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Decision speed and quality are both vital for organizational survival and prosperity. However, they are assumed to be in tension, and there has been limited theory development concerning whether, and if so how, both are attainable. To address this gap, we turn to behavioral integration which captures the intensity of intra-team interactions. While behavioral integration is considered an antecedent of decision quality, it is presumed to slow decision-making, and overall, there remains a “black box” surrounding the mechanisms, behaviors, and processes which transmit behavioral integration to decision outcomes. Our theoretical account challenges the notion of behavioral integration being an impediment to decision speed, and we present new theory and evidence—comprising a mixed-method field study—explaining how behavioral integration acts as a key driver of both decision speed and quality, while theorizing decision uncertainty as a new and important boundary condition.

Purpose Product innovations are often the result of combinations of internal and external knowledge. A significant amount of open innovation literature has argued that working with external partners can be beneficial, in particular, when this is complemented by internal R&D, yet a wholesale shift to open innovation has not occurred. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate two new limits of openness, grounded in attention-based theory, that help explain why such a shift has not occurred. This study argues that specific combinations of identities a firm collaborates with, that is, whether a partner is classified as a customer, supplier, competitor or university and/or technological center, predictably increase and decrease product innovation. Design/methodology/approach This study demonstrates these findings using econometric techniques on a large-scale panel data set, comprising 14,682 observations. Findings The authors observe positive effects of customer collaboration, partner scope (collaboration with other outside identities) and internal R&D when considered separately. Critically, they observe two important situations where these positive effects are reduced. First, they argue and observe that when customers are added to the mix of identities, diminished returns on product innovation result. Second, they argue and observe that technological customer collaboration reduces the benefits from an internal R&D department (more than collaboration with other identities). The findings of this study are robust in that singling out another partner identity does not reveal such patterns. Research limitations/implications The findings stress the importance of considering the identity of collaborating parties in studying the impact of openness on innovation success. This study conceptually and empirically rejects the – implicitly held – assumption in the literature that different partners provide similar benefits and are interchangeable. Practical implications This study proposes new limits to the “open innovation” literature. As identities are easy to observe by managers and are shown to impact product innovation, this study argues they are highly relevant to managerial decision-making. This study also observes, through counterfactual analysis, that attention limits are critical, as a theoretical setting of no attention limits would significantly lift product innovations. Originality/value This study shows important limitations to the open innovation literature by showing that customer collaboration leads to declining rates of product innovation when combined with greater collaboration scope or the internal R&D department. This study adds the novel insight that customer collaboration weakens the positive effect of collaboration scope and internal R&D on product innovations.

The dominant view is that outsourcing is driven by efficiency considerations. We demonstrate that a different path to outsourcing originates from critical internal resource shortages. These shortages pose a critical dilemma; on the one hand outsourcing is a reasonably durable approach to solving resource shortages. On the other hand, the same resource shortages complicate the management of outsourcing and may create knowledge and evaluation problems. We empirically examine this dilemma and thereby add to the limited work on the enabling effects of outsourcing under resource constraints. We employ two rich and unique panel datasets of Australian firms observed over five-year periods, to test dynamic change models if firm-level financial and competence constraints induce outsourcing, and if this in turn enables internal process improvement. The results show that outsourcing indeed is associated with both financial and competence constraints, although the impact of these constraints differs over time. In turn, we find that increased outsourcing relates positively to contemporaneous and future process improvement. These findings thus shed a positive light on how outsourcing can enable firms to overcome constraints and realize internal process improvement.

Purpose This paper aims to argue that engagement with industry in research, while costly in terms of time and effort, can provide benefits in terms of measurable research impact, particularly in the business-to-business (B2B) domain. Design/methodology/approach This study draws joint experiences about how best to connect with an industry organization, how to engage with that organization and how to provide and document impact by transforming some aspect of that organization. Findings The findings of this study provide practical and implementable suggestions on how to engage in impactful B2B research. Originality/value This study discusses the special nature of the B2B domain and why engagement with industry is especially important and beneficial. Though such research may not be appropriate for all academics, this study argues that its high rewards more than compensate for its high costs.

PurposeThis paper aims to consider the impact of contractual and normative governance mechanisms on recommendation intent in a context of healthcare and professional lighting where repeat business from a customer is absent. The authors suggest both contractual and normative governance can create recommendation intent, but only when sufficient customer value is created.Design/methodology/approachThe authors draw on a combination of survey and archival data from the supplier and customer in the medical equipment and advanced (business) lighting systems industries. The authors analyze the data using seemingly unrelated regression and mediation tests.FindingsContracts and relational norms can increase customer recommendation intent, but only when the supplier creates customer value.Practical implicationsThe paper’s findings suggest that customers of business solutions are more likely to recommend their supplier when contracts are relatively detailed and when buyers and suppliers attempt to craft strong relational norms, despite service solutions being delivered during a relatively short time span.Originality/valueThe extant research on business solutions has focused on extended relationships between exchange partners with a high likelihood of repeated transactions. The authors demonstrate how to govern relationships in a solutions context where the likelihood of repeat business from the same customer is low using contractual and normative governance.

Purpose Process innovation is a key determinant of performance. While extant literature paints a clear picture of the drivers of process innovation, the effect of process innovation on performance has received little attention. This paper aims to examine how the divergence of process innovation impacts performance. Divergence concerns the extent to which the observed level of process innovation diverges from the expected level of process innovation. Positive divergence occurs when the observed level of process innovation is higher than expected while for negative divergence the opposite occurs. In turn, the authors consider how divergence acts as a driver of performance. Design/methodology/approach The authors use survey and archival data from 5,594 firms across 15 countries. The authors analyze the data using an advanced two-step random-effects estimator that accounts for the multi-level data used. Findings The authors find negative divergence to reduce performance under high competitive intensity, whereas positive divergence is detrimental under high environmental uncertainty. Research limitations/implications The authors present new and unique insights into the relationship between divergence and performance. The authors argue that each firm has an “ideal” level of process innovation, based on their resources and business environment, relative to which performance diminishes. Specifically, the authors argue that divergence from the firm’s expected level of process innovation is associated with the reduced performance during high environmental uncertainty or high competitive intensity. Furthermore, the authors argue that there can be “too much” process innovation. This nuance of the majority of prior empirical studies in this area suggests that more innovation is always better for firms. The more nuanced approach reveals that the process innovation-performance debate should not focus on more or less innovation per se, but on how innovation is constructed and supported. Practical implications Some argue the existence of an academia-practitioner gap, with both living in different worlds (Reibstein et al., 2009). The findings suggest that theory is not only useful to practitioners but also has a crucial and central role regarding decisions relating to efficiency and effectiveness of scarce resources, in the field of process innovation. More specifically, the authors demonstrate that the prior study on process innovation seems to be useful in that relative to a theory-predicted level, divergence diminishes performance in the global sample of companies across a wide range of industries. In addition, the authors suggest that firms should not strive for more innovation per se. The findings suggest that positive divergence or too much innovation is detrimental for performance under environmental uncertainty, while negative divergence or too little innovation is harmful to performance under competitive uncertainty. Moreover, the divergence approach is also useful for comparing performance to that of other firms, typically referred to as benchmarking. Originality/value This paper is useful and important for managers and theory development as it provides insight into situations where a firm may have “too little” or “too much” process innovation. Thus, divergence advances understanding as, in contrast with the previous study, the authors do not suggest that more innovation is always better.

Rapid innovation, shortened product life cycles and fierce competition place great pressures on top managers to make fast strategic decisions. However, a key question in strategic decision‐making research is whether decision speed helps or harms decision quality, and there is a shortage of theory and evidence concerning the consequences of decision speed across different environmental contexts. We develop new theory by considering the effects of decision speed on decision quality under conditions of environmental munificence, under conditions of dynamism, and under the joint conditions of munificence and dynamism. We test our theory through analysis of multi‐informant survey data drawn from top management teams and secondary databases, in 117 UK firms. Our findings demonstrate that munificence is the central generative mechanism which moderates the relationship between decision speed and decision quality, and markedly alters the previously theorized positive effects of decision speed in dynamic contexts.\ud \ud

Many marketing transactions between buyers and suppliers involve short-term collaborations or so-called temporary organizations. Such organizations have considerable value-creation potential but also face challenges, as evidenced by their mixed performance records. One particular challenge involves relationship governance, and in this respect, temporary organizations represent a conundrum: On the one hand, they pose significant governance problems due to the need to manage numerous independent specialists under time constraints. On the other hand, temporary organizations lack the inherent governance properties of other organizational forms such as permanent organizations. The authors conduct an empirical study of 429 business-to-business construction projects designed to answer two specific questions: First, how are particular selection and pricing strategies deployed in response to monitoring and coordination problems? Second, does the joint alignment between the two mechanisms and their respective attributes help mitigate cost overruns? The authors follow a formal hypothesis test with a series of in-depth interviews to explore and to gain insight into the validity of the key constructs, explanatory mechanisms, and outcomes. Managerially, the authors answer the long-standing question of how to mobilize a temporary organization. Theoretically, they develop an augmented “discriminating alignment” heuristic for relationship management involving multiple governance mechanisms and attributes.

Political behavior pervades strategic decision-making, often damaging decision quality and undermining organizational performance. However, little is currently known about how top management teams (TMTs) cope with such behavior. To address this shortfall, we draw on the upper echelons literature to advance a contingent account of the factors that differentiate well-functioning and dysfunctional TMTs. Focusing on the psychological context surrounding the TMT, we theorize that cognitive consensus, power decentralization, and behavioral integration are key generative mechanisms that enable TMTs to countermand the potentially deleterious consequences of political behavior. We corroborate our theorizing using a field study of 117 strategic decisions, drawn from multiple TMT informants and secondary databases. Confirming the majority of our hypotheses, our findings indicate that behaviorally integrated and decentralized TMTs are better equipped to attenuate the potentially damaging effects of organizational politics, thereby safeguarding the quality of their decision processes.

This paper examines the mechanism through which human resource management (HRM) practices promote firms’ innovation and how this relationship differs across cultures. Based on a dataset of 3,755 firms from 13 countries, this study finds that in most countries employee-oriented HRM practices that dedicate attention to employee needs and interests are positively related to firms’ market-sensing capability, which is the capability to continuously learn about their markets. Market-sensing capability is in turn significantly related to firms’ product and process innovation. Cross-country examination further reveals that in high power distance countries employee- oriented HRM practices have a stronger positive effect than in low power distance countries. This study highlights the importance of HRM in supporting the use organizations make of external knowledge, which is critical for organizational innovation. Bringing an external perspective, we complement existing literature that emphasizes the role of HRM in integrating internal knowledge. Our cross-cultural findings contribute to the understanding of cultural contingency in HRM theories.

This Special Issue “Connect, Engage, Transform!” is associated with the 2018 Australian & New Zealand Marketing Academy (ANZMAC) conference held in Adelaide, Australia in December 2018. The conference theme of “Connect Engage and Transform”, which is also the theme for this special issue recognizes the need for business researchers to connect with external stakeholders such as businesses and policymakers. Researchers should engage with different stakeholders to make an impact. All papers presented at the ANZMAC conference and related to the general theme of business-to-business marketing were eligible to submit their manuscript for consideration to this special issue.

Firms increasingly source new ideas and knowledge from alliances with external partners. Laursen and Salter's (2006) seminal research shows that while such openness in innovation benefits firms, too much openness can have a negative effect on innovation performance. We provide a conceptual replication of this finding, relying on a unique longitudinal panel data set comprising three different innovation performance metrics: product and service innovations, process innovations, and marketing innovations.

We first describe the essentials of hypothesis testing and how testing helps make critical business decisions of statistical and practical significance. Without using difficult mathematical formulas, we discuss the steps involved in hypothesis testing, the types of errors that may occur, and provide strategies on how to best deal with these errors. We also discuss common types of test statistics and explain how to determine which type you should use in which specific situation. We explain that the test selection depends on the testing situation, the nature of the samples, the choice of test, and the region of rejection. Drawing on a case study, we show how to link hypothesis testing logic to empirics in SPSS. The case study touches upon different test situations and helps you interpret the tables and graphics in a quick and meaningful way.

Communicating the results of your study, project, or business case is crucial in market research. We discuss the core elements of a written research report, provide guidelines on how to structure its core elements, and how you can communicate the research findings to your audience in terms of their characteristics and needs. We show you how to organize and simplify complex and dense information in an efficient and reader-friendly way. Using Stata, and drawing on a case study, we show how you can combine and present several graphs and (regression) tables concisely and clearly. We also provide guidelines for oral presentations, suggestions for visual aids that facilitate the communication of difficult ideas, and ideas on how to best structure the oral presentation of results. Finally, we discuss ethical issues that may arise when communicating report findings to your client.

Drawing on the organizational capabilities literature, the authors developed and tested a model of how supportive human resource management (HRM) improved firms’ financial performance perceived by marketing managers through fostering the implementation of a customer‐oriented strategy. Customer‐linking capability, which is the capability in managing close customer relationships, indicated the implementation of the customer‐oriented strategy. Data collected from two emerging economies – China and Hungary – established that supportive HRM partially mediated the relationship between customer‐oriented strategy and customer‐linking capability. Customer‐linking capability further explained how supportive HRM contributed to perceived financial performance. This study explicates the implication of customer‐oriented strategy for HRM and reveals the importance of HRM in strategy implementation. It also sheds some light on the ‘black box’ between HRM and performance. While making important contributions to the field of strategy, HRM and marketing, this study also offers useful practical implications.

We first provide comprehensive and advanced access to principal component analysis, factor analysis, and reliability analysis. Based on a discussion of the different types of factor analytic procedures (exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling), we introduce the steps involved in a principal component analysis and a reliability analysis, offering guidelines for executing them in Stata. Specifically, we cover the requirements for running an analysis, modern options for extracting the factors and deciding on their number, as well as for interpreting and judging the quality of the results. Based on a step-by-step description of Stata’s menu options and code, we present an in-depth discussion of each element of the Stata output. Interpretation of output can be difficult, which we make much easier by means of various illustrations and applications, using a detailed case study to quickly make sense of the results. We conclude with suggestions for further readings on the use, application, and interpretation of factor analytic procedures.

How do buyer-supplier relationships affect innovation? This study suggests that the relational exchange norms of flexibility, information sharing, and solidarity (the bright side) encourage buyer innovation. However, negative (dark side) aspects of relationships with suppliers-loss of supplier objectivity, increasing buyer expectations, and supplier opportunism-may accompany the bright side and subsequently reduce buyer innovation. The study reports on the simultaneous effects of the bright and dark sides on innovation and the resultant effect on supplier performance as evaluated from the buyer's perspective. Using data from the travel and computer industry, regression models reveal that the bright side encourages buyer innovation. Buyers reciprocate this support by enhancing their supplier evaluations. The findings indicate that rising buyer expectations-supposedly a dark side of relational exchange-encourage innovation, while loss of supplier objectivity reduces relationship performance. These findings imply that the bright and dark sides are not mutually exclusive dimensions of good versus bad behavior. © 2011 Elsevier Inc.

Transaction cost theory is one of the most widely used theories in marketing, management, and economics. The focus of the theory is on explaining how firms organize transactions. The rules by which transactions are organized is called governance. A wide variety of strategic decisions of firms, such as outsourcing, the mode of organizing exports, the use of crowdsourcing, or partner selection efforts, can be analyzed and understood using transaction cost theory. The basic argument of transaction cost theory is that firms economize on costs by choosing a form of governance that minimizes production and transaction costs. We discuss the origins and uses of the theory, critical variables, assumptions, and limitations.

Rapid technological innovation, shortening product life cycles, and increasingly fierce competition place great pressure on top managers to execute rapid strategic change. A key question in strategic management though, is whether decision speed helps or harms the quality of top management team strategic decision-making? There is a shortage of theory and evidence concerning the consequences of decision speed across different environmental contexts, owing to prior research focusing solely on the effects of speed in dynamic environments. We propose and test a model that shows the effects of decision speed under conditions of environmental hostility, munificence, and dynamism, as well as the joint conditions of hostility-munificence and dynamism. We do so because environments are multidimensional, and an environment which is dynamic and hostile is very different to one which is dynamic and munificent. Analyzing dyadic data from multiple top managers on 117 strategic decisions, we demonstrate that decision speed has both positive and negative effects on decision quality according to different combinations of environmental hostility, munificence, and dynamism. Our findings help overcome a major obstacle hindering theory development by providing new theoretical insights into the implications of decision speed across multiple different environmental contexts.

This study considers the influence of contracts on enforcement and the subsequent performance impact of aligned and misaligned enforcement. We define enforcement as a corrective action aimed at remedying problems occurring in the transaction. First we explain the role of contracts and show that at the component level, contracts can both increase and decrease enforcement. Building on an alignment perspective and accounting for the endogeneity of enforcement, we use these contractual components and variables related to enforcement to predict the occurrence of enforcement. We use such predictions to show that aligned enforcement results in higher performance. We also show that the performance impact of misaligned enforcement is relatively greater for transactions where enforcement is not expected. We conduct the study using a unique dataset reporting on 971 business transactions across a wide range of industries.

This paper develops and tests a learning organization model derived from HRM and dynamic capability literatures in order to ascertain the model's applicability across divergent global contexts. We define a learning organization as one capable of achieving on-going strategic renewal, arguing based on dynamic capability theory that the model has three necessary antecedents: HRM focus, developmental orientation and customer-facing remit. Drawing on a sample comprising nearly 6000 organizations across 15 countries, we show that learning organizations exhibit higher performance than their less learning-inclined counterparts. We also demonstrate that innovation fully mediates the relationship between our conceptualization of the learning organization and organizational performance in 11 of the 15 countries we examined. It is the first time in our knowledge that these questions have been tested in a major, cross-global study, and our work contributes to both HRM and dynamic capability literatures, especially where the focus is the applicability of best practice parameters across national boundaries. © 2013 Taylor & Francis.

This study considers the influence of contracts on enforcement and the subsequent performance impact of aligned and misaligned enforcement. We define enforcement as a corrective action aimed at remedying problems occurring in the transaction. First we explain the role of contracts and show that at the component level, contracts can both increase and decrease enforcement. Building on an alignment perspective and accounting for the endogeneity of enforcement, we use these contractual components and variables related to enforcement to predict the occurrence of enforcement. We use such predictions to show that aligned enforcement results in higher performance. We also show that the performance impact of misaligned enforcement is relatively greater for transactions where enforcement is not expected. We conduct the study using a unique dataset reporting on 971 business transactions across a wide range of industries. © 2013 Elsevier B.V.

Market research is key to understanding markets and requires the systematic gathering and interpreting of information about individuals and organizations. This will give you an essential understanding of your customers’ needs, a head start on your competitors, allow you to spot potential problems, and future growth. Drawing on real examples, we show the value of market research, describe its main purposes, and explain how market research differs from marketing research. We explain what makes, or breaks, a successful market research study and describe when market research is most needed. We also provide a description of the different types of market research providers.

We first describe the essentials of hypothesis testing and how testing helps make critical business decisions of statistical and practical significance. Without using difficult mathematical formulas, we discuss the steps involved in hypothesis testing, the types of errors that may occur, and provide strategies on how to best deal with these errors. We also discuss common types of test statistics and explain how to determine which type you should use in which specific situation. We explain that the test selection depends on the testing situation, the nature of the samples, the choice of test, and the region of rejection. Drawing on a case study, we show how to link hypothesis testing logic to empirics in Stata. The case study touches upon different test situations and helps you interpret the tables and graphics in a quick and meaningful way.

Governance theories, such as transaction cost economics, argue that systematic deviations from an attribute–governance alignment should influence performance. This article investigates the performance implications of contract specificity for the procurement of information technology products. The authors argue that parties choose a level of contract specificity that economizes on both the ex ante contracting costs and the ex post transaction costs and that deviations between the observed and the predicted levels of contract specificity are an important determinant of these transaction costs. The authors test the hypotheses using a comprehensive archival data set of information technology transactions and employ a two-step estimation procedure. First, they estimate the “predicted” level of contract specificity, which accounts for key transactional attributes. Second, they study the consequences of deviating from this predicted level of contractual specificity. The results provide the first explicit demonstration of the trade-off between ex ante contracting costs and ex post transaction problems and suggest that parties need to economize jointly on these costs when choosing the governance form.

When applying multivariate analysis techniques in information systems and social science disciplines, such as management information systems (MIS) and marketing, the assumption that the empirical data originate from a single homogeneous population is often unrealistic. When applying a causal modeling approach, such as partial least squares (PLS) path modeling, segmentation is a key issue in coping with the problem of heterogeneity in estimated cause-and-effect relationships. This chapter presents a new PLS path modeling approach which classifies units on the basis of the heterogeneity of the estimates in the inner model. If unobserved heterogeneity significantly affects the estimated path model relationships on the aggregate data level, the methodology will allow homogenous groups of observations to be created that exhibit distinctive path model estimates. The approach will, thus, provide differentiated analytical outcomes that permit more precise interpretations of each segment formed. An application on a large data set in an example of the American customer satisfaction index (ACSI) substantiates the methodology’s effectiveness in evaluating PLS path modeling results.

This study seeks to investigate how stakeholder power and an organization's pursuit of legitimacy influence its reaction to conflict with a supplier. We conducted an empirical study among travel agents and tour operators to test the relationship between conflict and stakeholder power and legitimacy derived from three different stakeholders. Our findings imply that power has a dual role. Whereas supplier power reduces buyer–supplier conflict, stakeholder power increases it. Moreover, this study shows that the quest to achieve greater legitimacy from the firm's competitive arena increases conflict. This study is one of the few that test stakeholder theory empirically. We demonstrate that stakeholder theory provides additional explanations above the hitherto taken dyadic approach toward understanding conflict. This study also shows that power can simultaneously reduce and increase conflict depending on which party possesses power. Greater supplier power decreases conflict, while greater stakeholder power and stakeholder-derived legitimacy increases it. Therefore, organizations have to balance their stakeholder and supplier interests.

This paper examines the mechanism through which human resource management (HRM) promote firms’ product and process innovation. Based on a dataset of 3,755 firms from 13 countries, we find that in m...