Abstract

Superior innovation performance is vital for enterprises to survive and maintain competitiveness, especially in Internet related industries which are rapidly growing and changing. However, not all innovations can survive to later stages and bring benefits for enterprises. From a staged process perspective, we divide innovation performance into three stages: development performance (cost/time efficiency and experience/solution effectiveness), deployment performance, and financial/non-financial performance, and aim to examine the relationship between modes of service innovation (business model, service process, and service product) and their performance implications in different stages.

Keyword

financial/non-financial performance ;  modes of service innovation ;  new service development performance ;  new service development process

Abstract

Asset prices remain depressed for years following mutual fund fire sales. We show that price pressure from fire sales is partly due to asymmetric information. We separate trades into expected trades, which assume fund managers scale down their portfolio, and discretionary trades. We find that discretionary trades contain information about future returns, while expected trades do not. Moreover, other traders cannot distinguish between discretionary and expected trades. Our findings help explain the magnitude and persistence of fire sale discounts: fund managers choose which assets to sell and information asymmetries make it difficult for arbitrageurs to disentangle price pressure from negative fundamentals.

Keyword

adverse selection ;  asymmetric information ;  fire sales ;  slow moving capital

Abstract

Most past studies modeling consumer decision processes treated the brand of a product as an attribute parallel to the price, color, or size of a product; and as a result, such studies assigned an equal (i.e., non-contingent) importance weight across brands for each attribute. In contrast, the current research presents a multi-level choice model that incorporates a brand-contingent attribute-weighting process, in which brand is a higher-order construct that influences attribute importance. The empirical results using real purchase decision data and survey data from an airline industry show that attribute importance weights are contingent upon two aspects of a brand—the perceived relative position of the brand and consumers’ brand usage experiences. When consumers perceive a brand to be inferior to its competitors in a given attribute, consumers generally place greater weight on that attribute for that brand (i.e., brand-contingent negativity effect). In contrast, when consumers perceive a brand to be superior to its competitors in a given attribute, only consumers with an extensive brand usage experience place greater weight on that attribute for that brand (i.e., brand-contingent positivity effect). By modeling consumer decision processes based on the consumer behavior literature, this research provides managerial insights on brand positioning and segmentation strategies based on consumers’ brand usage experiences.

Keyword

brand ;  brand experience ;  importance weigh ;  modeling consumer behavior ;  negativity effect ;  positioning

Abstract

With the trends towards servitization and digital innovations in supply chains (SCs), a number of SC leaders have started to commercialize their SC capabilities as services provided to business customers. In order to efficiently organize multiple suppliers’ resources and customize the service offerings, some of these leaders have developed a “supply chain as a service” model (hereafter SCaaS), in which different functions of a SC, are grouped into service modules to enable plug-and-play agility in meeting the varying needs of business customers. Although SCaaS is emerging as an evolution of the market for cloud services (as with other “X as a service” models like Software as a Service, Platform as a Service, and Infrastructure as a Service), supply chain management (SCM) researchers have not systematically studied the SCaaS phenomenon, which has evolved from a cloud computing application to a new business model at the ecosystem level. This study explores how a SCaaS has emerged and how it works by instigating three complementary research questions: (1) how do a firm form its SCaaS through the interactive implementation of supply chain innovations (SCIs) and business model innovations (BMIs) over time; (2) what are the roles and activities that SCaaS incorporate, and how these roles and activities are organized to serve the business customers; and (3) what is the detailed service operation process of SCaaS for satisfying a specific customer demand. To address these questions, this study adopts a longitudinal case study approach to investigate a SCaaS formed by Haier COSMO, a company which connects together customized orders, third-party R&D solution providers, intelligent manufacturing factories, and other SC service providers, to provide mass customized SC services to business customers. This study makes contributions to both the SCM and the service innovation literature. It expands our knowledge of SCI-driven BMIs and echoes with recent calls to refocus SCM on the perspectives of value co-creation and service ecosystem. The study also reveals new insights into how to apply digital technologies to enhance SC capabilities, and how to apply these SC capabilities to support new business models. The findings provide important managerial insights for firms to design and implement new business models in today’s trends towards open innovation and value co-creation with ecosystem participants.

Keyword

business model innovations (BMIs) ;  longitudinal case study ;  service modularity ;  supply chain as a service model (SCaaS) ;  supply chain innovations (SCIs)

Abstract

Purpose—The third-party logistics (3PL) firms increasingly rely on information technology (IT) to improve the supply chain process and firm performance in the context of the globalized and fiercely competitive market. The purpose of this study is to investigate how logistics IT adoption as a standardized resource affects firm performance. Moreover, we explore the mediating role of customer collaboration and the moderating role of government policy support between logistics IT adoption and firm performance from the resource-based view and socio-technical perspective. Design/ methodology/ approach— Survey data acquired from a sample of 235 3PL firms in China were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Findings—The empirical results show that logistics IT adoption has a positive effect on both financial and operational performance by strengthening customer collaboration. Additionally, government policy support amplifies the positive effect of customer collaboration on operational performance, rather than on financial performance. Originality/value—This study offers rich empirical insights to the growing body of SCM and 3PL literature. And the findings contribute to our understanding of the technological and developmental issues of 3PL firms both theoretically and practically

Keyword

information technology adoption ;  financial performance ;  operational performance ;  customer collaboration ;  government policy support

Abstract

In many markets, consumers use detailed attribute information to assess the value they expect from purchasing a product or service. Markets that Öt this description include LED monitors, wine, some OTC healthcare products, mattresses and automobile tires. In these markets, quality di§erences exist yet many di§erences are horizontal in nature: the consumer is interested in Önding a product that meets her unique tastes. Beyond ensuring that consumers know the brand, the category and the price; in these markets, it seems advertising should provide consumers with detailed attribute information. However, a signiÖcant proportion of advertising does not provide it. In fact, within the same category, competitors respond to messages that emphasize detailed attribute information with messages that are devoid of attribute information. These messags are uniformative about product attributes. We explore how competition in a di§erentiated market is a§ected by the ability of a Örm has to choose uninformative messages. We construct a model to investigate the factors that a§ect a Örmís decision to use advertising with detailed attribute information or advertising that does not provide attribute information. The model demonstrates that content decisions about advertising are a§ected by the di§erences between products, the range of heterogeneity in consumer tastes and the degree to which costs increase as a function of the quantity of information in advertising. Surprisingly, even when the cost to increase the quantity of information in advertising is low, uninformative campaigns can be more proÖtable than campaigns with detailed attribute information. The analysis also demonstrates that Örms may be more likely to provide detailed attribute information when there are less consumers that are attribute-sensitive. Finally, the model shows that uninformative messages can create "artiÖcial di§erentiation" in some conditions.

Keyword

advertising content ;  horizontal di§erentiation ;  matching ;  Uninformative messages

Abstract

We study the incentive of a firm to provide deceptive information on the value of its product. Consumers take into account the possibility of certain exaggeration or deception in firm’s claims. Therefore they may discount such claims and search for extra information to verify the messages. Such reactions from the consumers would in turn influence the firm’s incentives to conduct deceptive advertising. Based on a simple model we find that a monopoly firm with a low quality product has a stronger incentive to send out a deceptive message when the consumers’ prior belief is favorable to the product. We also investigate the firm’s choice on the format of the message when delivering false claims, i.e., explicit claims or subtle messages. Our result indicates that the direct claims are more persuasive than the subtle claims in a wide range of the parameter space. However, when both formats are effective, deceptions with subtle claims are more profitable to the firm because consumers will have less incentive to conduct the verification. Finally, we found that the presence of an independent information source does reduce the firm’s incentive to make deceptive claims, but it is most influential when the firm has a moderate reputation.

Keyword

Advertising ;  persuasion ;  consumer search ;  game theory

Abstract

Due to its value to private firms, a firm’s political connection (PC) enhances the alignment of external investors with insiders, thereby mitigating the adverse impact of market frictions on corporate financing and investment. This has important implications on corporate policies and governance. Using various identification strategies, we show that PC firms are more likely to issue equity and invest more, while paying out less in dividends. The market responds more positively to news of equity issuance and investment, but less so to news of dividend payouts by PC firms. Moreover, external investors vote more favorably on managerial proposals in PC firms’ annual meetings. And analysts are more optimistic in their forecasts of earnings by PC firms. The evidence is consistent with PC as an investor endorsement device, which in turn incentivizes unconnected firms to proactively seek PC.

Keyword

corporate policy ;  dividend ;  external financing ;  investor endorsement ;  market frictions ;  Political connection

Abstract

The study explored hypotheses proposing that due to different resource dependencies of the focal firm in three NSD stages (ideation, development, and deployment), customers and partners play different roles in the NSD process. Empirical data were collected from 200 NSD projects, and structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized relationships. The results show that customer value cocreation has a positive effect on ideation performance and development performance, while business partner value cocreation has a positive effect on deployment performance, thus supporting the notion that the contributions of customers and business partners vary across the NSD stages. Future research may focus on how business partners can be actively involved in the NSD process and how to safeguard different parties’ interests during value cocreation. Longitudinal data may be used to better examine the process dynamics.

Keyword

empirical study ;  new service development ;  resource dependency ;  service innovation ;  Value cocreation

Abstract

We show that, independent of entry/exit a la Hopenhayn and market size expansion, trade with firm heterogeneity always crowds out less productive firms when countries are symmetric. When countries are asymmetric, however, trade can crowd in less productive firms and less productive firms almost always specialize in trade. We analyze how a country’s standing in the world determines whether and how these phenomena will arise. Our paper helps reconcile empirical findings that are contradictory to the existing theoretical literature, and highlights the importance of country heterogeneity in understanding trade with firm heterogeneity.

Keyword

Firm heterogeneity ;  Asymmetric Trade ;  Reverse-Selection ;  Crowd-In ;  Country Standing