Externally Directed and Internally Directed Market Launch Management: The Role of Organizational Factors in Influencing New Product Success

Introducing new products remains a critical challenge for managers. Consumer acceptance of new products is key to new product success and requires the effective implementation of market launch activities. The present study describes the relationship between different types of market launch activities and market‐related, time‐related, and financial market launch success. The study's framework extends previous work on launch management by complementing the view that launch activities are predominantly outwardly directed with the notion that launch management can also be inwardly directed. More specifically, launch activities can both target customers as the external audience, for example, via communication and pricing, and address an internal audience, such as management and sales personnel, for example, using departmental coordination or employee incentives. The study also sets out to investigate how situational factors impact the relative effectiveness of both externally directed and internally directed launch activities in engendering successful new product launches. In particular, product newness, technology drivers, and firm size are considered as relevant variables. Structural equation analysis of data on 178 new products across industries provide empirical evidence that market launch success depends on the intensity of both externally directed and internally directed market launch activities. With regard to the overall impact of internally directed activities, the findings confirm that organizational factors and antecedents indeed play a critical role in new product launch and its respective performance with internally directed activities having an even stronger impact on time‐related and financial success than outwardly directed instruments. Specifically, these internal activities are often viewed as idiosyncratic resources that are hard for competitors to observe and are therefore more difficult—if not impossible—to replicate compared to externally directed activities in market launch. The paper clearly pinpoints that the successful launch of new products is a complex task that also necessitates the implementation of internally directed launch activities. Fast market penetration requires coordination among the different internal players as well as support from top management. Furthermore, the financial objectives of the market launch can only be met if employees and executives both receive the necessary incentives and support to effectively execute the new product introduction. The study also demonstrates that moderators impact the strength of the effectiveness of these two different types of market launch activities. This research provides important implications for launch management by advocating that the two foci on external and internal constituencies should not be pursued in isolation but that instead, the opposite is true.     

Outlier‐Robust Bayesian Multinomial Choice Modeling

A Bayesian method for outlier‐robust estimation of multinomial choice models is presented. The method can be used for both correlated as well as uncorrelated choice alternatives and guarantees robustness towards outliers in the dependent and independent variables. To account for outliers in the response direction, the fat‐tailed multivariate Laplace distribution is used. Leverage points are handled via a shrinkage procedure. A simulation study shows that estimation of the model parameters is less influenced by outliers compared to non‐robust alternatives. An analysis of margarine scanner data shows how our method can be used for better pricing decisions. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dealing with differences: the impact of perceived diversity outcomes on selection and assessment of minority candidates

Although many strategies have been employed to specifically recruit and select minority employees, the selection rates for designated minority groups are often lower than those for the majority group. Minority candidates with high cultural maintenance (CM) are particularly vulnerable to cultural bias in selection procedures, a process which has proved difficult to change. This paper aims to examine whether these effects may be moderated by recruiters’ perceived diversity outcomes; whether they view diversity as beneficial or threatening to the organization's performance. In an experimental study, participants belonging to a cultural majority group played the role of recruiters (n = 99). Their diversity perceptions were manipulated by asking them to think about, and discuss, either positive or negative outcomes of cultural diversity in the workplace. They were then asked to rate fictional profiles of minority candidates for a job opening. The results confirm that CM of minority candidates has a negative main effect on the ratings they receive in assessment procedures. However, as predicted, this effect is moderated by diversity perceptions. Recruiters who perceive individual differences in the workplace as positive and beneficial, give higher ratings to candidates who maintain their own culture. This provides a promising insight in possible ways to reduce cultural bias in selection procedures.     

Labour mobility during transitionEvidence from Georgia1

This article deals with labour mobility in Georgia during economic transition. We use quarterly 1998–99 panel data to examine mobility across six labour market statuses (inactivity, unemployment, formal wage employment, informal wage employment, self‐employment and farming). Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis of labour market segmentation. Formal employment is preferred to informal employment. Unemployment is largely a queuing device for individuals with higher education waiting for formal jobs. Some self‐employment is subsistence activities and consistent with a segmented labour market, while other is high risk and potentially high return activities. Age, gender and education are significant determinants of labour mobility. Finally, informal employment serves as a buffer in times of recession – with farming and informal wage employment absorbing labour shed by other statuses during the Russian financial crisis.     

Wirtschaftlichkeit ist Trumpf

Gesundheits?konomie (Bachelor/Master) - Wirtschaftlichkeit im Gesundheitswesen ist ein „hei?es“ Thema. Wie k?nnen die knappen Ressourcen m?glichst effizient eingesetzt werden? Wie lassen sich auch künftig Bedarf und Leistungen in Einklang bringen? Das Gesundheitssystem weiter zu entwickeln und zukunftsf?hig zu machen, ist die spannende Aufgabe von Gesundheits?konomen.     

On the existence of equilibria in economies with infinitely many commodities and without ordered preferences

The present paper deals with the existence of equilibria in economies whose commodity space is L_∞(M, M, μ) and where the agents' preferences need not be complete or transitive. Applying a fixed point theorem of Browder, an equilibrium existence theorem for abstract economies (generalized qualitative games) is proven where each agent's choice set is contained in an arbitrary topological vector space. With the help of this theorem the existence of Walrasian general equilibrium for a suitably specified economic model is obtained. The final result is a generalization of T. F. Bewley's (J. Econ. Theory4 (1972), 514–540) equilibrium existence theorem to the case of non-ordered preferences.     

Enough is enough! When identification no longer prevents negative corporate associations

Negative publicity has the potential to create negative corporate associations. However, consumers’ identification with a company might moderate the extent of this effect. This article examines the impact of consumer-company identification on reactions to variable levels of negative publicity about a company. Exposing consumers who had strong identification with a company to moderately negative publicity was found to result in less negative corporate associations than for consumers who had relatively weak identification. In contrast, consumers’ levels of identification did not affect reactions to extremely negative information, resulting in equally negative corporate associations for those with strong versus weak consumer-company identification. Thus, strong identification mitigates the effects of moderately negative publicity but does not attenuate the effects of extremely negative publicity. Consumers’ perceptions of and thoughts regarding negative information about a company partially mediated the effect of identification on attitudes and behavioral intentions. Sabine A. Einwiller (sabine.einwiller@fhso.ch) is a lecturer and researcher at the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland. She worked on this research as a visiting scholar at the University of Southern California, visiting from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, where she received her Ph.D. She has published in journals such as theJournal of Consumer Psychology and thePersonality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Her research interests include causes and the measurement of corporate reputation and stakeholder-company identification. Alexander Fedorikhin (sfedorik@iupui.edu) is an associate professor in the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. His research focuses on the intersection of affect and cognition in consumer decision making. He has published in such journals as theJournal of Consumer Research, theJournal of Consumer Psychology, andOrganizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. Allison R. Johnson (ajohnson@business.queensu.ca) is an assistant professor of marketing in Queen’s School of Business, Queen’s University. She received her Ph.D. from the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California. Her research interests include corporate social responsibility, customer-company identification, and consumer emotion. Michael A. Kamins (mkamins@marshall.usc.edu) is an associate professor at the University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business. Dr. Kamins’s current research interests he in pricing strategy in the context of online auctions as well as in the impact of color on consumers’ perceptions of products. He has published over 40 academic articles and proceedings in major academic journals, including theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Consumer Research, theJournal of Consumer Psychology, theJournal of Advertising, and theJournal of Advertising Research.     

The relative impact of actual and potential rivalry on firm profitability in the pharmaceutical industry

This paper estimates the effects of actual and potential rivalry on profitability of firms in the U.S. pharmaceutical industry during the 20‐year period 1963–82. The results show that during the 1960s actual rivalry among the sampled firms did not materially affect firm profitability, but that during the 1970s competition among incumbents had an increasingly adverse effect on their profitability. The results also show that potential competition significantly reduced drug firms’ profitability during the entire 20‐year period. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Implementation issues on shrinkage estimators for seasonal factors within the X-11 seasonal adjustment method

This commentary on Miller and Williams [Intl. J. Forecast. 20 (2004)S29-49] discusses how shrinkage can be implemented within X12-ARIMA. We discuss how the seasonal factors are estimated in X12-ARIMA, how shrinkage can be translated into a moving average, if this is compatible with the philosophy behind the X12-ARIMA method, and suggest possible improvements.