The importance of being first : The case of prescription drugs in Canada

There is a growing literature on the importance of being first, which suggests that where there is uncertainty about the product quality of late entrants' brands the pioneering brand will retain a competitive advantage. This is consistent with studies of the U.S. drug industry. Using Canadian data for the drug industry it is shown that eliminating quality differences is a necessary but not sufficient condition for late entrants to gain market share. In addition, price competition has to be stimulated. Under these conditions the late entrants have taken up to 100 percent of the pioneering brands market.     

Value innovation in business markets: Breaking the industry recipe

The industrial marketing as well as the strategic management literature stresses the importance of “value innovation” in order to create/sustain competitive advantage and to rejuvenate the organization.In the first part of this article the construct of value innovation is operationalized within the context of selected business-to-business markets. We report the results of an ongoing research project; starting from traditional ways of value creation, the study reveals different types of value innovation initiatives undertaken by industry participants. We observe, however, that networks, firms and managers are embedded in industry recipes. These recipes block the creation and realization of value innovation. Some firms are trying to break out of existing frames and their experiences pinpoint to specific ways of markets sensing, strategic marketing and different marketing-mix tools. As such, the research frames value innovation initiatives in the existing industry contexts and managerial frames, and identifies drivers, barriers and perceived success factors for the process of value innovation.The second part of the article then looks at the stages of value innovation and their impact on marketing, organizations and networks. Based on the data analysis, the paper posits propositions which stress the concept of “multilevel absorptive capacity”.     

Measuring perceived pre-purchase risk for a new industrial product

Risk is an important element in industrial adoption decisions. This paper proposes a method to investigate how different group of individuals influencing the adoption of a new industrial product differ in their assessment of the risks. Two dimensions of risk are distinguished: (1) the likelihood that adoption of the new product will have undesirable consequences, and (2) the perceived intensity of these consequences both at the organizational and at the individual level. Purchase consequences are measured in terms of product economics and product reliability. Multivariate analysis of variance is used to assess how decision participants differ in their assessment of risk components. An attempt is made to assess the relative importance of these various components in the formation of individual preferences. The implications of the analysis for the development of better industrial marketing strategies are discussed.     

Inter-threshold resource planning for public higher educational systems

Efforts to design comprehensive systems of long-range resource planning for public colleges and universities in the United States are frustrated in the sense that most states follow a social demand approach to educational planning. Literally thousands of decision makers—including students, parents, formal administrators and faculty members-affect the overall behavior of the system. Nevertheless, more and more states are creating centralized higher educational coordinating agencies to conduct long-range planning and to recommend policies for the future development of the higher educational system. This paper describes research which has attempted to link together three decision thresholds in the resource planning process. These are (a) academic departments or colleges which are combined into (b) a total college or university, which is one part of (c) a state system of higher education containing several colleges and universities.