1. Introduction

2. Theoretical background

3. Conceptual framework and hypotheses development

4. Methodology

5. Analysis and results

6. Discussion and conclusion

Appendix A. Supplementary dataAppendix 1. Sample Description

Appendix 2 Means, Standard deviations, Skewness, and Kurtosis for measuring items

References

Abstract

Many researchers have endeavored to explain which factors contribute to sustainable competitive advantage. Toward this end, this study contributes to the marketing and hospitality management literature by providing empirical evidence on how human capital, dynamic marketing capabilities, and market dynamism influence competitive advantage in the hotel sector. We collected cross-sectional survey data from marketing and sales managers in 165 hotels, along with in-depth interviews in three hotels, based in four Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, namely, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. The findings reveal that human capital directly, and indirectly through dynamic marketing capabilities, plays a critical role on developing competitive advantage. To contextualize this role, our research reveals that market dynamism moderates the mediated relationship between human capital and competitive advantage via market sensing capabilities. We discuss how the findings offer theoretical and managerial implications for the development of competitive advantage in the hotel sector.

Introduction

Uncertainty and dynamism in competitive markets oblige firms to rethink the approaches they adopt to achieve sustainable competitive advantages. Key to attain and maintain a sustainable competitive advantage lies in possessing and developing the unique resources that are difficult to imitate. These resources reside mainly in firms’ human capital that is grounded on firm personnel competence, including skills, knowledge, expertise and capabilities (Mention & Bontis, 2013). Human capital offers the basis to build unique resources and capabilities. The dynamic capabilities (DCs) view provides a robust theoretical foundation for explaining how firms can achieve and maintain competitive advantage through the renewal and reconfiguration of resources and capabilities (Eisenhardt & Martin, 2000; Teece et al. 199). More specifically, linking dynamic marketing capabilities (DMCs) with company performance has attracted the attention of marketing scholars (e.g., Krasnikov & Jayachandran, 2008; Morgan, Slotegraaf, & Vorhies, 2009; Vorhies & Morgan, 2005). Furthermore, empirical evidence has been accumulated to support the association between human capital, represented in employees’ knowledge and skills, and firm performance.

1. Can AI contribute to sales performance?

2. Foundations of AI

3. The AI-enabled B2B sales funnel

4. Managerial considerations for maximizing collaborative intelligence

5. AI will enhance, not replace

References

Abstract

The B2B sales process is undergoing substantial transformations fueled by advances in information and communications technology, specifically in artificial intelligence (AI). The premise of AI is to turn vast amounts of data into information for superior knowledge creation and knowledge management in B2B sales. In doing so, AI can significantly alter the traditional human-centric sales process. In this article, we describe how AI affects the B2B sales funnel. For each stage of the funnel, we describe key sales tasks, explain the specific contributions AI can bring, and clarify the role humans play. We also outline managerial considerations to maximize the contributions from AI and people in the context of B2B sales.

Can AI contribute to sales performance?

B2B sales managers have always been concerned with serving their clients at every stage of thesales process. However, much has changed since the days of stereotypical salesperson Willy Loman, the protagonist in Arthur Miller’s 1949 play Death of a Salesman. As the opening quote reveals, Loman’s travels took him to many cities in which he could rely on personal, emotional, and professional connections with his clients. In the process, Loman and his fellow salespeople mainly relied on manual, analog technologies (e.g., maps, landline telephones) to enable their B2B sales.

The launch of the world’s first mobile telephone certainly seemsdand wasda long time ago. Many technological innovations have shaped B2B sales since, especially profound advances in information and communications technology (Morkunas, Paschen, & Boon, 2019; Paschen, Pitt, & Kietzmann, 2019), digitization, and artificial intelligence (AI) (Gupta, Keen, Shah, Verdier, & Walutowy, 2017; Syam & Sharma, 2018). In particular, AI systemsddefined as information systems that act intelligently (Russell, 1997; Russell & Norvig, 2016)dare substantially different than technological advancements of the past (Kietzmann, Paschen, & Treen, 2018). While previous technological innovations, including the advent of the telephone, computers, or the internet, helped with collecting, aggregating, processing, or communicating data (Paschen, Pitt, & Kietzmann, 2020), decision making always rested with humans. Today, emerging technologies such as AI can significantly alter the interactions between humans and machines (Marr, 2016), enabling computers to solve problems with minimal or no human intervention (Syam & Sharma, 2018).

1- Introduction

2- Methods

3- Results

4- Discussion

5- Conclusions and ways forward

References

Abstract

Designing optimal financial products for rural households in poor countries remains a challenge, especially in a risk management perspective in disaster-prone areas. In addition to financial intermediaries’ difficulties with reaching potential customers efficiently, information asymmetries prevent fully understanding customers and developing suitable products for them. The clientele’s weak information systems, coupled with cultural aspects often unfamiliar to the supplier of financial services, make the analysis difficult and costly. This article builds on a financial statement approach to empirically explore the combination of farmers’ financial and non-financial strategies, in a portfolio risk management perspective, with a focus on shock-type risk exposure. It emerges that farmers’ decisions follow a sequential process with different combinations of savings, credit, and insurance that interact with non-financial strategies to help managing risks. The study relies on panel data collected in Ethiopia. The empirical analysis confirms the vulnerability of sample households to natural systemic shocks and entails that the conclusions of this paper can be considered part of the broad literature on the disaster risk management of low-income households.

CONCLUSIONS AND WAYS FORWARD

This article was inspired by the use of a conceptual framework based on a portfolio approach to study rural households’ risk management strategies and had a particular interest in the potential demand for insurance. The structure of the sample shows that, while several risks are affecting the households, a large percentage of the interviewees declared to suffer of disastertype events: droughts and floods. The outcome of the current analysis confirms the results of previous, simplified, attempts to prove that although insurance is often considered an alternative measure to farmers’ own riskcoping strategies, it may be a complementary solution. The information obtained by using a system analysis (in this case, the SURE methodology) is that the main dimensions of a portfolio approach to risk management can be analysed in their reciprocal relationships. Based on the findings, insurance and savings decisions are affected by the overall composition of risk management strategies (savings, insurance, loans, livestock), and borrowing decisions depend on all factors but savings. Another finding is that the direction of the influence in some cases is constant (always positive, suggesting complementarity), and in other cases, the direction changes according to the sequence of the portfolio choice. This phenomenon is evident in the case of borrowing.

1- Introduction

2- Literature review

3- Methodologies

4- Analyzing E-commerce distribution mode in a big-data context: a case analysis of JD.Com

5- Conclusion

References

Abstract

This paper analyzes the existing distribution modes adopted by China’s e-commerce enterprises. Based on the empirical analysis of the electronic mall at JD.com (Jing-Dong), this paper compares and investigates the different logistics distribution modes faced by e-commerce enterprises embracing the new features, new challenges, and new advantages of big data. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method and entropy value are applied to investigate the e-commerce enterprise distribution choice mode and the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method is used to verify the model. Our research analysis and results bear strong managerial insights for e-commerce logistics distribution practitioners.

Introduction

Business consumers in the digital age have become increasingly informed, challenging industrial marketing and sales teams to adapt their traditional marketing strategies to fully embrace buyers’ preferences and expectations. Forrester, in its latest research report, predicts that > 20% of companies will begin to apply modern technologies in their industrial marketing platforms in order to optimize the engagement between business buyers and sellers (Robertson et al., 2018). Technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and big data analytics have created unprecedented opportunities for companies to exploit their data assets for business-to-business (B2B) market initiatives. For instance, incorporating Lattice Engine’s predictive analytics into its marketing initiatives, the industrial marketing team at Akamai was able to better segment its customers and to send personalized messages, sextupling its lead-to-opportunity conversion rate (Anderson 2018). In addition, companies including Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple have all made great efforts in the field of industrial marketing through collecting and utilizing big data. All of this underlines the importance of big data as a crucial factor in global marketing operations (Miguel & Casado 2016). Data also plays a key role in making different decisions about business supply chains and logistics operations that are closely related to the industrial marketing field. Supply chain management deals with creating and maintaining linkages between different entities with specific responsibilities, ranging from raw material procurement to enduser product interactions. Logistics management ensures that relevant work support methods, such as traffic management, warehouse management, inventory management, packaging, and order tracking, are in place. Employing a large and diverse range of data in logistics and supply chain management, companies can understand the needs and preferences of their customers. Electronic commerce (e-commerce) giants such as Amazon, Flipkart, and Snapdeal have been collecting and exploring data from customers, orders, inventory, and other information (Meena, 2017). The success of e-commerce companies now depends largely upon how efficiently they capture, store, and use data. The advent of the big-data era has further strengthened the relationship between logistics distribution and e-commerce, and this presents new opportunities, such as the expansion of enterprise information, the sharing of distribution channels, and the integration of data resources. Particularly, e-commerce enterprises can accurately predict the future needs of customers and can fulfill personalized services to customers. In addition, they can organize and coordinate the distribution activities beforehand in a well-planned way, allowing for better selection and innovation of distribution modes.

1- Introduction

2- Theoretical framework and hypotheses

3- Data and methods

4- Results

5- Discussion

References

Abstract

We investigate how human beliefs are associated with the absorption of specialist knowledge that is required to produce cyber-security. We ground our theorizing in the knowledge-based view of the firm and transaction-cost economics. We test our hypotheses with a sample of 262 members of an information-sharing and analysis center who share sensitive information related to cyber-security. Our findings suggest that resource belief, usefulness belief, and reciprocity belief are all positively associated with knowledge absorption, whereas reward belief is not. The implications of these findings for practitioners and future research are discussed.

Introduction

For both public and private organizations, effective cyber-security is required to prevent business interruption and thus to ensure operational continuity (Fransen, Smulders, & Kerkdijk, 2015; Furnell & Clarke, 2012; Gordon, Loeb, & Zhou, 2016; Luiijf & Klaver, 2015; Skopik, Settanni, & Fiedler, 2016; Tounsi & Rais, 2018). The production of such cyber-security is a knowledge-intensive task (Ben-Asher & Gonzalez, 2015; Jakobson, 2011). Despite the fact that hardware and software components required for this defense are relatively homogeneous and readily available at low cost or even for free (Anderson, 2001; Hofmann & Ramaj, 2011), highly specialist knowledge is required to combine and deploy these components effectively for organizational defense — for instance, by designing resilient systems architectures and implementing them efficiently (Etzioni, 2011; Lee, Bagheri, & Kao, 2015). Hence, cyber-security is a complex capability that is not readily created by the purchasing of technological components; rather, it is the skilled knowledge of how to organize and orchestrate these components that creates the actual defense (Anderson, 2001; Hofmann & Ramaj, 2011; Solms & Niekerk, 2013). Furthermore, due to the swift technological evolution and short technology life-cycles of these components, knowledge required to produce cyber-security becomes obsolete (Casas et al., 2017; Chen, Chiang, & Storey, 2012; Mahmood & Afzal, 2013; Wang et al., 2014).

1- Introduction

2- Conceptual foundation

3- Methods and sources

4- Telework as strategic niche management in the multi-level perspective

5- Strategic niche management as groundwork for pathways

References

Abstract

This article presents telework advocacy in the United States as a case of strategic niche management that contributed to an incremental transformation of office work location practice in the United States. In its first decades, telework advocacy showed elements of strategic niche management including vision and expectations, learning processes, and social networks. Supported by environmental and economic landscape pressures, trip reduction and travel demand management policies opened up protected spaces at the local, state, or federal levels for the practice of telework, with public agencies as experimenters. Niche and incumbent actors shared a strategy of promoting telework in structured circumstances and spoke to organizational and employee benefit alongside societal benefits. Yet as landscape pressures lessened, incumbent actors took greater ownership of the innovations of telework, and shifted their vision to one that considers telecommuting as a function of human resources rather than a societal imperative.

Introduction

The questions of how societal practices change over time in relation to technology, and the extent to which policy can guide this change towards beneficial outcomes are fundamental to social science. The practice of strategic niche management (SNM) aims to use policy to guide sustainable innovations towards wider adoption (Kemp et al., 1998). Yet notions of a simple substitution of one technology for a more sustainable alternative belie the complexity of sociotechnical systems. The multi-level perspective (MLP) describes interactions in such complex systems across three levels—the landscape which contains broad trends and external structures, the regime level which contains established ways of operating, and the niche level from which new technologies emerge (Geels, 2002). Placing strategic niche management within this multi-level perspective draws attention to a limited role of SNM in enabling systemic change (Schot and Geels, 2008). Transition pathways rather attempt to describe how actors, technologies, and broader societal trends interact across multiple levels to bring about change within sociotechnical systems (Smith et al., 2005; Geels and Schot, 2007). Practitioners of strategic niche management would benefit from guidance that includes knowledge about how their efforts fit within wider transition pathways (Raven et al., 2010). However examples of this role have not yet been well documented by the literature with reference to particular pathways. This article draws a connection between these literatures through a case study of three decades of telework advocacy in the United States, asking: To what extent does this period represent a case of strategic niche management? How did this contribute to a particular transition pathway within a broader sociotechnical system? The notion of “telecommuting” emerged in the early 1970s, supported by federal research funding, as a strategy to confront societal problems related to the journey between home and workplace.

1- Introduction

2- Literature review

3- SCNR framework

4- Network resilience analysis

5- Implications

6- Conclusion

References

Abstract

This study aims to investigate overall supply chain network resilience (SCNR) in the presence of ripple effect, or risk propagation, i.e. the phenomenon that disruptions at a few firms in a supply chain network (SCN) can spread to their neighboring firms, then eventually spread to other firms in the SCN. We begin by developing a multi-dimensional quantitative framework to measure SCNR, which includes three resilience dimensions based on three different network performance indicators. Given this framework, we then systematically explore the determining factors of SCNR and present a comprehensive analysis of how network structure and node risk capacity influence different aspects of SCNR. Our results clearly indicate the following important implications for managers. First, the influence of network type on SCNR tends to be more significant in the short-term than it is in the longer-term, given the ripple effect. Second, SCNR can be improved more effectively by enhancing node risk capacity than by adjusting network structure. Third, tradeoffs exist between the robustness of the network against a disruption and its ability to recover from that disruption. Fourth, different network performance indicators can provide different perspectives on SCNR. Together these help show that the multi-dimensional framework enables a better characterization of the complexity of SCNR, and thus that it provides support for more informed managerial decision-making about investing in improving resilience. The paper concludes the discussion by addressing opportunities for further extending the research effort.

Introduction

Modern supply chains are complex networks that are exposed to supply chain disruptions, which are operational shutdowns directly or indirectly caused by various risks such as natural disasters, political and economic factors, labor strikes, and material shortages (Bode and Wagner 2015; Craighead et al. 2007; Scheibe and Blackhurst 2017). A supply chain network (SCN) is vulnerable to disruptions not only because of the direct impacts of those disruptions, but also because of the ripple effect (also known as risk propagation) – the phenomenon that a sudden disruption at a few nodes in a SCN can spread to neighboring nodes, and eventually adversely impact other firms (Dolgui, Ivanov, and Sokolov 2018; 2 Scheibe and Blackhurst 2017; Li et al. 2019). The consequence of what is initially a local disruption can thus be substantial and long-lasting. As an example of this behavior, the hard disk drive (HDD) manufacturer Western Digital, which has a number of local factories in Thailand, suffered a 50% slump in HDD sales in the last quarter of 2011 because of major flooding in that country. These losses then affected a number of other firms within its extended supply chain. One of these firms was Hewlett Packard, a customer of Western Digital, which subsequently reported a 7% drop in revenues and blamed the HDD shortage for more than half of this decline (HP 2011). Intel, a supplier for HP, also posted a decrease in 4th Quarter revenues of $346 million as a result of lower demand following the flood (Intel 2011). Such results are common, as indicated by a recent study showing that 42% of supply chain disruptions originate below the tier one suppliers (Business Continuity Institute 2013).

1- Introduction

2- Literature review

3- Methodology

4- Results

5- Discussion

References

Abstract

This research focuses on the study of the impact of the HRIS’ use in human resources department (HR) on individual innovation capability. A research model was proposed and the related hypotheses were tested within human resources department of Tunisian companies with 42 respondents. Results estimated by Smart PLS software, showed that HRIS usage enhances individual innovation capability of Tunisian HR employees. Moreover, it has been found that employees’ affective commitment moderates the relationship between HRIS usage and individual innovation capability. In fact, more the employees are engaged affectively to their organization more the HRIS impact is positive and noteworthy on individual innovation behavior of HR staff. The study allows clarifying some lines which are responsible of improving individual creativity.

Introduction

The international environment has grown uncertain and become difficultto predict. Since January 14th 2011, Tunisia’s postrevolution environmentinduced Tunisian companies into changing their working methods and adapting themselves to an increasingly more and more competitive and uncertain environment (Ben Moussa, 2018). Accordingly, to survive and remain competitive, companies should have an information system able to make available reliable and consistent information on all the company’s activities. Itis information that now guides decision-making because it generates knowledge within the organization and as such it is essential for the continuity of the company’s activities. With the classic (non-integrated) information systems, companies find it difficult to manage a large amount of information coming from their different partners. This has forced companies all over the world to gear towards the adoption of information systems able to integrate data on all of the company’s activities (Markus, Axline, Petrie, & Tanis, 2000). These systems provide a knowledge platform that allows users to share information from different sectors such as manufacturing, finance, human resources, etc. (Davenport, 1998; Purvis, Sambamurthy, & Zmud, 2001). These systems are able to support decision-making and provide competitive advantages to the organization (Shao, Feng, & Liu, 2012; Wu & Wang, 2007). Similarly, Tunisian SMEs aremovingmore andmore towards the adoption of new information systems like Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP).

1- Introduction

2- Literature review

3- Trust

4- Perceived value and purchasing intention

5- Research model and hypothesis

6- Research methodology

7- Research design

8- Research measures

9- Analysis method

10- Data analysis

11- Demographic analysis

12- Measurement model test

13- Common method bias

14- Structural model test

15- Mediation effect test

16- Research analyses and discussion

17- Conclusion and research implications

References

Abstract

Electronic commerce and online marketplaces have rapidly become critical transaction channels. Many studies of online marketing have focused on the purchasing behaviors of general buyers. However, many business to business (B2B) e-marketplaces allow professional procurement personnel from various businesses to electronically search for and purchase commodities; this facilitates price referencing and helps procurement personnel complete the tasks associated with direct purchasing functionalities. Despite this trend, few studies have examined the purchasing behavior of procurement personnel in B2B e-marketplaces. To fill this research gap, this study examines the relationships between trust in intermediaries and sellers; trust in commodity information; and the online purchase intentions of the procurement personnel in B2B e-marketplaces. This study also investigates the mediating effect of perceived value on the relationship between trust in commodity information and online purchase intention. The results indicate that the relationship between trust in commodity information and online purchase is mediated by perceived value. In addition, both intermediary trust and seller trust positively and significantly influence trust in commodity information, and intermediary trust positively influences seller trust. This finding is a valuable reference for professionals working in B2B e-marketplaces.

Introduction

The global electronic commerce (EC) industry has grown rapidly since the dot-com bubble in early 2000. It not only changes consumer behavior but also influences employee behavior (Odom et al., 2002; Tapia, 2004; Rigby, 2011). This rapid advancement in EC has exponentially increased year after year, stimulating the development of diversified business models, such as business-to-business (B2B) EC, that have contributed to the growth and availability of online purchase and enterprise operating channels (Chang & Wong, 2010). Procurement personnel are playing increasingly critical roles in decisions on enterprise procurement, and they are spending more time searching for commodity information online, browsing websites and searching for the most appropriate products for their enterprises. Websites designed to provide this type of information have developed at an explosive rate. They increase transparency by displaying relevant commodity information. Specifically, this type of B2B e-marketplace plays an essential role as a third-party platform with the intermediary function of disseminating specific commodity information. To this end, it provides the procurement personnel of various enterprises with the commodity information they need to make effective purchasing decisions. Numerous new styles and forms of e-marketplaces have emerged to provide secure and reliable transactions between buyers and sellers (Odom et al., 2002; Pavlou & Gefen, 2005). In B2B EC, given the comprehensive and radical development of e-marketplaces, the trustworthiness of sellers and intermediaries has become an important factor stimulating the online purchase intentions of procurement personnel (Pavlou, 2002; Chong et al., 2003; Chen & Chang, 2012). As Hong and Cho (2011) noted, a marketplace is composed of many business intermediaries who provide related services in complex business environments, and there are many sellers in this environment. Procurement personnel are typically more willing to conduct exchanges with anonymous sellers if they trust the e-marketplace. Thus, trust is a critical factor in buyers’ online purchasing decisions, and many researchers have studied the role of trust in e-marketplaces (Ba & Pavlou, 2002; Jones & Leonard, 2008; Chien et al., 2012; Fang et al., 2014; Kim & Koo, 2016; McKnight et al., 2017; Alsaad, Mohamad, & Ismail, 2017; Connelly et al., 2018; Hallikainen & Laukkanen, 2018).

1- Introduction

2- Theoretical foundation

3- Literature and hypothesis development

4- Research design

5- Empirical results and analysis

6- Additional analyses

7- Conclusion and implications

References

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether firms’ embrace of an integrity culture will affect the performance of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Employing manually collected data on corporate culture and 5,149 firm-year observations in China from 2008 to 2016, our empirical study finds that corporate integrity culture has a strong positive effect on CSR performance, suggesting that an integrity-oriented corporate culture helps companies to bear CSR on their own initiative. We further find CEO duality leadership strengthens and analyst coverage attenuates the above relationship. This article is the first to explore the effect of corporate integrity culture on CSR behavior and validates the role of corporate culture as a crucial informal institution in guiding companies to uphold CSR. The empirical results also confirm the role of corporate culture in enhancing the social value of corporations. Our paper is helpful to broaden our understanding of the factors influencing CSR and provides a possible solution to the problem of CSR fulfillment.

Introduction

Modern global business determines corporations to become more aware than in the past of the importance of socially responsible business. Since enterprises are the basic economic units and play a central role in economic growth and social development, it is very meaningful and necessary for companies to be more socially responsible through the behaviors of giving back to society in different ways such as charitable donations, safety production, employment promotion, employee rights protections, product quality, environmental protection, resource conservation, etc. However, these responsible activities cannot be accomplished without the supports of honesty and integrity awareness embedded in the minds of firms’ management and employees, as well as ethical corporate cultures. As an important dimension of corporate culture, the significance of integrity to enterprises is self-evident. Prior studies show that integrity is vital to the survival and development of enterprises (e.g., Koehn, 2005; Erhard and Jensen, 2017; Jiang et al., 2019). For instance, a corporate culture of integrity can help companies attract investment (Denison and Mishra, 1995), reduce transaction costs (Gosling and Huang, 2009), enhance operating efficiency (Hsu, 2007), and thus improve corporate profitability and performance (Reichheld and Teal, 1996; Simons, 2002; Erhard and Jensen, 2017).

1- Introduction

2- Theoretical background

3- Corporate Environmental Profile Methodology (CEPM)

4- Empirical analysis

5- Discussion

6- Conclusion

References

Abstract

The environmental dimension of corporate sustainability is a key factor in firms’ success and viability. This implies that firms put emphasis on resource conservation strategies in order to protect their financial position. In recent years, the environmental aspects of firms have been examined with respect to their corporate environmental profile. This paper proposes a new approach for assessing the corporate environmental profile in light of environmental management practices, the environmental performance and reporting practices. To do so, a flexible benchmarking–scoring methodology was developed. It is based on a set of well-defined indexes and environmental indicators proposed by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) in order to assess information published in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reports. A sample of firms was used to test the proposed methodology so as to highlight its advantages and disadvantages.

Introduction

Environmental information is very useful for helping firms develop essential tools to improve communication with stakeholders as well as to face potential future risks and exploit possible new opportunities (Larrinaga-González et al., 2001; De Beer and Friend, 2006). Many theories (e.g. the stakeholder theory, the resource-based theory, the knowledge-based theory) and also accounting literature (the legitimacy theory and accountability theory) (Russo and Fouts, 1997; O’Donovan, 2002; Nikolaou, 2017) have been used to explain the efforts of businesses to improve their environmental profile through strategic management. Recently, many firms want to make progress on improving their environmental profile mainly as a response to the regulatory regime (i.e. the reactive approach) or as a strategy on a voluntary basis, in order to meet stakeholder needs (i.e. the proactive approach) (Alvarez, 2019). Moreover, literature provides evidence that benefits from improvements in a corporate environmental profile are different across sectors. Specifically, the mining and chemical industries gain “the social licence to operate” (Moffat and Zhang, 2014), while the food and beverage industry seeks a competitive advantage (Maloni and Brown, 2006). The credit sector mainly aims to eliminate potential transfer of financial risks to lending procedures due to firms’ environmental failures (Coulson and Monks, 1999).

1- Opportunity-ambiguity dilemma in emerging market categories

2- The influence of socio-cognitive cues

3- Data and methodology

4- Results

5- Discussion and conclusion

References

Abstract

Industries with emerging market categories offer greater opportunities for firms to innovate. However, such opportunities are not a matter of “the more, the better.” An increasing number of emerging market categories poses a dilemma. While more emerging market categories arguably bring about increasing growth opportunities, they can also generate greater ambiguity for incumbent firms, which may hinder their innovation efforts. This study attempts to address this dilemma by proposing that the number of emerging market categories in an industry will have an inverted U-shaped relationship with incumbent firms’ innovation efforts. We further argue that this curvilinear relationship will be influenced by the socio-cognitive context of a firm’s focal industry, in the sense that the degree of collective identity incoherence at the industry level will intensify the proposed inverted U-shaped relationship, whereas the prevalence of trade associations in the industry will depress this relationship. We test our hypotheses by examining research and development (R&D) investments of a sample of U.S. high-technology manufacturing firms and find support for our main prediction and the hypothesized effect of collective identity incoherence. We also find a surprising but intriguing moderating effect of trade associations.

Conclusions

In this study we endeavor to resolve an important but relatively understudied dilemma posed by our collective understanding of industry dynamics and emergence. On the one hand, a dominant realization in the literature that has been borne out by a significant body of empirical work, is that emergence in industries spurs innovation and growth. On the other hand, emergence can pose significant socio-cognitive challenges for industry incumbents due to its inherent ambiguity. We have tackled this paradox in industries belonging to the high-tech U.S. manufacturing sector and have empirically assessed the effects of the multiplicity of emerging market categories in such industries on innovation-related strategic behaviors of incumbent firms. Our findings suggest a co-existence of both opportunity and ambiguity, and the relative prevalence of one over the other is largely driven by an increasing multiplicity of emerging market categories and the socio-cognitive context of an industry. We believe that the explicit emphasis on the effect of this multiplicity on the opportunity-ambiguity tension in emerging contexts contributes to our collective knowledge of the interplay between market emergence and innovation.

1- Introduction

2- Literature review

3- Study 1: Qualitative

4- Study 2: Empirical validation of the framework

5- Potential explanation of the realized results

6- Contributions

7- Limitations and future research

References

Abstract

Luxury brands across the globe have made inroads into emerging markets (EM). While some brands have succeeded in one EM, they have failed to replicate their success in others. We investigate the drivers of luxury brand sales in EM using a multi-method approach. First, through a qualitative study, we identify which market characteristics of EM (market heterogeneity, competition from unbranded products, socio-political governance, and resources and infrastructure) affect luxury brand sales, with a firm’s marketing effort and a market’s financial freedom being important contingencies. Second, we empirically test the insights using data from 88 luxury brands and robust econometric analyses. Our results show that market characteristics influence luxury sales and that the effects of such market characteristics on luxury brand sales are heterogeneous. We also find significant moderating effects of marketing efforts and financial freedom. Our study thus extends the literature on the marketing of luxury brands and EM.

Introduction

Multiple luxury brands have experienced stagnation in their sales in developed markets.1 Consumption figures (see WA2 -Exhibit 1 & 2) indicate that during the last decade, such brands have either witnessed no growth or have shown negative growth. Hence, realizing the challenges to sustainability in this situation, many luxury brands have started to explore new markets. Expansion in emerging markets (EM) led the industry to reach €1 trillion by the end of 20173 . Brands such as Hermes and Ralph Lauren attained tremendous success in the Chinese and Mexican markets, respectively. However, many luxury brands that are successful in one EM have failed to replicate their success in others. For example, Hermes, a brand known for leather and lifestyle accessories, has made inroads into several Chinese cities by correctly identifying and targeting its consumers but failed to move beyond a couple of cities in India.4 Possible reasons for this range from product assortment to distribution to partner selection, which are closely related to the nature of the markets (e.g., resources and infrastructure (RI) as well as the prevailing socio-political environment in the host country). Such nonuniformity in luxury brand sales raises two fundamental questions: firstly, what drives the success of a luxury brand5 across EM; and secondly, whether the effects of country characteristics on luxury brand sales are heterogeneous.