Search

Understanding technological change is of critical importance to marketers, as it bears new markets, new brands, new customers, and new market leaders. This paper examines the deviation among reviews of a technology’s performance and its consequences for inferences on technology evolution patterns. The basic premise of the current paper is that technology evolution literature, while highly relevant, is misguided in that it ignores potential deviation among technology reviews. Using a comprehensive dataset of all published reviews, both before and after FDA approval, of 7 statins for cholesterol reduction (LDL) from 1982 to 2007, the authors find that: (1) there exists vast deviation among reviews of technology performance leading to systematic bias in the portrayal of the path of technology evolution, especially if one relies only on manufacturer’s claims, (2) such deviation does not fade over time, (3) technology review (study design) characteristics affect the stated performance and, (4) both higher technology performance and a higher deviation affect sales positively, also when one controls for a firm’s marketing expenditures. We discuss the implications of these findings for technology evolution theory, managerial practice and public policy.

This article examines the global spill-over of foreign product introductions and takeoffs on a focal country’s time-to-takeoff, using a novel data set of penetration data for 8 high tech products across 55 countries. It shows how foreign clout, the susceptibility to foreign influences, and inter-country distances affect global spill-over patterns. The authors find that foreign takeoffs, but not foreign introductions, accelerate a focal country’s time-to-takeoff. The larger the country, the higher its economic wealth, and the more it exports, the more clout it has in the global spill-over process. In contrast, the poorer the country, the more tourists it receives and the higher its population density, the more susceptible it is to global spill-over effects. Cross-country spill-over effects are stronger the closer the countries are to one another, both geographically and economically, but not necessarily in terms of culture. The model the authors develop also quantifies the spill-over between each country-pair, allowing it to be asymmetric.

Systems are composed of complementary products (e.g., video game systems are composed of the video game console and video games). Prior literature on indirect network effects argues that, in system markets, sales of the primary product (often referred to as "hardware") largely depend on the availability of complementary products (often referred to as "software"). Mathematical and empirical analyses have almost exclusively operationalized software availability as software quantity. However, while not substantiated with empirical evidence, case illustrations show that certain “superstar” software titles of very high quality (e.g., Super Mario 64) may have had disproportionately large effects on hardware unit sales (e.g., Nintendo N64 console sales). In the context of the U.S. home video game console market, we show that the introduction of a superstar increases video game console sales on average by 14%, over a period of 5 months. Software type does not consistently alter this effect. Our findings imply that scholars who study the relationship between software availability and hardware sales, need to account for superstar returns, and their decaying effect over time, over and above a mere software quantity effect. Hardware firms should maintain a steady flow of superstar introductions, as the positive effect of a superstar only lasts for 5 months, and make, if need be, side-payments to software firms, as superstars dramatically increase hardware sales. Obtaining exclusivity over superstars, by hardware firms, does not provide an extra boost to their own sales, but it does take away an opportunity for competing systems to increase their sales.

Indirect network effects are of prime interest to marketers because they affect the growth and takeoff of software availability for, and hardware sales of, a new product. While prior work on indirect network effects in the economics and marketing literature is valuable, these literatures show two main shortcomings. First, empirical analysis of indirect network effects is rare. Second, in contrast to the importance the prior literature credits to the chicken-and-egg paradox in these markets, the temporal pattern – which leads which? – of indirect network effects remains unstudied. Based on empirical evidence of nine markets, this study shows, among others, that: (1) indirect network effects, as commonly operationalized by prior literature, are weaker than expected from prior literature; (2) in most markets we examined, hardware sales leads software availability, while the reverse almost never happens, contradicting existing beliefs. These findings are supported by multiple methods, such as takeoff and time series analyses, and fit with the histories of the markets we studied. The findings have important implications for academia, public policy and management practice. To academia, it identifies a need for new, and more relevant, conceptualizations of indirect network effects. To public policy, it questions the need for intervention in network markets. To management practice, it downplays the importance of the availability of a large library of software for hardware technology to be successful.

For an academic, finding an audience is critical. However, finding an audience is not always easy for most marketing academics. This inaugural address explores what the challenges are in finding an audience, among fellow scholars, students, public policy, industry, or society in general. It finds that the academic audience for marketing research is: (1) often small; (2) constrained to the own discipline; and (3) mostly located in the United States. The student audience is also under pressure, due to: (1) the difficult translation of academic marketing research to marketing education; (2) shifting student preferences; and (3) lack of involvement of students. The audience in society is too small due to a lack of relevance of marketing research in three ways: (1) lack of a public policy perspective; (2) too incremental insights to be useful to practice; and (3) too much focus on rigor to be interesting for the press. This address cites three ways to grow towards a larger and more loyal audience by evolving towards: (1) a truly globalized community of marketing academics; (2) living together with our source disciplines; and (3) a stronger focus on the knowledge economy and the life sciences.

Using only aggregate sales data, the model we propose decomposes the diffusion processes of the respective technological generations and tests if different technological generations have different diffusion parameters. It also estimates the location of the generational transition from the old to the new technology. We develop a routine to test whether the maturation point of the old generation occurs before or after the transition to a new technological generation. Finally, we show that, when the aggregate sales data are generated by multiple technological generations, our model does better in forecasting than a single-regime Bass model.