Detelina Marinova

Actualizing Innovation Effort: The Impact of Market Knowledge Diffusion in a Dynamic System of Competition

This study focuses on the dynamic process that governs the impact of market knowledge diffusion on innovation effort and its subsequent effect on firm performance. First, the author proposes that three aspects of market knowledge (knowledge level, knowledge change, and extent of shared knowledge about customers and competitors) influence innovation effort. In so doing, she explicitly models the dynamic process of competition, including heterogeneity in interdependence of innovation across competitors, firm-specific inertial tendency in innovation, and feedback effects reflected in satisfaction with past performance. Second, within a partial adjustment model of performance, the author studies the role of shared market knowledge and firm size in the translation of innovation effort into firm performance over time. She tests the conceptual framework with longitudinal quasi field experiments based on a Markstrat simulation exercise, including a main experiment and three validation studies. The results reveal a dynamic system in which some aspects of market knowledge diffusion propel innovation, whereas satisfaction with past performance hinders innovation effort. Furthermore, the results show that innovation effort, by itself, does not affect firm performance. In the context of the study, total shared market knowledge helps smaller firms actualize better returns from their innovation effort than larger firms.

Do Frontline Mechanisms Matter? Impact of Quality and Productivity Orientations on Unit Revenue, Efficiency, and Customer Satisfaction

This study identifies a frontline mechanism comprising autonomy, cohesion, and feedback that helps explain when and why the simultaneous pursuit of quality and productivity orientations has positive or negative effects on unit revenue, efficiency, and customer satisfaction. An empirical test of the proposed framework using data from 423 employees in 30 strategic business units and longitudinal unit-level performance data indicates that frontline autonomy mediates the positive impact of productivity and quality orientations on unit revenue and customer satisfaction and their negative impact on unit efficiency. Feedback amplifies the influence of frontline autonomy by simultaneously enhancing its positive effect on satisfaction and its negative effect on efficiency. In contrast, unit cohesion strengthens the positive effect of frontline autonomy on revenue and customer satisfaction without augmenting its negative effect on unit efficiency. The results urge managers to shift their focus toward unit-level mechanisms to find clues for managing strategic dilemmas that stem from multiple goal pursuit in face-to-face service settings.

Strategic Change Implementation and Performance Loss in the Front Lines.

Adopting a frontline employee (FLE) perspective, this study models a performance loss process during an organizations strategic change implementation. The process is activated by changes in unit managements emphases on cost containment and revenue-generating strategies and is governed by FLE detachment. The authors also examine an intervention mechanism for mitigating performance loss by including the influence of FLE participation in change decisions. The model is tested with data from five service organizations that employ 843 FLEs. The results indicate that (1) FLE detachment is effective in separating out the negative and positive effects of change, (2) FLE change perceptions are sensitive to the focus of strategic change (cost containment versus revenue enhancement strategies), and (3) FLE participation significantly enhances the positive effects of change and mitigates performance loss.

From Uncertain Intentions to Actual Behavior: A Threshold Model of Whether and When Salespeople Quit

In this article, the authors focus on the formation of intentions to quit among salespeople and the link between these intentions and subsequent quitting behavior. Building on the foundations of the recently developed judgment uncertainty and magnitude parameters (JUMP) model, which statistically and simultaneously separates the drivers of judgment magnitude from those of judgment uncertainty, the authors present a model of the formation of uncertain intentions that decomposes a stated intention into a magnitude and an uncertainty dimension. The authors then develop hypotheses regarding the impact of affective and continuance commitment and critical sales events on intention magnitude and the effect of critical sales events and role stress on intention uncertainty. Subsequently, the authors develop a threshold model of the intention-behavior link that articulates a psychological mechanism within which uncertainty-laden intentions translate into actual behavior. Empirically, results from sales force intention and turnover data provide strong support for the theorizing. In addition to identifying some drivers of intention-to-quit magnitude and uncertainty, the authors identify the crucial role of intention uncertainty in shaping both the probability and timing of subsequent behavior. Consistent with the psychological underpinnings of the threshold model, the authors find that intention uncertainty lowers the probability of intended behavior. The results regarding the timing of quitting support an uncertainty avoidance conjecture: Given a stated intention, likely quitters with greater intention uncertainty quit faster than those with lower intention uncertainty.

A National Study of Physician Recommendations to Initiate and Discontinue Growth Hormone for Short Stature

OBJECTIVES: Overall growth hormone (GH) use depends on decisions to both initiate treatment and continue treatment. The determinants of both are unclear. We studied how physicians decided to begin GH in idiopathic short stature and how, after an initial course of treatment, they decided to continue, intensify (increase the dose), or terminate treatment. METHODS: We used a national census study of 727 pediatric endocrinologists involving a structured questionnaires with a factorial experimental design. Main outcome measures were GH recommendations for previously untreated children and those children who were treated with GH for 1 year. RESULTS: The response rate was 90%. In previously untreated children, recommendations to initiate GH were consistent with guidelines and also influenced by family preferences and physician attitudes (P < .001). In children treated with GH, recommendations on whether to continue GH were influenced by the growth response to therapy (P < .01) but were divided regarding course of action. With identical growth responses to treatment, physician decisions diverged (intensify versus discontinue GH) and were driven by independent, nonphysiologic, and contextual factors (eg, physician attitudes, family preferences, and GH-initiation recommendation; each P < .001). Together, attitudinal and contextual factors exerted more influence on continuation decisions than did the growth response to therapy. CONCLUSIONS: Physician decisions to initiate GH are largely consistent with evidence-based medicine. However, decisions about continuing GH vary and are strongly influenced by factors other than response to treatment. With a potential market of 500 000 US children and costs exceeding

Patient, physician, and consumer drivers: referrals for short stature and access to specialty drugs.

10 billion per year, changes in GH use may depend on potentially modifiable physician attitudes and family preferences as much as physiologic evidence.

Managing Revenue Across Retail Channels: The Interplay of Service Performance and Direct Marketing.

Background:Candidates for specialty drugs, the fastest growing and costliest pharmaceuticals, typically originate with primary care referrals. However, little is known about what drives such referrals—especially for large populations such as short, otherwise normal children (idiopathic short stature). Recent expanded approval of growth hormone (GH) makes more than 585,000 US children eligible for such treatment, potentially costing over

Getting Smart: Learning From Technology-Empowered Frontline Interactions

11 billion/y. Methods:To quantify the relative impact of patient physiological indicators, physician characteristics, and consumer preferences on referrals to endocrinologists (and potential access to GH) for short children, a national study of 1268 randomly selected US pediatricians was conducted, based on a full factorial experimental design in a structured survey. Results:While patient indicators (height, growth pattern) influenced referrals (P < 0.001), consumer drivers (family concern) and physician attitudes had almost as great an impact—especially for children with less severe growth impairment (P < 0.001). Physician belief that short stature impairs emotional well-being and physician characteristics (female, older, shorter, beliefs about drug company information) increased referrals (P < 0.03–0.001)—independent of growth parameters. Conclusions:Referral recommendations that create the pool of candidates for the specialty drug GH are heavily swayed by physician characteristics and consumer preferences, particularly in the absence of compelling physiological evidence. This makes most of children with short stature strikingly susceptible to nonphysiological influences on referrals that render them candidates for this specialty drug. Only 1 additional referral per US pediatrician would likely increase GH costs by over

To prescribe or not to prescribe? Consumer access to life-enhancing products

100 million/y.

Frontline Store Manager’s Entrepreneurial Orientation for Merchandising and Service Role Performance: Scale Development and Validation

Increased internal pressure to make marketing accountable, combined with market pressure from the proliferation of new service delivery channels, requires retailers to better understand the differential impacts of marketing efforts across channels now more than ever. In this article, the authors (1) develop and test a theoretically grounded framework for the interplay of objective service performance and direct marketing in shaping retail revenue over time through two distinct service delivery channels (on-site and remote) and (2) conceptualize service delivery channel–specific servicescapes as facilitative mechanisms for the effectiveness of objective service performance and direct marketing. The authors test the conceptual framework with multisource data from a major national pizza retailer comprising a field study based on a time series of 223 weeks across five stores of objective marketing and performance data (delivery time) and a cross-sectional survey of the retailers customers. They find that objective service performance and direct marketing interact by exhibiting a trade-off effect contingent on specific aspects of the servicescape. When both objective service performance and direct marketing levels are high, servicescape quality design perceptions alleviate the trade-off effect in on-site delivery channels, and servicescape time/effort cost perceptions do so in remote delivery channels. The authors conclude with a discussion of implications for research and practice.