empirical tests of the hypotheses provide support for the posited explanation of alliance success. The findings indicate that an alliance competence is not only antecedent to the resources that are necessary for alliance success but also to alliance success itself. C. Jay Lambe (Ph.D., The Darden School at University of Virginia) is an assistant professor of marketing in the Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Tech. For 10 years prior to entering academe, he was engaged in business-to-business marketing for both Xerox and AT&T. His research interests include business-to-business marketing, relationship marketing, marketing strategy, and sales management. He has publications in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Product Innovation Management, theEuropean Journal of Marketing, theJournal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, theInternational Journal of Management Reviews, theJournal of Business-to-Business Marketing, and theJournal of Relationship Marketing. He also serves as a reviewer for theJournal of Business-to-Business Marketing. Prior to joining the faculty at Virginia Tech, he was one of five Texas Tech University faculty members chosen in 1999 from the entire university for the annual Outstanding Faculty Member Award by the Mortar Board and Omicron Delta Kappa (Texas Tech University student organizations that recognize excellence in teaching). Robert E. Spekman is the Tayloe Murphy Professor of Business Administration at the Darden School at the University of Virginia. He was formerly a professor of marketing and associate director of the Center for Telecommunications at the University of Southern California. He is an internationally recognized authority on business-to-business marketing and strategic alliances. His consulting experiences range from marketing research and competitive analysis, to strategic market planning, supply chain management, channels of distribution design and implementation, and strategic partnering. He has taught in a number of executive programs in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Asia, and Europe. His executive program experience ranges from general marketing strategy, to sales force management, to channels strategy, to creating strategic alliances, to business-to-business marketing strategy, to a number of single-company and senior executive management programs. He has edited and/or written seven books and has authored (coauthored) more than 80 articles and papers. He also serves as a reviewer for a number of marketing and management journals, as well as for the National Science Foundation. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Southern California, he taught in the College of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park. During his tenure at Maryland, he was granted the Most Distinguished Faculty Award by the MBA students on three separate occasions. Shelby D. Hunt is the J. B. Hoskins and P. W. Horn Professor of Marketing at Texas Tech University, Lubbock. A past editor of theJournal of Marketing (1985–87), he is the author ofModern Marketing Theory: Critical Issues in the Philosophy of Marketing Science (South-Western, 1991) andA General Theory of Competition: Resources, Competences, Productivity, Economic Growth (Sage, 2000). He has written numerous articles on competitive theory, macromarketing, ethics, channels of distribution, philosophy of science, and marketing theory. Three of hisJournal of Marketing articles—“The Nature and Scope of Marketing” (1976), “General Theories and Fundamental Explananda of Marketing” (1983), and “The Comparative Advantage Theory of Competition” (1995) (with Robert M. Morgan)—won the Harold H. Maynard Award for the best article on marketing theory. His 1985Journal of Business Research article with Lawrence B. Chonko, “Ethics and Marketing Management,” received the 2000 Elsevier Science Exceptional Quality and High Scholarly Impact award. His 1989 article, ”Reification and Realism in Marketing: in Defense of Reason,” won theJournal of Macromarketing Charles C. Slater Award. For his contributions to theory and science in marketing, he received the 1986 Paul D. Converse Award from the American Marketing Association, the 1987 Outstanding Marketing Educator Award from the Academy of Marketing Science, and the 1992 American Marketing Association/Richard D. Irwin Distinguished Marketing Educator Award.     

The moderating effect of organizational cohesiveness in knowledge use and new product development

This study examined the influence of cohesiveness, an organizational cultural variable, on knowledge use and organizational learning within the context of new product development (NPD). The authors surveyed NPD managers from 323 firms, representing a wide range of product classifications, about their firms’ levels of cohesiveness and NPD efforts. Using structural equation modeling, the authors demonstrated that organizational cohesiveness has a moderating influence on both an organization’s use of its existing knowledge to develop innovative new products and the resulting performance of those products, which emphasizes how influential organizational “mind-set” can be. By considering cohesiveness an influence in new product innovativeness and new product performance, the authors incorporated a cultural variable that has received little attention in the NPD and more general marketing literature. This research reveals that much is left to learn about cohesiveness and that understanding it can advance knowledge use, organizational learning, and innovation. Beverly K. Brockman (bev-brockman@utc.edu) is an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. She holds BBA and MBA degrees from the University of Kentucky and a PhD from the University of Alabama. Her specialty areas include marketing strategy, entrepreneurship, product development, and organizational learning. Dr. Brockman has been an American Marketing Association Doctoral Consortium Fellow, and her work has been published inDecision Sciences, Journal of Services Research, Journal of Consumer Satisfaction, Dissatisfaction, and Complaining Behavior, and others. Robert M. Morgan (rmorgan@cba.ua.edu) (PhD, 1991, Texas Tech University) is Phifer Faculty Fellow and department head, Department of Management and Marketing, in the Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration at the University of Alabama. His interests focus on relationship marketing and marketing strategy, and his research in these areas has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theAcademy of Management Journal, Decision Sciences, and other journals and book chapters. His article “The Commitment-Trust Theory of Relationship Marketing,” coauthored with Shelby D. Hunt and published in 1993 in theJournal of Marketing, was recognized in 2004 by the Institute for Scientific Information as the most cited article in business and economics journals over the previous decade. His article “The Comparative Advantage Theory of Competition,” also coauthored with Shelby D. Hunt and published in 1995 in theJournal of Marketing, received the Sheth Foundation/Journal of Marketing Award in 2004.