A global market advantage framework: the role of global market knowledge competencies

The globalization forces engender companies to develop a new set of competencies that would enable the generation of abnormal returns in the global marketplace. This article reviews the extant literature regarding the effect of globalization on organizations and develops a conceptual framework that underlines the importance of knowledge management competencies in creating global market advantage. The knowledge management competencies consist of global customer, competitor and supplier knowledge development, inter-functional coordination and value chain coordination. The relationship between global market knowledge competencies and global market advantage is partially mediated by company's responsiveness. Global market advantage is positively associated with company's strategic and financial performance.     

Aftermarketing with Best Customers-

In order to cultivate and serve the needs of their customers, for-profit businesses and organizations are using ''aftermarketing'' as a technique to reduce customer attrition. This article will examine this way as a technique for nonprofit organizations to serve the needs and wants of its donors. It will analyze a case study of a nonprofit organization which uses this technique as a tool for finding out what donors think. And it will discuss the importance of ''aftermarketing'' to nonprofit organizations.     

Strategic capabilities and the emergence of the global factory: Omron in China

Omron Shanghai provides a detailed case study of a multinational subsidiary's long-term evolution. The study assesses three streams of international business literature that emphasize the seemingly competing roles of parent firm strategy, national institutions or local management in the development of subsidiaries. It looks at each business function separately to reveal which capabilities were effectively transferred from Japan to China. In tracing Omron Shanghai's development from international joint venture into wholly owned enterprise and then global factory, it is the strategic intent of the parent multinational corporations that emerges as the consistent formative influence on management practices and capabilities.     

How to create a realistic customer journey map

Although many articles discuss customer journey mapping (CJM), both academics and practitioners still question the best ways to model the consumer decision journey. We contend that most customer journey maps are critically flawed. They assume all customers of a particular organization experience the same organizational touchpoints and view these touchpoints as equally important. Furthermore, management lacks an understanding of how to use CJM as a cross-functional, strategic tool that promotes service innovation. This article proposes a solution to the unwieldy complexity of CJM by linking customer research to the CJM process and by showing managers how to develop a customer journey map that improves a customer's experience at each touchpoint. Using the case of an actual retail mall, we show that common CJM assumptions about the equal importance of all touchpoints are fundamentally wrong, and how easy it is for retail managers and strategic planners to make incorrect judgements about customer experience. This article demonstrates through a case study how customer research helped a mall's strategic management team understand which touchpoints were more or less critical to customer experience. It also shows key strategic initiatives at each touchpoint, resulting in cross-functional input aimed to advance service innovation at the mall.     

Globalization of R&D and China: An Introduction

In this introduction, we discuss the recent changes in multinational corporations' (MNCs) research and development (R&D) strategies and China's rising role in this new development. Significant changes include: 1) More and more corporations have started overseas R & D operations; 2) the missions of many overseas R&D facilities have shifted from the traditional supplementing and supporting roles to become critical and strategic components of MNCs' global R&D networks; and 3) MNC overseas R&D operations have expanded their geographic reach to carefully selected developing countries. China has benefited from such changes and has become one major attraction for such R&D facilities due to its rich endowment of low-cost and well- trained scientists and engineers as well as its fast growing domestic market and burgeoning foreign investment in manufacturing. The explosion of foreign R&D investment has also been accompanied by the rapid growth of China's domestic investment in R&D. The growth in both domestic and foreign investment in R&D implies that China will improve its position in global economic and technological competition. However, it is unclear to the rest of the world about the implications of China's rising R&D and whether or not China can capture the value from the presence of foreign R&D centres. We conclude that issues related to China's science and technology development in general and foreign R&D in China in particular warrant more research in the future.     

Excellence in Canada: Healthy Organizations – Achieve Results by Acting Responsibly

There is much public focus in North America today on issues of corporate governance and ethics due mainly to the malpractice of several high profile corporate leaders and the negative impact of this on their corporation's stakeholders, employees and communities. This has caused a crisis of trust in the public and lead to much discussion on ways to prevent such unethical behavior by adopting new approaches through legislation and the structure of corporations. This article is not about introducing a new approach to corporate ethics and governance as there is much change already taking place. The National Quality Institute (NQI) in Canada offers a demonstrated and proven way, through the application of the Excellence Frameworks, of providing for good corporate guidance and ethical leadership practices. Organizations, which adopt a strategic focus on Excellence, attain great results and become healthy organizations, as their leaders understand the dynamic relationship and the balance that exists between employees, customers, and stakeholders. These organizations build trust by acting responsibly. NQI works with many organizations in Canada that have a strategic leadership focus on organizational excellence utilizing the criteria in the NQI Canadian Excellence Frameworks for Quality and for Healthy Workplace. Organizations that take an integrated approach to Excellence also perform well in such areas as corporate social responsibility, employee health and customer satisfaction. This article has specific references to three organizations that have achieved Canada's prime recognition the Canada Awards for Excellence (CAE).     

Marketing Management in Nonprofit Organizations: A Customer Analysis of Church Volunteers

ABSTRACT

Volunteers who work in nonprofit organizations serve an important role in our society, as evidenced by their economic impact. Nonprofit organizations which rely on volunteers are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit and retain sufficient numbers of volunteers to fulfill their missions. Faced with this situation, managers need to become more marketing oriented in their approach of dealing with their volunteers. A manager's first step in becoming more marketing oriented is obtaining a better understanding of the organization's volunteers. This article presents an example of a customer analysis of a specific group of volunteers–church volunteers, to test the efficacy of this approach in better understanding a target group of volunteers. Collecting data from survey respondents, comparisons are made between church volunteers and non-volunteers, between church volunteers and secular volunteers, and between church members who volunteer in their churches and church members who volunteer in secular organizations. The findings support the utility of such a customer analysis in helping a manager develop a more accurate mental model of the organization's volunteers.     

Effects of corporate social responsibility on customer satisfaction and organizational attractiveness: A signaling perspective

In recent years, many researchers have attempted to determine the mechanisms of how corporate social responsibility (CSR) brings financial benefits to a firm. However, many chief financial officers (CFOs) throughout the world are uncertain about the strategic value of CSR, and no consensus has been reached on defining how CSR creates value. Drawing on signaling theory, we explore the effects of the multidimensional construct of CSR on organizational performance by examining the relationships among CSR, corporate reputation, customer satisfaction, and organizational attractiveness from the perspectives of both customers as well as job seekers. Consistent with the European Commission's view, CSR is defined as having three components: CSR for employees, CSR for customers, and CSR for social public welfare. Data are collected through an online survey of a convenient sample of 500 individuals from different organizations in China. Results indicate that corporate reputation plays a mediating role in the relationship between CSR and customer satisfaction and that between CSR and organizational attractiveness. Further, the impact mechanisms of the three components of CSR are different. For CSR for employees, both cognitive and affective reputation work as mediators, with the former playing a bigger mediating role than the latter. For CSR for customers, only cognitive reputation works as a mediator, whereas for CSR for social public welfare, only affective reputation works as a mediator. This study's findings show that the abovementioned relationships are more complex than previous studies have revealed. These insights provide guidelines for firms to better adjust their CSR strategies to improve customer satisfaction and organizational attractiveness.     

Relationship Quality and Customer Retention through Strategic Communication of Customer Skills

This article discusses the idea of a strategic communication of customer skills - a rather neglected relationship marketing strategy. This idea is based on an interpretation of the customer as the company's partner in the value production process. Customer skills are defined as the total of all product-related knowledge and skills of relevance to any aspect of the customer's post-purchase behaviour (e.g. the ability to use the full range of product features). The author assesses whether communicating customer skills strategically may lead to an increase in perceived relationship quality and customer retention as key variables in relationship marketing. Several hypotheses regarding the interrelations between an increase in customer skills and relationship quality are drawn out from a conceptualisation of both constructs. The validity of these hypotheses is then tested empirically using a structural equation modelling approach for two products, i.e. video recorders and reflex cameras. Results give strong support to the relevance of skills communication for relationship marketing success.     

Using the Capital Assets Pricing Model for risk management—A tool for multinational corporation managers

In this article, using a theoretical model and empirical analysis, we show how multinational corporations (MNCs) can utilize the fundamentals of the Capital Assets Pricing Model (CAPM) to formulate a strategic risk management in a global economy. We show that MNCs with branches all over the world, specifically those that specialize in nontradable goods (e.g., McDonald's), should consider each country's beta as the appropriate measure of the relevant risk attached to the location in the country. Finally, using data from the most recent world economic crisis (the subprime crisis), we show that during a world economic crisis the loss of growth will be significantly higher in countries with higher betas, and lower in those with lower betas. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Rapid rise of China's semiconductor industry: What are the implications for Singapore?

Lately, there has been a rush of foreign investment commitments in China's semiconductor industry, giving rise to predictions of a semiconductor revolution in the world's most populous country. Pull factors include China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), which would clarify trading and investment rules, government incentives, and, of course, burgeoning domestic demand. For the moment, because of U.S. export restrictions, China's chip industry will be kept behind the technology curve by around five years. However, its ample supply of engineers and low labor costs will aid in the development of the assembly & test and design sectors, which are labor‐intensive. But given strong government commitment, the industry is likely to continue to progress upward, gaining from the diffusion of high‐tech know‐how through its alliances with multinational corporations and tier‐one foundries. In the industry's value chain, there is potential for Taiwan and China to complement each other in both domestic and global markets, across both high‐ and low‐end technology segments, and across the entire chain of activities. To meet the challenges, Singapore needs to further leverage on its competencies in infrastructure and logistics, as well as the well‐established ASEAN production network for greater economies of scale. For Singapore's semiconductor industry to remain competitive, there is a need to strengthen the full value chain, from integrated circuit (IC) design to wafer fabrication to packaging & test, by attracting and building up companies specializing in different competencies. Singapore semiconductor manufacturers should continuously strive to stay at the technology forefront and provide competitive customer services. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Integrating Customer Satisfaction into the Strategic Marketing Plan

Demanding ever-increasing quality and value, consumers are having major impact on organizations. Ideally, marketing should be at the forefront of organizational change because of this new orientation to customer satisfaction. Marketing can increase its contribution to the organization to the extent it is able to integrate customer satisfaction into the strategic marketing plan. Manufactured products and delivered services generally arise from a need. As long as that need exists and it is fulfilled, the life of the business that procedures that product or service continues. Many businesses have faltered or even disappeared because they did not consistently keep customer needs, expectations, perceptions and attitudes as their first priorities in decision-making and planning. In a changing marketplace, focusing on customer satisfaction ensures a solid foundation on which continued growth and success can be built. This article presents a summary of the key concepts gathered from a review of recent literature on the customer satisfaction process. Examples are offered to illustrate that companies are integrating customer satisfaction to increase their competitive advantage. Finally, the article provides a framework for integrating customer satisfaction into the strategic marketing plan.     

Business and Children: Mapping Impacts,Managing Responsibilities

In recent years, issues of childhood obesity, unsafe toys, and child labor have raised the question of corporate responsibilities to children. However, business impacts on children are complex, multi-faceted, and frequently overlooked by senior managers. This article reports on a systematic analysis of the reputational landscape constructed by the media, corporations, and non-government organizations around business responsibilities to children. A content analysis methodology is applied to a sample of more than 350 relevant accounts during a 5-year period. We identify seven core responsibilities that are then used to provide a framework for enabling businesses to map their range of impacts on children. We set out guidelines for how to identify and manage the firm’s strategic responsibilities in this arena, and identify the␣constraints that corporations face in meeting such responsibilities.     

The Role of Multinational Corporation Characterisitics and Strategic Actions in Development of ASEAN Regionalism

In this paper the macro development of ASEAN regionalism is linked to the micro organizational level characterisitics and strategic actions of multinational corporations. Based on Nye (1971) and Herbert (1984), it was postulated that MNC characterisitics and strategic action would depend on the strategic objectives pursued (volume expansion, resource acquisition, reciprocity and integration). For the exploratory evaluation of these hypotheses a cross-sectional survey of 128 Singapore based MNCs was conducted. The results provide some support for Herbert's propositions. It was found that the volume expansion strategy was most strongly determinant of an ASEAN orientation. With regard to integrated corporations the findings are in the expected direction but disappointing from the ASEAN developmental point of view.     

The character of bridgehead relationships

A supplier's development of a foreign market can be better understood when examined in the context of bridgehead business relationships between a supplier and a foreign customer. In addition to intrarelationship factors, the network of business relationships connected with a supplier and its foreign customer is also important in understanding the supplier's bridgehead relationships. The results from a LISREL analysis of 142 international business relationships show that the supplier's bridgehead relationships are conditioned by the personal relations with the foreign customer. The supplier's bridgehead relationships are also dependent on mutual commercial dependence between the supplier and the foreign customer. The results show that the supplier views the foreign customer as a conduit for foreign market development and will commit itself to the business relationship for this reason. A further finding is that the network of business relations connected with a supplier and its foreign customer constitutes an important setting for the supplier's bridgehead relationships.     

Revisiting customer analytics capability for data-driven retailing

Customer analytics is one of the most dominant strategic weapons in today's competitive retail environment. In spite of its strategic importance, there is scant attention to investigating customer analytics capabilities in the retail context. Drawing on a systematic literature review and thematic analysis, this study proposes a multidimensional customer analytics capability model by identifying relevant dimensions and sub-dimensions in retail settings. The principal contribution of this study is that the model links a customer analytics perspective to a resource-based view (RBV)-capability of the retailers by proposing six customer analytics capability dimensions and twelve sub-dimensions in the spectrum of market orientation and technology orientation. The customer analytics capability dimensions depict three crucial themes of marketing, such as value creation (offering capability and personalization capability), value delivery (distribution capability and communication capability), and value management (data management capability and data protection capability). By incorporating this capability dimensions, practitioners will likely be able to engage customers and enhance customer equity.     

跨国企业对外直接投资市场进入的关键性策略新探

跨国公司市场进入方式多样。当前中国的跨国企业应当根据企业发展规律和国际市场变化,选择恰当的进入策略。即应注意从多角度考虑合理选择新建投资与跨国并购;国际战略联盟;生产一体化等可行策略。     

顾客资产质量评价探析

顾客是企业经营的核心,在顾客经济时代,顾客资产对企业价值创造的贡献作用日益凸显,将顾客资产作为企业战略资产进行管理,对顾客资产质量进行评价,可以帮助企业更加高效的管理顾客资产这项战略资源,在顾客资产方面形成持久的竞争优势,提升企业核心竞争力,满足企业长期良好发展的需要。研究顾客资产的质量,把握顾客资产质量特征,对顾客资产进行客观分析与评价,可以为企业顾客资产的管理提供决策支持,最优化企业顾客资产,最大化企业价值。对于企业而言,顾客资产质量的评价基于对顾客资产信息的详细记录。我国企业目前电子化信息建设尚不完善,这为企业准确评价顾客资产质量,加强顾客资产管理造成了难以逾越的障碍。     

农业跨国公司对中国农业的投资:现状、问题与建议

加入世界贸易组织时中国在农业条款上的让步以及随后采取的一系列兑现承诺的措施,使得农业部门成为之后受冲击最大的部门。目前,全球500强企业中的农业食品类跨国公司基本上都在中国开办了合资或独资公司,投资领域涉及从农业投入到农产品加工、流通再到农产品销售的整条产业链,特别是伴随着过渡期的结束,跨国公司更是加快了并购中国农业食品企业的步伐,并逐步加强了对种子、生产加工、销售及研发等产业链条各环节的控制,这将严重破坏我国原有粮食生产流通的内在平衡体系,导致我国粮食生产、贸易主导权及市场定价权的丧失,并最终使我国的粮食安全受制于人。为此,政府应加强对农业跨国公司投资的规划和引导,并通过立法防范农业跨国公司的垄断行为;强化对农业跨国公司市场行为的监管,加快培育具有较强竞争力、可与之抗衡的国有大型农业企业。     

Cause-Related Marketing: Keys to Successful Relationships with Corporate Sponsors and Their Customers

SUMMARY

An increasingly popular method for nonprofits to raise awareness, educate the public, and receive financial support from corporations is through cause-related marketing. The distinctive feature of cause-related marketing is the corporate sponsor's contribution to a designated cause being tied to customers' participating in revenue-producing transactions with the sponsor. The sponsor benefits from favorable publicity and increased sales. This article discusses factors contributing to the potential success of a cause-related marketing campaign: the sponsor's product quality, fair pricing, and customer traits; the nonprofit's and the sponsor's reputation, shared values, good communication, and commitment; a well-planned and executed campaign, and specific terms that protect both party's assets and clearly outline each party's responsibilities.