Brent M. Wren

Market Orientation and New Product Development in Global Industrial Firms

Abstract The purpose of this article is to evaluate the impact that market orientation has on new product success in a cross-national context. In a six-country study, two aspects of market orientation—market intelligence and customer orientation—were examined relative to traditional determinants of new product success. Antecedents of market orientation are also investigated. The results generally support the importance of market orientation to new product success. Market intelligence was found to be the most critical skill required regardless of country of origin, followed in most cases by customer orientation. Technical skills played a larger role in product success for more export-oriented economies such as Korea. In terms of antecedents, the most important organizational characteristic for developing a market orientation is cross-functional integration. Managerial implications are drawn concerning the findings.

Service quality as a competitive opportunity

Quality has progressed from a rough conceptualization of a tactical problem to a viable competitive opportunity that should be maximized strategically. We discuss the viability of quality as a sustainable competitive advantage. Based on a longitudinal study of general service hospitals, we provide results indicating that quality not only has a temporal effect on organizational performance, but also translates into long‐term benefits. The findings of this study reinforce anecdotal claims of the efficacy of quality‐based strategies in improving organizational performance.

Buyer-seller relationships in the wood products industry

Abstract During the past decade, organizational partnerships have emerged as a significant form of relationship structure, spawning a concomitant increase in the volume of marketing literature devoted to better understanding these relationships. While research has identified a number of factors thought to enhance partnership success, empirical and anecdotal evidence suggests that the ingredients for successful relationships may vary, even within remarkably similar channel systems. This article explores the relationships between one distributor and two operationally similar suppliers. While both relationships are characterized by joint marketing programs and coordinated activities, the norms and outcomes are vastly different. The results indicate that the key to understanding effective working partnerships is not necessarily the degree of formal interaction, but the norms developed within the relationship. A full discussion of study findings and the implications for partnership management are presented.

Student Ethnocentrism: Its Relevance to the Globalization of Marketing Education

The authors examine the influence of student ethnocentrism on attitudes toward the importance of and propensity to enroll in international business, foreign language, and business ethics courses. Ethnocentrism is found to be related negatively to student attitudes on each of these topic areas. The relevance of these findings to marketing educators is discussed.

Creating strategic commitment in franchise systems: establishing the link between leadership, organizational structure, and performance

In this paper, we address the issue of strategic commitment in franchise systems by exploring the impact of several structural and leadership characteristics. Specifically, we examine the role of leadership style, organizational openness, and organizational structure in the strategic commitment–performance relationship. Our analysis is accomplished through the use of traditional survey research methods with seven franchise systems in multiple industries in the United States. We demonstrate that more committed franchisees execute the corporate strategy and have more open communication, which leads to greater performance. Finally, we formulate a set of normative recommendations for how franchisors and franchisees can better organize, communicate, and execute.

Attitudinal, personal, and job-related predictors of salesperson turnover

Purpose – To contribute to the understanding of how to manage turnover, the purpose of this paper is to determine if sales managers have the ability to predict high levels of propensity to leave (PL) from variables readily available in personnel records, and on commonly used employee surveys. Design/methodology/approach – The data used for the analysis of the study variables were collected from the sales forces of a total of ten firms across a variety of consumer and industrial product categories, resulting in a sample of 604 respondents. Data were analyzed via multiple discriminant analysis. Findings – The analysis and test results demonstrate that discriminant sets of attitudinal variables, personal characteristics, and aspects of the job can be identified and used to establish meaningful classifications of a salespersons PL. Organizational commitment, satisfaction with pay, family status, job involvement, level of education, and compensation plan were all found to be significant. Analysis fails to sup...

Mail surveys: A linear programming solution

Abstract A linear programming model is developed to allocate a budget for response inducements. Assuming a given initial sample size and a desired final sample size, the program is formulated to minimize the necessary expenditures. The process is tested and demonstrated using field data, and the implications and limitations of the results are discussed.