Eric Fang

The Effect of Export Marketing Capabilities on Export Performance: An Investigation of Chinese Exporters

The primary purpose of this article is to investigate the effect of export marketing capabilities on export performance. Drawing on the resource-based view, the authors develop a model that links an exporters product development capability, distribution capability, communication capability, and pricing capability with its positional advantages (low-cost advantage and branding advantage) and its performance in the export market. On the basis of a survey of Chinese export ventures, the authors find general support for their proposed model. The authors discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of their findings.

Goal-Setting Paradoxes? Trade-Offs Between Working Hard and Working Smart: The United States Versus China

This article proposes a model of the impact of goal difficulty and goal specificity on selling behaviors (selling effort, adaptive selling, and sales planning) and hence sales and behavior performance. The model suggests that goal-setting factors may have opposing effects on different sales behaviors. The empirical findings suggest that goal difficulty positively influences selling effort while negatively influencing adaptive selling behaviors. The results show that goal difficulty and goal specificity both have opposite effects on the two dimensions of working smart: adaptive selling and sales planning. The findings support the need for sales managers to account for the cultural context of the salesperson when determining optimal goal-setting strategies. With data collected from salespeople in the United States and China, the cross-cultural differences regarding the effects of goal-setting factors are also proposed and empirically supported.

Effects of Customer and Innovation Asset Configuration Strategies on Firm Performance

Both customer and innovation assets are important to firm performance. Prior research has mostly examined these assets at the firm level and has not distinguished between the effects of asset depth relative to competitors and asset breadth across different segments. Using configuration theory and the resource-based view of the firm, the authors propose that how these assets interact to influence performance depends on both depth and breadth because these features reflect whether the assets are likely to create and/or appropriate value when deployed. Empirical results from two studies—one using secondary data and another using primary data from a survey of senior managers—indicate that performance is highest when firms employ configurations using deep customer and broad innovation assets or deep innovation and broad customer assets. In contrast, firm performance variability decreases in the presence of deep–deep and broad–broad asset configurations. The effect of configuration strategies on firm performance also is typically greater in dynamic than in stable environments.

Is Neutral Really Neutral? The Effects of Neutral User-Generated Content on Product Sales

This article aims to specify the performance implications of neutral user-generated content (UGC) on product sales by differentiating mixed-neutral UGC, which contains an equal amount of positive and negative claims, from indifferent-neutral UGC, which includes neither positive nor negative claims. The authors propose that positive and negative UGC only provide opportunities for consumers to process product-related information, whereas both mixed- and indifferent-neutral UGC affect consumers’ motivation and ability to process positive and negative UGC. The results of three studies using multiple measures (text and numerical UGC), contexts (automobiles, movies, and tablets), and methods (empirical and behavioral experiment) indicate contrasting premium and discount effects such that mixed-neutral UGC amplifies the effects of positive and negative UGC, whereas indifferent-neutral UGC attenuates them. Empirical evidence further indicates that ignoring mixed- or indifferent-neutral UGC leads to substantial under- or overestimates of the effects of positive and negative UGC. The effects of neutral UGC on product sales thus are not truly neutral, and the direction of the bias depends on both the type of UGC and the distribution of positive and negative UGC.

The Timing of Codevelopment Alliances in New Product Development Processes: Returns for Upstream and Downstream Partners

Upstream biotech firms (i.e., upstream partners) and downstream pharmaceutical firms (i.e., downstream partners) often form alliances to cope with performance uncertainty and to exploit product specificity in new product development. Although the performance implications of such alliances have been investigated, research has not offered insight into how the timing of such codevelopment alliances influences partner returns. The authors develop and test predictions that timing changes the costs and benefits accruing to upstream and downstream partners and that the effect of timing is influenced by a set of alliance, firm, and market conditions. An event study of 276 codevelopment agreements between biotech and pharmaceutical firms during 1998–2010 reveals that alliance governance structure, partner technological capability, and the competitiveness of market environments change the abnormal returns achieved by partners entering these relationships in important ways.

Control systems’ effect on attributional processes and sales outcomes: A cybernetic information-processing perspective

Built upon a cybernetic information-processing framework, this article advances and empirically tests a conceptual model proposing the relationships between sales controls (outcome, activity, capability), salespeople’s attributional ascriptions (effort, strategy, ability), attributional dimensions (internal/external, stable/unstable), and psychological consequences (job satisfaction, performance expectation). The study challenges the assumption in the sales literature that attributional dimensions cleanly map onto attributional ascriptions. Findings support that sales control systems affect salespeople’s attribution processes in ways suggesting that the processes are more malleable than heretofore theorized in the marketing literature. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that control systems differentially affect attribution processes across two cultures: the United States and China. The article concludes with a discussion of research and managerial implications.

If it takes a village to foster innovation, success depends on the neighbors: : The effects of global and ego networks on new product launches

Launching breakthrough and incremental new products is vital to firm performance; it also resonates with both ego (i.e., directly connected partners) and global (i.e., interconnected ties in an industry) network perspectives. Prior research has listed several ego network– and global network–level factors that affect innovations, but this study goes a step further, to reveal the interactions of these factors as critical product launch mechanisms. An analysis of alliance networks in the consumer packaged goods industry from 1990 to 2010 shows that a central position in a global network represents a double-edged sword: it improves a firms incremental new product launches but harms its breakthrough new product launches. Furthermore, a firms ego network (manifested as density and diversity) and R&D capability enable it to leverage its global network position by enhancing the benefits for incremental new products and mitigating its hazards for breakthrough new products. This studys findings thus offer new insights into the role of ego and global networks in facilitating or hindering new product launches.

An examination of how and when the top management team matters for firm innovativeness: The effects of TMT functional backgrounds

Abstract This research draws on upper echelon theory to suggest that a top management team’s R&D experience, marketing experience, and background diversity affect firm innovativeness and considers the potential moderating effect of industry contextual factors and the firm’s strategic context. Data from different archival sources pertaining to 108 firms suggest that these TMT characteristics influences firm innovativeness both directly and through the firm’s R&D investment intensity. Additionally, industry growth and advertising intensity, as well as a firm’s related diversification strategy, significantly enhance the above effects of TMT characteristics on R&D investment intensity and firm innovativeness. Thus, we identify specific types of TMT experience that affect firm innovativeness and outline a process through which this occurs. The implication was presented especially regarding the synergic effect of marketing and R&D experience to enhance firm innovativeness, along with limitations and some future research direction.

Direct and indirect effects of buyers and sellers on search advertising revenues in business-to-business electronic platforms

Platform companies such as Alibaba.com increasingly rely on search advertising as a revenue source. This study examines (1) the direct effect of new and existing buyers and sellers on platform advertising revenue, (2) their indirect effect through two intermediary performance variables (buyers click rate and sellers click price), and (3) how the effects differ between launch and mature stages of the search advertising service. Unique data collected from a leading transactional business-to-business electronic platform suggest that new buyers click on more search advertisements than existing buyers, especially after the firms buyers and sellers have learned and adapted to the service (mature stage). New sellers tend to outbid existing sellers in the mature stage, but the opposite is true when the service is newly introduced (launch stage). Because existing sellers can more effectively send quality signals in the launch stage, attracting existing, rather than new, sellers has a greater effect on click rate in the launch stage; however, the opposite is true in the mature stage. Attracting new buyers also has a greater effect on click rate and price, especially in the mature stage. Finally, using cost data from the platform, this article examines the economic returns of attracting new and existing buyers and sellers with respect to advertising revenue.

Group Marketing: Theory, Mechanisms, and Dynamics

Group marketing uses the psychological mechanisms underlying group influence to drive customer behaviors that are beneficial to the firm. It is predicated on the firms ability to guide two necessary and sufficient conditions: (1) a customers awareness of an affiliation with the focal group and (2) exposure to group norms. By examining what it means to be affiliated with a group; determining how group norms are inferred, applied, and maintained; and testing a wide variety of ways in which these conditions become manifest, this research demonstrates the theoretical foundations of group marketing. Groups influence purchase behaviors by altering information and identity appraisals during decision making. Time in a purchase domain emerges as a critical determinant of the strength of group influence. Although previous research has suggested that social influence diminishes over time, a longitudinal field study and an experiment reveal that this prediction holds only when information appraisal dominates; an opposite effect arises when identity appraisal dominates. Group efficacy strengthens, but product price weakens, the effects of groups on purchase behaviors.