有没有新发现——零售银行业的产品创新原则

假如有100美元投资经费,美国零售银行业的决策者们只会拨出20美元用于新产品开发。现在,给金融服务产品线加足马力的时机来临了。     

Marketing,market growth,and endogenous growth theory: An inquiry into the causes of market growth

Market growth plays a central role in virtually all strategic marketing models developed in the past 30 years. Although marketing scholars seem implicitly to assume that marketing efforts contribute in some way to market growth, market growth per se remains a conceptual black box in marketing. Using new developments in endogenous growth theory, this article explores the link between marketing actions and market growth. In particular, the authors develop a conceptual model arguing that the effect of endogenous actions on market growth is mediated by knowledge creation, matching, and diffusion. Propositions are proposed to guide future research. The authors discuss the implications for marketing strategy at both business discipline and public policy levels. Sundar Bharadwaj (Sundar_Bharadwaj@bus.Emory.edu) is an associate professor of marketing in the Goizueta Business School at Emory University. He received his Ph.D. from Texas A&M University. His research interests focus on marketing strategy, performance, and risk. His research has appeared in theJournal of Marketing, Management Science, and theitJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, among others. Terry Clark (tclark@cba.siu.edu) is a professor and chair in the marketing department at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. He received his Ph.D. from Texas A&M University. His research interests include the intersection of international marketing and marketing strategy. His research has appeared in theJournal of Marketing and theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, among others. Songpol Kulviwat (mktszk@hofstra.edu) is an assistant professor of marketing and international business at Hofstra University. He received his Ph.D. in marketing from Southern Illinois University. His research interests include Internet marketing, hightech marketing, international business (sncross-cultural research), and information technology. Prior to his academic career, he worked in the area of international sales management in Thailand.     

An application of the extended Technology Acceptance Model in understanding technology-enabled financial service adoption in South Africa

The last 10 years have seen a significant increase in the provision of consumer services through technology. Computers, mobile phones, the Internet and self-service kiosks are examples of technology platforms that have enabled services to be offered to consumers in new ways. In South Africa, technology-enabled financial services have the potential to expand financial inclusion, especially at the bottom of the pyramid. There is a need to understand how consumers adopt technology-enabled services. Using grounded theory, an enhancement to the Technology Acceptance Model is proposed and developed to explain adoption of technology-enabled financial services. Confirmatory factor analysis is used to validate the model against data obtained from a survey. The proposed model fits the data well. Implications of the model are discussed.     

When and why do customer solutions pay off in business markets?

Manufacturers invest in customer solutions to differentiate their offerings and sustain profitability despite declining margins from goods sales. Notwithstanding strong managerial and academic interest, an examination of whether and explanations for when and why solutions translate into superior performance are lacking. We test hypotheses developed from the resource-based theory and transaction cost economics, supplemented with in-depth theory-in-use interviews, on primary and secondary data collected from 175 manufacturers. From a model that corrects for endogeneity, the findings suggest that, compared with other service offerings, solutions are associated with increased return on sales. This positive profitability effect is enhanced in firms with greater sales capabilities; it is stronger in industries with greater buyer power but weaker in technology-intensive industries. These results caution against the simplistic view of solutions as a universal route to gaining competitive advantage and aid in better identifying the role of solutions in a manufacturer’s offering portfolio.     

Explicating Hearing the Voice of the Customer as a Manifestation of Customer Focus and Assessing its Consequences

It is often asserted that hearing the voice of the customer (VOC) can generate meaningful product and process innovation. Minimal empirical attention has, however, been devoted to evaluating this claim. The paucity of academic research exists, in part, due to the lack of an underlying conceptual foundation for the VOC concept. An opportunity thereby exists to impart theory, and evaluate whether hearing the VOC can indeed lead to favorable consequences. This research construes customer focus as a market‐sensing capability which manifests itself in the key organizational processes (i.e., intelligence generation and continual performance assessment) and values (i.e., a customer orientation serves as the guiding principle) that allow the VOC to be heard throughout the organization. Those manifestations are hypothesized to impact positions (i.e., relative [task‐related] performance) and outcomes (i.e., customer loyalty). The results based on data obtained from a cross‐sectional survey research design fielded in a supplier‐business customer context provide empirical support for the favorable consequences of being customer‐focused, and support the need to consider moderating variables. This paper advances theory by (1) answering the call to examine the capabilities that underlie a customer‐focused organization; (2) establishing empirical support for the (a) linkage between hearing the VOC and acting on that information, (b) elusive relationship between acting on the VOC and future buyer intentions, and (c) sources→positions→outcomes model as a path to achieving competitive advantage; (3) demonstrating that being customer‐focused does not have a direct effect on customer loyalty, thereby revealing a result different than that obtained in the consumer empowerment literature; and (4) demonstrating the importance of key moderators, namely (a) that relative (operational) performance has a strong positive effect on loyalty in relationships characterized by lower switching costs, and (b) that the effect of customer focus may lessen over time, implying that core capabilities may evolve into core rigidities. Additionally, this research contributes to business practice by providing managers with an understanding of how to hear the VOC throughout the firm (i.e., how to become a customer‐focused organization), and offering guidance on how to manage buyer–seller relationships.     

COMPLEXITY AND RANDOMNESS IN MATHEMATICS: PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTIONS ON THE RELEVANCE FOR ECONOMIC MODELLING

Abstract Mathematics itself is a complex system. It exemplifies complexity at the level of structure, hierarchy and so on. There is also an interesting notion of complexity present in the meaning of mathematical ‘alphabets’. These are unique writing strategies of mathematics. Yet another marker of complexity lies in the process of applying mathematics to models. Using mathematics in modelling is a process of deciding what kinds of models to construct and what types of mathematics to use. Modelling can be seen as a decision‐making process where the scientists are the agents. However in choosing mathematical structures the scientist is not being optimally rational. In fact, fertile uses of mathematics in the sciences show a complicated use of mathematics that cannot be reduced to a method or to rational principles. This paper argues that the discourse of satisficing and bounded rationality well describes the process of choice and decision inherent in modelling.