Does organizational creativity always drive market performance?

This study develops and tests arguments that the relationship between organizational creativity and market performance is channeled through new product development (NPD) capability, and that the indirect effect of creativity on performance, via NPD capability, is conditional upon levels of environment dynamism and market responsiveness. The proposed relationships are tested on a sample of 221 small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in a major sub‐Saharan African market. Findings from the study indicate that process and product NPD capabilities partially mediate the effect of novelty and usefulness elements of organizational creativity on market performance. The study further finds that while environment dynamism weakens the indirect effects of novelty and usefulness of organizational creativity, via process and product NPD capabilities, on market performance, the effects are strengthened under conditions of greater responsiveness to target market needs. A theoretical contribution from this study is the finding that how organizational creativity dimensions drive market performance is more complex than previously thought: it depends on whether or not organizational creativity components are first used to develop an organization's process and product innovation capabilities, and whether target market environment conditions are dynamic and an organization has ability to respond to target market demands.     

顾客参与创新过程中授权对消费者创造力的影响研究

文章从顾客层面出发,探讨了顾客授权对消费者创造力的影响,同时加深了对顾客参与构念的理解。通过两个实验,利用不同情景和处理方法,对文中所提假设进行了验证。认为顾客参与创新过程中,相对高的顾客授权会提升产品新奇性,削弱产品功能性。同时,内在快乐和经济奖励会调节以上作用。     

Toward a contingency view of new product creativity: Assessing the interactive effects of consumers

Although creativity is widely recognized as a critical element for firms to develop new products, knowledge about how consumers evaluate product creativity remains far from definitive. The authors analyze how the relevance of novelty and appropriateness—two main elements of creativity—varies according to the characteristics of the consumer. A sample of 283 consumers indicates a negative interaction effect between novelty and appropriateness, suggesting that creativity depends on either, according to contingencies. Novelty is more relevant when consumers are highly involved or have little knowledge of the product. Appropriateness is more relevant when consumers are minimally involved or have significant knowledge. Theoretical and managerial implications are provided.     

The effect of product touch information and sale proneness on consumers' responses to price discounts

Since price discounts are costly and can negatively affect consumers' perceptions of quality, it is crucial to identify the factors that make them effective in stimulating purchase behavior. Drawing on cue utilization theory, we examine price discount effectiveness in affecting consumers' reliance on the sale cue based on the provided product touch information as an intrinsic cue and individual consumer differences in sale proneness. Two experimental studies indicate that price discount information, product touch information, and sale proneness interact to determine consumers' responses. Perceived quality is the underlying mechanism behind the observed effects. For nonsale-prone consumers, product touch information favorably influences responses to large price discounts by addressing product quality concerns and enhancing purchase confidence, but has no effect for regularly priced or low discounted products. For sale-prone consumers, product touch information is not effective in increasing their responses regardless of the discount size. A qualitative study provides support for these results and highlights the role of perceived quality and purchase confidence. The research contributes to behavioral pricing, cue utilization theory, and sensory marketing and suggests that marketing managers should provide consumers with product touch information when implementing high discounts for products for which prepurchase touch is important.     

Consumer response to product construction: the role of haptic stimulation

This study investigates how consumers are affected by haptic information, that is, the information acquired through the sense of touch, when they take part in the construction or assembly of a product. In order to create value for consumers, marketers must understand how and why haptic information affects the evaluative processes of consumers and whether there are specific segments that are affected differentially by the process. An experimental design with two between‐subjects factors was used to examine consumers' responses to haptic stimulation during the physical construction of a picture frame. The results demonstrate that positive haptic stimulation evoked by the materials used in the product's construction results in an affective response and creates emotional attachment to the finished product. However, the effect is not generalizable to the general population. It depends on the level of autotelic (not functional) need for touch (NFT) that the consumer has. Consumers who have high autotelic NFT are more likely to become attached to and, consequently, enhance their evaluation of the finished product when the product materials used during the construction evoke a positive haptic stimulation.     

To touch or not to touch; that is the question. Should consumers always be encouraged to touch products,and does it always alter product perception?

It has previously been suggested that consumers' product evaluations are positively affected by tactile interaction. However, it is not known if it is applicable to products that people usually touch for brief periods of time. This study sets out to explore whether it is possible to influence consumers' tactile perception of fast‐moving consumer goods by altering the surface texture. In this study individual tactile sensing and visual appreciation were compared with the combined visual and tactile sensing of surface textures for two types of products (soap and biscuits). Three types of textures on the outside of either a soap or biscuit box and three separate sample swatches of the textures used on the boxes were used in the study. The three soap or biscuit boxes were visually presented to the participants. This was followed by a blind haptic evaluation of the three textures, and then by a combined visual and tactile evaluation of three differently textured boxes (either soap or biscuit boxes). The results suggest that a consumer's perception of the packaging of fast‐moving consumer goods is affected more by vision than by touch, which raises some questions with regard to when marketers should encourage consumers to engage in extensive tactile interaction prior to purchase. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Validating new product creativity in the eastern context of Malaysia

This paper examines the etic vs. emic nature of the new product creativity (NPC) construct often used in the strategic marketing and management literatures. The current study compares the NPC measure developed by Im and Workman (2004) in the West in an Eastern context by utilizing data from 172 Malaysian companies. The results show that NPC, which is the combination of new product (NP) novelty and NP meaningfulness, has a different connotation in Malaysia. The findings demonstrate that from the novelty perspective NPC is an emic phenomenon. After the construct validation process, the Western claim that NPC is a seed of firm performance is tested. The results verify NPC's relationship with NP performance as a source of competitive advantage for Malaysian firms and thus suggest that this relationship is etic in nature. These findings have significant implications for firms' global innovation strategies.     

How do 3-dimensional images promote products on the Internet?

The study investigates 3D virtual advertising as it affects the online shopping environment. It examines the vividness of mental imagery as a mediator, and consumers' need for touch and product type as moderators of the effects. An experiment conducted with 207 study participants and two product types, a watch and a jacket, indicates overall that 3D advertising outperforms 2D advertising in effectiveness. The vividness of mental imagery appears to directly influence attitudes and intentions by mediating the effects of 2D versus 3D. As expected, the 3D and 2D formats consistently differed more in their effects for geometric products than for material products. Consumers' NFT affected only intentions to revisit, interacting with product type and site type. For the watch product, 3D advertising is more persuasive for both high and low NFT consumers. Comparatively, for the jacket product, 3D strongly impacts low-NFT consumers only, but has no significant difference for high-NFT study participants.     

Effects of team cognition and constraint on new product ideation

Idea generation is a critical activity in new product development. This study investigates the effects of ideation team's cognitive depth (specialization) and breadth (diverse expertise) as well as goal constraint on the generation of new product ideas. Focusing on the determinants of new product idea development helps articulate the mechanisms to generate more useful and novel product ideas. The findings indicate that specialization and diverse expertise affect idea novelty directly, albeit differently. Goal constraint helps enhance the usefulness dimension of new product ideas, but has little effect on the newness dimension of the ideas. Finally, goal constraint helps harness the diverse expertise of the team toward a more useful idea.     

An investigation on the effectiveness of hedonic versus utilitarian message appeals in luxury product communication

This research studies the role of hedonic versus utilitarian message appeals in luxury goods communication, investigating how using one or the other type of message appeal affects product perceived luxuriousness and, in turn, product attitude, and consumers' willingness to buy. This research presents three experiments in which message appeal and brand prominence have been manipulated, while perception of luxuriousness, attitude toward luxury products, willingness to buy them and consumers' conspicuous consumption orientation have been measured. Hedonic, compared with utilitarian, message appeals increase perceived luxuriousness, thereby increasing product attitude and consumers' willingness to buy the product promoted. This effect is particularly likely to occur for consumers with lower levels of conspicuous consumption orientation and for products carrying lowly prominent logos. We extend the literature on luxury communication by studying the effect of hedonic versus utilitarian message appeals on consumers' responses, and the literature on hedonism versus utilitarianism by studying this dichotomy in the context of luxury goods communication. This research suggests that different message appeals used in luxury goods communication produce different effects on consumers' responses and that this differential effectiveness is particularly likely to manifest for certain types of consumers and certain types of luxury products.     

Look but Don’t Touch! The Impact of Active Interpersonal Haptic Blocking on Compensatory Touch and Purchase Behavior

This research investigates situations in which frontline employees deliberately restrict customers’ access to touch products on display (active interpersonal haptic blocking), and how this understudied form of sensory blocking may increase customers’ downstream purchasing. While previous research examines the benefits of increased product touch, we temporarily block touch for specific products in display areas and then investigate the subsequent impact on customer behavior. Through four studies, including a retail field experiment, we find that when an employee asks a customer not to touch a product on display, this initiates a serial mediation process which: (1) engenders feelings of psychological reactance that result in (2) increased compensatory touching of subsequently encountered products to counterbalance a loss of sensory freedom, and (3) increased spending and purchasing once the customer leaves the reactance-inducing encounter. Effects are moderated by socioeconomic status (SES) and need for touch (NFT) whereby psychological reactance was significantly stronger for high SES customers with a moderate or high NFT when actively blocked. Results also demonstrate that active interpersonal haptic blocking does not result in more negative attitudes toward retailers, thus retailers might consider implementing this counterintuitive practice to encourage downstream sales.     

Multifunctional risk in the adoption of innovative technological products

This study analyses whether the perceived risk of purchasing technological products is less influential on the process of technological adoption when this effect is moderated by the product's multifunctional category (hedonic vs. utilitarian product characteristics). Four experiments were developed according to scenarios related to the multifunctional content (level of complexity according to the product category) of the technology and the number of functionalities in the products. The perception of risk has less effect on adoption when the product characteristics are manipulated to be more utilitarian or heighten the consumer's social value. This study contributes to the theoretical understanding of which categories are less influenced by the perceived multifunctional risk of purchasing and adopting a new technology, as well as of when individual values overlap with consumers' risk perceptions. It also contributes managerially by identifying the profile of individuals who are more likely to consume innovations characterized by high complexity and functionality, and by providing guidance for the development of innovative products that prioritize utilitarian, rather than hedonic, characteristics.     

Is Augmented Reality Technology an Effective Tool for E-commerce? An Interactivity and Vividness Perspective

This study evaluates the effectiveness of augmented reality (AR) as an e-commerce tool using two products — sunglasses and watches. Study 1 explores the effectiveness of AR by comparing it to a conventional website. The results show that AR provides effective communication benefits by generating greater novelty, immersion, enjoyment, and usefulness, resulting in positive attitudes toward medium and purchase intention, compared to the web-based product presentations. Study 2 compares the paths by which consumers evaluate products through AR versus web with a focus on interactivity and vividness. It is revealed that immersion mediates the relationship between interactivity/vividness and two outcome variables — usefulness and enjoyment in the AR condition compared to the web condition where no significant paths between interactivity and immersion and between previous media experience and media novelty are found. Participants' subjective opinions about AR are examined through opinion mining to better understand consumer responses to AR.     

Make it Your Own: How Process Valence and Self‐Construal Affect Evaluation of Self‐Made Products

Self‐production, participation of consumers in the production process of products for their own consumption, leads to consumers’ enhanced evaluations of the self‐made products. Three experimental studies investigate how and why self‐production affects consumers’ product evaluations and reveal that not all production experiences create additional value for all consumers. In particular, Studies 1 and 2, using hypothetical stories and real experiences, show that only positive (vs. negative) production experiences enhance evaluations of self‐made products over products made by others. Positive (but not negative) experiences decrease the psychological distance between the self and the product and strengthen identification with it. Study 3 manipulates self‐construal (independent vs. interdependent) to investigate its role on evaluation of self‐made products and products made with close others as a group (i.e., group‐made). Consumers with independent self‐construal evaluate self‐made (vs. other‐made) products more favorably only if the process is positive. However, consumers with interdependent self‐construal evaluate self‐made products more favorably even if the process is negative. Additionally, consumers with interdependent (vs. independent) self‐construal exhibit more favorable evaluation of group‐made products. Finally, even if consumers know how another person feels while making a product, other people's process emotions do not affect consumers’ product judgments as strongly as their own experienced process emotions.     

Advertising Creativity: The Role of Divergence Versus Meaningfulness

Creativity is seen as an essential component of advertising and is continuing to attract research interest. While there is widespread agreement on the value of creativity, there are two different perspectives on the key components of creativity. One perspective sees creativity as primarily divergence, containing elements of novelty, aesthetic representation, newness, and difference. The second includes, in addition to divergence, the concept of meaningfulness (or appropriateness or connectedness) to the consumer. This view argues that if an advertisement is not meaningful then it simply is not creative. We attempt to find some empirical resolution to this issue. Our findings indicate that divergence is indeed an important element of creativity. Meaningfulness, however, while certainly very important to ad effectiveness, appears to be a distinct and separate construct from creativity.     

What you touch,touches you: The influence of haptic attributes on consumer product impressions

The present research builds upon the touch literature to show that the salience of haptic product attributes related to product surface texture (smooth, rough) and weight (light weight, heavy weight) influence consumer product impressions. We propose that haptic cue congruity across texture and weight drive consumer product impressions depending on a consumer's need for touch (NFT). We show that high autotelic‐NFT consumers who touch for sensory pleasure enjoyed the incongruity between smooth texture and heavy weight haptic cues, and consequently showed favorable evaluations towards exciting brands. In contrast, low autotelic‐NFT consumers prefer the anticipated match between smooth texture and light weight haptic cues, which conformed to their expectation about the nature of a sophisticated brand personality. Further, we show how the interactive effect of haptic attributes and a consumer's autotelic‐NFT on willingness to purchase is mediated by product personality. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

The Role of Social Mechanisms in Promoting Supplier Flexibility

Purpose: This study explores a conceptual framework for social mechanisms (trust and shared vision) to induce supplier flexibility (i.e., volume, mix, new product, and delivery flexibility).

Design/methodology/approach: The current study is based on marketing research reviews of social mechanisms and supply chain flexibility literature. To explore these issues, the authors developed and tested hypotheses with data from 162 members of the SMIT (Supply Management Institute, Taiwan).

Findings: The results show that trust has a direct impact on supplier's volume flexibility and delivery flexibility. Furthermore, the findings indicate that a shared vision has direct impact on supplier's mix, new product, and delivery flexibility. Finally, shared vision plays a mediating role among trust and mix, new product, and delivery flexibility.

Research limitations/implications: This research considers buyer's perspective in examining social mechanisms that enhance supplier flexibility. A clear understanding of social mechanisms effects could evaluate competence trust and risk of respective flexibility that may affect social mechanism effectiveness.

Practical implications: This article contributes to management guidelines on how to align suppliers to respond quickly to customer demands.

Originality/value: The study provides novel insights into social mechanism impact on suppliers' respective flexibility.     

People Who Complain about Advertising: The Aficionados,Guardians, Activists and Seekers

Creativity is a driver of competitive advantage. It is found in firms of all sizes, but perhaps has greatest impact within the entrepreneurial smaller firm. This paper discusses the origins of the study of creativity, from social psychology to the business discipline. Creativity is then viewed as a key competency at the Marketing/Entrepreneurship Interface, linked with related issues such as innovation, vision, leadership and motivation. The benefits of developing creative competencies are presented and linked to a knowledge entrepreneur's set of 21_st century business skills. A model of creativity as competitive advantage is developed, built from sets of internal and external factors impinging upon firm and managerial performance. Finally, a series of recommendations for both marketing practitioners and academics are made, focusing on the need to challenge convention in order to progress ideas, products and services into the new century.     

The effects of document language quality on consumer perceptions and intentions

This article establishes a link between language quality in the documentation accompanying a product and consumers' evaluations of, and behavioural intentions towards, both the product and the manufacturer. In a laboratory experiment, 116 participants assembled a product using assembly guides with different language quality levels. Results show that language quality affects document evaluation, which spills over to the evaluations of both the product and the manufacturer. Findings also indicate that the documentation accompanying a product is a vital extrinsic cue used by consumers to evaluate both the product and the manufacturer, which implies that these documents are secondary products that add value to the primary product. Theoretical and managerial implications of these findings are discussed. Copyright © 2010 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.