Co-producing with consumers: how varying levels of control and co-production impact affect

As companies continue to utilize co-production (customer participation in product or service creation) strategies with consumers, academic researchers have expanded their study on issues related to co-production. However, research has been scant on the issue of control in such situations. The underlying belief in increasing customer participation and involvement is it increases customers’ perceived control, thereby enhancing their experience and outcomes; this belief creates the necessity for further examination of control in co-production environments. This study examines consumers’ affective responses to differing levels of three types of control (cognitive, behavioral, and decisional) in low and high co-production conditions. Using two experimental contexts and one survey study, the results show increasing cognitive control will increase affect when co-production is low. Behavioral control can negatively or positively influence affect depending on specific situational contexts and perceptions of customization in low co-production conditions. Lastly, decisional control is found to be an important positive contributor to affect regardless of co-production level. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Do Interest Rate Liberalization and Fintech Mix? Impact on Shadow Deposits in China

In this paper we attempt to characterize the stability of shadow deposits in China with interest rate liberalization and fintech developments. We emphasize that shadow banks provide higher but riskier returns and such characteristics affect the stability of shadow deposits. In our setting, the stability of shadow deposits is influenced by two offsetting effects, namely: the patience effect, which makes investors more willing to wait because of the potentially higher returns; and the uncertainty effect, which makes investors more likely to withdraw as a result of higher risk. Under liberalized interest rates, the patience effect will erode and the uncertainty effect will be heightened because the post‐liberalization higher return of traditional banks undermines the importance of the extra return of shadow deposits to depositors, while preserving the importance of the risk aspect. Fintech development is modeled as a reduction in the withdrawal cost that facilitates runs. This affects the stability of shadow deposits because of their wider fintech reliance. Regulators should be cautious in pushing interest rate liberalization and fintech application alongside building a safety net for shadow banking.     

An exploratory study of Principal Investigator roles in UK university Proof‐of‐Concept processes: an Absorptive Capacity perspective

The increasing emphasis on academic entrepreneurship, technology transfer and research commercialisation within UK universities is predicated on basic research being developed by academics into commercial entities such as university spin‐off companies or licensing arrangements. However, this process is fraught with challenges and risks, given the degree of uncertainty regarding future returns. In an attempt to minimise such risks, the Proof‐of‐Concept (PoC) process has been developed within University Science Park Incubators (USIs) to test the technological, business and market potential of embryonic technology. The key or the pivotal stakeholder within the PoC is the Principal Investigator (PI), who is usually the lead academic responsible for the embryonic technology. Within the current literature, there appears to be a lack of research pertaining to the role of the PI in the PoC process. Moreover, Absorptive Capacity (ACAP) has emerged within the literature as a theoretical framework or lens for exploring the development and application of new knowledge and technology, where the USI is the organisation considered in the current study. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to explore the role and influence of the PI in the PoC process within a USI setting using an ACAP perspective. The research involved a multiple case analysis of PoC applications within a UK university USI. The results demonstrate the role of the PI in developing practices and routines within the PoC process. These practices and processes were initially tacit and informal in nature but became more explicit and formal over time so that knowledge was retained within the USI after the PIs had completed the PoC process.     

Learning from action: An analysis of the center for army lessons learned (CALL)

In this fast-paced world, skills and competencies must be developed quickly; people must learn from their experience and what they learn must be gathered from throughout the organization, then synthesized, analyzed, and made available where and when it is needed to improve performance. This article analyzes an organization successfully meeting these requirements, the United States Army's Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL). Implications for human resource management are discussed. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Chronic illness medication compliance: a liminal and contextual consumer journey

Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science - The consumer journey has drawn interest from marketers as an avenue to strengthen sales through managing touchpoints. However, a firm-centric view has...     

When the Former CEO Stays on Board: The Role of the Predecessor’s Board Retention for Product Innovation in Family Firms

Understanding product innovation in family firms is an important research endeavor given the economic predominance of those firms, their idiosyncrasies, and the importance of constant renewal for those firms to achieve transgenerational survival. Recently, family firm research has highlighted the role of next-generation chief executive officers (CEOs; i.e., successors) who are often seen as drivers for innovating a family firm’s products. However, prior research has typically neglected that predecessors, who are often portrayed as less willing to introduce product innovation, frequently remain involved postsuccession through occupying board positions and thus still substantially influence the decision-making processes and outcomes of family firms, such as product innovation. As a result, our understanding of the role of predecessors and their postsuccession involvement in family firms’ product innovation remains unclear. Building on stakeholder salience theory and on insights from the literature on innovation and succession in family firms, we develop hypotheses about how and under which conditions the predecessor’s board retention affects product innovation in family firms after succession. Building on more than 200 family firm CEO succession cases in small- and medium-sized, privately owned family firms, our results reveal that the predecessor’s board retention negatively affects product innovation. This negative effect is strengthened with increasing involvement of the predecessor in the successor selection process, and it is offset in the case of family succession. Our findings contribute to the emerging stream of research on family firm succession and product innovation and provide important implications for practice.     

Developing and Testing a Dynamic Theory of Motor Carrier Safety

Developing an understanding of the longitudinal relationships between different measures of motor carrier safety is important to advance theory and practice regarding this significant supply chain management and public policy issue. In this article, we combine core principles from several theoretical traditions to propose a dynamic theory of motor carrier safety that specifies the longitudinal relationships between three core measures of safety publically reported by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration: unsafe driving, hour‐of‐service compliance, and vehicle maintenance. We test this theory using four years of longitudinal data on motor carrier safety for a random sample of large, for‐hire motor carriers. Results from fitting a vector multivariate autoregressive moving average time‐series model are largely consistent with the theory we propose. We describe the implications of our research for supply chain management theory and practice, summarize limitations, and suggest directions for future research.     

Strategic hybrid orientation between market orientation and brand orientation: guiding principles

Strategic orientations underpin the firm’s managerial decisions and influence its performance. Firms can combine multiple strategic orientations to achieve superior performance. Market orientation and brand orientation are well-developed, separate, strategic approaches. A 2013 study conceptually proposed a strategic hybrid orientation comprising two types: (a) market and brand orientation and (b) brand and market orientation. The current study is qualitative, using small-to-medium enterprises to investigate strategic hybrid orientations. Through propositions, the paper explains the theory and processes underlying the two hybrid orientation types. The propositions form the guiding principles for the strategic management of the hybrid orientation. The implications for managerial practice show that quite different capabilities apply to the execution of each strategic hybrid type.     

Assessing the impact of different workplace flexibilities on workplace stress in the presence of varying degrees of job control

We apply probit and propensity score matching to 1667 respondents from the 2008 National Survey of the Changing Workforce to quantify how workers’ self-reported stress levels vary under two different workplace flexibilities and varying degrees of job control. The first workplace flexibility considered is the ability to easily take time off for personal and family matters; the second is the option of a compressed work week. Our findings suggest that the first flexibility correlates with lower stress reports regardless of job control level. The second flexibility, however, correlates with lower stress levels only for workers with low levels of job control. This suggests that a compressed work week does not reduce stress for workers that already have high levels of job control. The more general conclusion is that some flexibilities are substitutes for job control whereas other are not, assuming the larger goal is the reduction of workplace stress and the various maladies exacerbated by stress.