The timing of trademark application in innovation processes

An emerging stream of literature is studying the extent to which trademarks can be used to measure innovation. The picture of the usefulness of trademarks for innovation studies, however, is far from complete. Starting with cues from the patent literature, this paper studies the relationship between the timing of trademark applications and innovation. The trademark literature provides competing predictions on whether companies apply for trademarks early or late in the innovation process. Using a large sample of trademarks referring to innovation, we undertake a first empirical test of these predictions. Our findings suggest that in many instances reality is not as clear cut as the predictions suggest. However, when trademark data is combined with data on firm age, sector and size it is possible to predict whether a trademark refers to early or late-stage innovation.     

Booking now or later: Do online peer reviews matter?

Consumers always face a tradeoff between making a purchase decision now and continuing information searching with delayed purchase decision. This study extends extant literature by empirically investigating the effects of online peer reviews on consumers’ timing of booking a restaurant using a merged data set of online peer reviews and consumer reservation records. The results show that the rating valence, rating variation, and review content richness of online peer reviews positively motivate potential consumers to book a restaurant earlier, while the time interval between successive reviews hinders consumers’ booking decision. It is also found that the effects of rating valence on timing of restaurant booking depend on the different levels of rating variation and review content richness. The findings of this study help practitioners better understand consumers’ purchase decision process and improve marketing strategies.     

Coskewness timing ability in the mutual fund industry

The ability of mutual fund managers to time coskewness successfully can help them manage their portfolio’s exposure to potential losses and improve their fund’s performance. This study assesses whether mutual fund managers are able to manage the market exposure of their investment portfolios given a change in coskewness. We demonstrate that fund managers investing in Small Blend and Small Growth stocks possess the ability to time coskewness. On average, the fund managers of these two investment objectives increase the market exposures of their portfolios about 2.749 % and 1.340 %, respectively, based on their anticipations on future coskewness. Superiority is driven from the fact that the fund managers in small capitalization stocks are successfully able to manage the tail risk of their funds’ portfolios. The fund-by-fund results confirm that the number of individual funds succeeding in timing market skewness of the Small Blend and Small Growth investment objectives is larger than the remaining types. The main findings are robust when controlling for other types of timing ability, the periods of financial turbulence, and the construction of coskewness.     

基于实物期权理论的企业设计创新投资时机研究

产品的设计创新已经成为企业培养和维持核心竞争优势的关键。已有文献较少基于经济管理的视角来探讨不确定条件下企业设计创新所具有的实物期权特性,且传统的 DCF 无法对管理决策柔性做出科学的评价。为此,根据实物期权理论,构建企业设计创新的投资时机模型,并利用案例证明该模型的科学性和可行性。结果表明,企业在 DCF 分析的同时,应充分考虑企业设计创新的投资期权价值,把握最佳投资时机,实现科学决策。     

因时而变：时间压力视角下反馈寻求时机对创造力的影响机制研究

反馈寻求与创造力关系已被证实会受到策略、反馈源、效价等因素影响，但忽视了寻求时机对创造力的作用。随着企业竞争格局加剧，员工将反馈信息转化为创造力的时效性显得尤为重要。由于反馈寻求时机的构念界定与特点描述并不明晰，关于其对创造力的作用机制尚未得出明确结论。为此，首先通过质性分析探索反馈寻求时机的内涵、特点，并进行量表重构；其次，根据解释水平以及双元学习等理论，从时间视角出发，探索时间压力下即时与延时寻求反馈对个体创造力的作用机制。分析结果表明：即时和延时寻求反馈均显著正向影响个体创造力；双元学习中介于即时/延时寻求反馈与个体创造力，即时与延时寻求反馈分别通过利用式、探索式学习促进个体创造力提升；时间压力正向调节即时寻求反馈与利用式学习关系，负向调节延时寻求反馈与探索式学习关系。     

Long-run risk and hidden growth persistence

An extensive literature has analyzed the implications of hidden shifts in the dividend growth rate. However, corresponding research on learning about growth persistence is completely lacking. Hidden persistence is a novel way to introduce long-run risk into standard business-cycle models of asset prices because it tightly intertwines the cyclical and long-run frequencies. Hidden persistence magnifies endogenous changes in the forecast variance of the long-run dividend growth rate despite homoscedastic consumption innovations. Not only does changing forecast variance make discrimination between protracted spells of anemic growth and brief business recessions difficult, it also endogenously induces additional variation in asset price discounts due to the preference for early uncertainty resolution.     

A multi-category customer base analysis

Customer base analysis is an essential tool to measure and develop relationships with customers. While various models have been proposed in a noncontractual setting, they focus primarily on analyzing transactional patterns associated with a single product category or a firm-level activity, such as the times at which purchases are made at a particular retailer. This research proposes a modeling framework for customer base analysis in a multi-category context. Specifically, we model the time between a customer's purchases at the firm and the product categories that comprise her shopping basket arising from multi-category choice decisions. The proposed model uses a latent space approach that parsimoniously captures the dynamics of multi-category shopping behavior due to the interplay between purchase timing and shopping basket composition. We also account for interdependence among multiple categories, temporal dependence across category choices, and latent customer attrition. Using category-level transaction data, we show that the proposed model offers excellent fit and performance in predicting customer purchase patterns across multiple categories. The forecasts and inferences afforded by our model can assist managers in tailoring marketing efforts across categories.     

The effect of time-varying factors on promotional activity in the German milk market

Promotional sales are an essential pricing tool in the marketing mix of food retailers, which induced numerous studies on the topic. However, few studies have considered time-varying factors of promotional activity in retailing. This study analyzes the effect of time-varying factors on promotional activity in German food retailing using an extensive scanner data set of weekly milk prices. I used a zero-truncated negative binomial model to estimate the time that elapsed between promotional sales. The study shows that promotional activity is high in times of peak demand, when recent unit sales are low, and when the regular price has recently been changed. The results provide compelling evidence that time-varying factors influence the retailer's pricing behavior.     

Dynamic coordination among heterogeneous agents

We study a dynamic model of coordination with timing frictions and payoff heterogeneity. There is a unique equilibrium, characterized by thresholds that determine the choices of each type of agent. We characterize equilibrium for the limiting cases of vanishing timing frictions and vanishing shocks to fundamentals. A lot of conformity emerges: despite payoff heterogeneity, agents’ equilibrium thresholds partially coincide as long as a set of beliefs that would make this coincidence possible exists. However, the equilibrium thresholds never fully coincide. In case of vanishing frictions, the economy behaves almost as if all agents were equal to an average type. Conformity is not inefficient. In the efficient solution, agents follow others even more often.     

When patents matter: The impact of competition and patent age on the performance contribution of intellectual property rights protection

The question whether patenting impacts patenting firms' subsequent financial performance is important for technology-oriented companies. However, relevant research has led to contradictory results. We strive to overcome this impasse by introducing innovation competition and patent age as moderators of patents' performance contribution into the discourse. Based on a sample of 975 cases from diverse industries, we find strong support for our arguments. In line with our expectations, the results show that the number of patents granted, the degree of patent competition, and the timeliness of a patent contribute positively to financial performance. Moderation analysis nuances our findings by showing that the impact of patent protection on financial performance is stronger when the patent competition is stronger and the patents are younger.These findings provide insights into the conditions under which patenting leads to higher financial performance. Our findings highlight the importance of innovation competition and patent age for innovation research. The empirical results show firms that patenting pays and that, in order to tap the full potential of patents, they need to focus on emerging competing industries and reduce the time to market. Policy makers learn that patenting is a successful approach to foster innovation at limited social costs.