The Telling Trades of Mutual Funds

Under the assumption that mutual funds trade at quarter commencement, some funds exhibit and exploit persistent stock selection talent; that is, the stocks purchased consistently outperform the stocks sold, and the higher turnover of these funds indicates that managers are capitalizing on their forecasting abilities. However, any evidence of sustained stock selection skill disappears when alternate trade‐timing assumptions are considered, suggesting that some skilled managers are electing to trade earlier than previously assumed. Overall, the results question the appropriateness of the quarter‐end trading assumption and the validity of existing studies that employ it.     

The Total Product Design Concept and an Application to the Auto Market

As traditional sources of competitive advantage shrink, firms seek new ones. One such source of competitive advantage is product design because of its effects on customer experience. To understand the role and impact of product design on customer experience, we propose an integrated, customer‐based framework for product design that we call the total product design concept (TPDC). We define a product's TPDC as consisting of three elements, namely functionality, aesthetics, and meaning, each of which arises from more elemental product characteristics. We elaborate on the structure of a product's TPDC, its three elements, and the links between those elements and customers' experience with a product. We provide an illustrative application of the TPDC using data from the U.S. auto market. The findings from that application support the proposed three‐dimensional view of the TPDC, and demonstrate heterogeneity both in the TPDC's structure and its effects on customer satisfaction. For all three segments, functionality enhances customer satisfaction. For the largest segment of customers, functionality is the most important factor, followed by aesthetics. For the other two segments, customer satisfaction is most influenced by the meaning element of TPDC. We discuss the implications of these findings for the auto industry in particular, and the potential use of the TPDC more generally.     

Perspectives on Advertising From the Geographical Literature: A Critical Review

In recent years, geographers have been devoting increasing attention to the field of advertising, and in particular to advertising imagery. The authors of this article offer a critical review of articles with substantial advertising content that have appeared in geography journals, and assess their relevance to advertising practitioners, scholars and students. These writings are reviewed under three headings: considerations of place and space; issues related to gender and race, and aspects of international advertising. Although many geographers are critical of advertising, there is nevertheless much in their work to interest an advertising readership.     

Using the PET Assessment Instrument to Help Students Identify Factors that Could Impede Moral Behavior

We present an instrument developed to explain to students the concept of the personal ethical threshold (PET). The PET represents an individual’s susceptibility to situational pressure in his or her organization that makes moral behavior more personally difficult. Further, the PET varies according to the moral intensity of the issue at hand, such that individuals are less vulnerable to situational pressure for issues of high moral intensity, i.e., those with greater consequences for others. A higher PET reflects an individual’s greater likelihood of adhering to the morally correct path, even in the face of high situational pressures (personal costs) and low moral intensity (collective importance). PET questionnaires were completed by 506 students representing eight business schools throughout the United States. Relationships between respondents’ PET and their gender, age, and major field of study, as well as the geographical location of their school, are explored. Results indicate that older students have higher PETs and that students attending schools in the northeastern part of the United States have lower PETs. These findings are discussed. It is argued that the PET instrument can be used to help students identify organizational pressures and intrapersonal processes that can impede their moral behavior in organizations.     

数字家庭进行时

2005年刚过一半,我们已经目睹了一场关于娱乐科技的突然爆发。从这场爆发的能量、内容以及特色等各个角度都可以看出,数字家庭的梦想正在一步步地变成现实。     

The nature of market visioning for technology-based radical innovation

The ability to link advanced technologies to market opportunities is a crucial aspect of radical innovation. When markets do not yet exist, it is difficult to persevere, given organizational pressures for immediate profit. To study this problem, eleven radical innovation projects are examined in nine large, mature organizations in a real-time field setting. The sample is augmented by interviews of four additional individuals who have repeated experiences in linking advanced technologies to markets. From results that are qualitative in nature, four themes emerge. First, vision is built and sustained through a variety of mechanisms that may operate in combination or serially. Second, there are a number of roles that individuals play in creating and evangelizing a vision through an organization. Third, there exist a few tools and methods for aiding in developing visions that are not dependent strictly on individual initiative, but these are not systematically employed by organizations. Finally, visions undergo a process of validation and internal acceptance that may depend heavily on reaching out beyond the familiar customer/market set of the firm.
Building on these themes, we derive two sets of insights. The first identifies three different ways that visions might develop. We did not discover a singular process across firms or even within a single firm by which visions develop. Second, we identify three elements that occur when a vision is formulated and utilized in organizations: Motivation, Insight and Elaboration. Thus a vision does not arise through a single creative leap, but develops over time and requires focus, discipline, energy, and the involvement of many people. Awareness of this conceptual underpinning of visioning may help managers understand how to encourage this activity and help sustain long-term growth and renewal in their organizations.     

Market Learning and Radical Innovation: A Cross Case Comparison of Eight Radical Innovation Projects

Does customer input play the same key role in every successful new-product development (NPD) project? For incremental NPD projects, market information keeps the project team focused on customer wants and needs. Well-documented methods exist for obtaining and using market information throughout the stages of an incremental NPD project. However, the role of market learning seems less apparent if the NPD project involves a really new product—that is, a radical innovation that creates a line of business that is new not only for the firm but also for the marketplace. In all likelihood, customers will not be able to describe their requirements for a product that opens up entirely new markets and applications. To provide insight into the role that market learning plays in NPD projects involving really new products, Gina Colarelli O'Connor describes findings from case studies of eight radical innovation projects. Participants in the study come from member companies of the Industrial Research Institute, a consortium of large company R&D managers. With a focus on exploring how market learning for radical innovations differs from that of incremental NPD projects, the case studies examine the following issues: the nature and the timing of market-related inquiry; market learning methods and processes; and the scope of responsibility for market learning, and confidence in the results. Observations from the case studies suggest that the market-related questions that are asked during a radical innovation project differ by stage of development, and they differ from the questions that project teams typically ask during an incremental NPD effort. For example, assessments of market potential, size, and growth were not at issue during the early stages of the projects in this study. Such issues came into play after the innovations were proven to work under controlled conditions and attention turned to finding applications for the technology. For several projects in the study, internal data and informal networks of people throughout relevant business units provide the means for learning about the hurdles the innovation faces and about markets that are unfamiliar to the development group. The projects in this study employ various techniques for reducing market uncertainty, including offering the product to the most familiar market and using a strategic ally who is familiar with the market to act as an intermediary between the project team and the marketplace.     

Investigating the marketing impact of consumers’ connectedness to celebrity endorsers

Consumers enjoy following famous media personalities, discovering details about their habits, food preferences, or designer brands that they wear. Consumers model their consumption behaviors based on their favorite celebrities’ preferences. Marketers are aware of such celebrity admiration and frequently use celebrities as part of marketing communication strategies. Grounded in parasocial relationship and social connectedness theories, this study tests a model of connectedness to the celebrity, attitude toward the celebrity, receptivity toward the celebrity‐endorsed message, and purchase intentions of the celebrity‐endorsed market offering. These relationships were investigated using structural equation modeling. The findings indicate an individual's level of connectedness to their favorite celebrity is positively linked with both their receptivity toward the celebrity‐endorsed message and purchase intentions of the celebrity‐endorsed market offering. On the theoretical side, the integration of parasocial relationship and social connectedness theories explain the processes through which celebrity endorsements impact consumers’ attitudes and behaviors. On the practical side, the findings suggest marketers should carefully choose the best celebrity endorsers for advertisements after considering how constituents from within their key target markets are likely to connect with the chosen celebrity. However, beyond consumers’ connectedness to the celebrity, the findings also suggest that receptivity toward the celebrity‐endorsed message is an essential link to purchase intentions of the endorsed offering.     

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).     

What Coaches Believe are Best Practices for Coaching: A Qualitative Study of Interviews from Coaches Residing in Asia and Europe

The industry of executive and leadership coaching has grown over the past decade, becoming an integral part of many leadership and executive training and development initiatives globally. As a result, research focusing on coaches in Asia and Europe may uncover useful best practices that could inform the field. Such knowledge would enable coaches to better understand how to work better with their client–leaders and can also inform and develop coaching practice and research. The purpose of our qualitative study was to understand, through the interviews of 12 practicing coaches residing in Asia and 19 practicing coaches residing in Europe, what their best practices are in one‐to‐one coaching engagements. Ten best practices from the coaches in Asia and six best practices from the coaches in Europe emerged. Each best practice is discussed as well as limitations, future research, and implications from the findings of our study.