Namwoon Kim

Market Orientation and Organizational Performance: Is Innovation a Missing Link?

In recent years, a market-oriented corporate culture increasingly has been considered a key element of superior corporate performance. Although organizational innovativeness is believed to be a pot...

Demystifying Intercultural Service Encounters: Toward a Comprehensive Conceptual Framework

Customers and employees from different cultures are increasingly interacting with each other. However, there is little research in this area and it focuses mostly on the customers’ perspective. This article presents a conceptual framework for intercultural service encounters applicable to both customers and employees. Findings from an exploratory qualitative study show that perceived cultural distance and intercultural competence influence inter-role congruence, interaction comfort, adequate and perceived service levels, and satisfaction. These findings have important managerial implications for managing the expectations and perceptions of customers and employees involved in the intercultural service encounters and improving their satisfaction with the service experience.

Multiple-Category Decision-Making: Review and Synthesis

In many purchase environments, consumers use information from a number of product categories prior to making a decision. These purchase situations create dependencies in choice outcomes across categories. As such, these decision problems cannot be easily modeled using the single-category, single-choice paradigm commonly used by researchers in marketing. We outline a conceptual framework for categorization, and then discuss three types of cross-category dependence: cross-category consideration cross-category learning, and product bundling. We argue that the key to modeling choice dependence across categories is knowledge of the goals driving consumer behavior.

Intercultural service encounters (ICSE): an extended framework and empirical validation

Purpose – This paper aims to extend the intercultural service encounters (ICSE) framework using role theory and information asymmetry perspective, to hypothesize differences in the strength of many relationships based on service role (customers versus employees).Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents the results of a field‐experiment with 204 restaurant employees and 241 customers in Hong Kong using a service failure scenario and photographs of Western versus Asian customers to manipulate perceived cultural distance.Findings – Perceived cultural distance has a stronger negative effect on inter‐role congruence, interaction comfort has a stronger positive effect on perceived service level and inter‐role congruence on adequate service level, for customers versus employees. Intercultural competence has a stronger positive effect on inter‐role congruence for employees versus customers, and it moderates the influence of perceived cultural distance on interaction comfort and inter‐role congruence.Resea...

Managing Intraorganizational Diffusion of Innovations Impact of Buying Center Dynamics and Environments

Abstract Companies often introduce organizational innovations into their corporate environment with the aim of improving their operational efficiencies. While this practice has become a well-accepted percept among both practitioners and academics over the years for its intuitive appeal, there is an increasing evidence to suggest that companies often fail to fully capitalize on the adopted innovation throughout their organizations. To this end, this study sets out to identify the factors that play a tangible role in facilitating the intraorganizational diffusion of innovations. In this context, we not only examine the roles of buying center dynamics and environments in the intraorganizational diffusion process but also assess the impact on the innovation-adopting firm through the high level of intraorganizational diffusion.

Cooperate “and” compete: coopetition strategy in retailer‐supplier relationships

Purpose – This study aims to examine the strategic implications and managerial outcomes of the concurrent use of cooperation and competition in vertical channel relationships.Design/methodology/approach – This study employs a structured questionnaire to gather data regarding vertical channel relationships in China.Findings – Whereas the academic literature has emphasized cooperation between channel members because of the interdependence between them, in reality, retailers may accept competition as just another part of doing business with suppliers.Research limitations/implications – The outcome variables used may not be comprehensive. In particular, the authors choose the flexibility of channel resources to stand for private benefits and joint benefits to represent common benefits, and though these variables certainly represent the intended benefits of the ambidextrous strategy, it remains to be seen whether other benefits may emerge for the exchange parties in vertical relationships.Practical implication...

Implications of chaos research for new product forecasting

ABSTRACT The mathematics of chaotic dynamics are now familiar to product forecasters and marketing researchers. Do possible sightings of chaos in new product data sets have implications for the way new product studies and launches should be performed? Should these practices be affected by the knowledge that chaos is possible in principle? Although the mathematics of new product diffusion models clearly allow for chaotic bifurcations and fluctuations, these phenomena have not been reliably observed for actual products. In this article we offer reasons why this has been so. The reasons include measurement and specification error, and aggregation and data collection interval effects. We conclude that marketers have not been looking in the right places to find chaos (or at least traditional market research reports do not lend themselves to an effective search for chaos), and that brand managers behave in a way that minimizes chances of observing chaos. The exploration of chaos in the context of new product management leads to an analysis of the implications of chaos for the practice of new product forecasting.

Examining the role of attribution and intercultural competence in intercultural service encounters

Purpose – This study aims to develop a model based on attribution theory and intercultural literature to explain the underlying customer satisfaction process in intercultural service encounters. Design/methodology/approach – In-depth interviews were used to develop an understanding of customer experience and evaluations in intercultural service encounters. A quasi-experiment with 236 customers was used to empirically examine the relationships between perceived culture distance, cultural attribution, intercultural competence and customer satisfaction. Findings – Perceived culture distance is positively related to customer satisfaction, with cultural attribution mediating the relationship between perceived cultural distance and customer satisfaction, and partially mediating the moderating effect of intercultural competence on the relationship between perceived culture distance and customer satisfaction. Research limitations/implications – This study focuses on cultural attribution in intercultural service e...

Service role and outcome as moderators in intercultural service encounters

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce a comprehensive framework incorporating service roles (customer vs employee) and outcomes (failure vs success) as moderators in the process by which perceived cultural distance (PCD) affects customers and employees in intercultural service encounters (ICSEs). Design/methodology/approach – The authors used a 2×2×3 between-subjects experimental design with Chinese undergraduate students, manipulating service role (customer and employee), outcome (failure and success) and PCD (low, medium and high). Findings – Compared to service employees, customers perceive higher cultural distance and lower interaction comfort (IC), service quality and satisfaction; and stronger negative moderating effect of PCD in ICSEs. Compared to service success, failure results in lower IC; perceived service quality and satisfaction, and these effects are stronger for customers (vs employees). Research limitations/implications – The authors used shorter versions of all the scales to...

Attribution of Success and Failure in Intercultural Service Encounters: Moderating Role of Personal Cultural Orientations

Purpose This paper aims to examine the role that personal cultural orientations play in customer attributions in intercultural service encounters. Design/methodology/approach A conceptual model was developed depicting the relationships between service delivery outcome, personal cultural orientations and customer attributions. Data were collected from 640 Chinese and Western customers using scenario-based experiments in a restaurant context to assess the hypothesized relationships in the model. Findings The findings show that compared to service delivery success, customers tend to hold service employee and firm responsible for service delivery failure rather than themselves and cultural differences. Moreover, personal cultural orientations partially moderated the influence of the service delivery outcome on customer attributions. Research limitations/implications Future research could adopt different methodologies such as critical incident techniques and surveys to replicate the study. Practical implications Service firms are recommended to design programs to influence customer attributions such as “customer education programs” and “customer appreciation programs” to achieve high customer satisfaction. Originality/value This study examines the differences in customer attributions between successful vs unsuccessful service delivery. It also sheds light on the potential moderating role of personal cultural orientations on the relationship between service delivery outcome and customer attributions.