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Kenneth J. Petersen, Robert B. Handfield, and
Gary L. Ragatz
 In many industries, firms are seeking to cut concept-to-customer
development time, improve quality, reduce the cost of new products, and
facilitate the smooth launch of new products. Prior research has
indicated that the integration of material suppliers into the new
product development cycle can provide substantial benefits toward
achieving these goals. This involvement may range from simple
consultation with suppliers on design ideas to making suppliers fully
responsible for the design of components or systems they will supply.
Moreover, suppliers may be involved at different stages of the new
product development process. Early supplier involvement is a key
coordinating process in supply chain design, product design, and process
design.
Several important questions regarding supplier
involvement in new product development remain unanswered. Specifically,
we look at the issue of what managerial practices affect new product
development team effectiveness when suppliers are to be involved. We
also consider whether these factors differ depending on when the
supplier is to be involved and what level of responsibility is to be
given to the supplier. Finally, we examine whether supplier involvement
in new product development can produce significant improvements in
financial returns and/or product design performance. We test these
proposed relationships using survey data collected from a group of
global organizations and find support for the relationships based on the
results of a multiple regression analysis.
Journal of Operations Management (2005), 23 (3-4), 371-388. |
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G. Thomas Hult, David J. Ketchen Jr., and Stanley
F. Slater
 A series of Strategic Management Journal articles has discussed the
market orientation concept. Debate has focused on several important
issues, including the difference between market and customer
orientations and whether customer orientation may breed inertia under
technological turbulence. Our paper focuses on one question: how does
market orientation contribute to performance? This is the key question
within the debate, given that many authors view the quest to explain
performance as the strategic management field’s cornerstone.
This debate has ignored a key element. The debate
has focused on market orientation as a set of behaviors devoted to
meeting customers’ needs and outwitting competitors, while ignoring the
perspective of market orientation as the behaviors concerned with
generating, disseminating, and interpreting information about the
market. Our model links the two perspectives on market orientation with
organizational responsiveness and performance. Our contention is that
the three antecedents may not be valuable resources individually, but
that their confluence can create a valuable strategic resource.
The sample was drawn from 1,136 public firms
obtained from a commercial database. We focused on single-business firms
to allow examination of objective, firm-level performance. We relied on
marketing executives to assess the study’s subjective elements because
most relate to marketing culture and behaviors within a strategic
management context. The results show that both perspectives on market
orientation are important and unique performance predictors. It is
important to recognize that market orientation’s performance effects
were realized through responsiveness. As such, market orientation is not
simply a ‘lever’ that can be pulled to directly increase performance.
Thus, future studies should seek to identify mediators of the market
orientation-performance relationship.
Strategic Management Journal (2005), 26 (12), 1173-1181. |
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Eric M. Olson, Stanley F. Slater, and G.
Tomas M. Hult
We develop and test a contingency model that posits overall firm
performance will be influenced by how well the marketing organization’s
structural characteristics (i.e., formalization, centralization, and
specialization) and strategic behavioral emphases (i.e., customer,
competitor, innovation, and cost control) complement alternative
business strategies (i.e., Prospector, Analyzer, Low Cost Defender, and
Differentiated Defender). Contingency theory posits that for each
business strategy, there exists a configuration of organizational
characteristics that fits the strategy to yield superior performance.
These configurations represent complex “gestalts” of multiple,
interdependent, and mutually reinforcing organizational characteristics
that enable businesses to achieve their strategic goals. The pursuit of
strategic fit has traditionally been viewed as having desirable
performance implications.
We tested our model with survey responses from 228
senior marketing managers. For Prospector organizations, we found that
customer orientation, innovation orientation, decentralization, and
specialization are positively related to performance. For Analyzers, we
found that customer and competitor orientation are positively related to
performance and, surprisingly, that innovation orientation and
performance are negatively related. For Low Cost Defenders, we found
that competitor, internal/cost orientation, and decentralization are
positively related to performance. For Differentiated Defenders, we
found that customer orientation and formalization are positively related
to performance.
There is now a substantial body of research that
suggests: (1) implementation contributes substantially to superior
performance, (2) marketing plays a crucial role in strategy
implementation, and (3) the role of marketing is contingent on the
specific strategy in use.
Journal of Marketing (2005), 69 (3), 49-65. |
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Kwaka Atuahene-Gima, Stanley F. Slater, and
Eric F. Olson
While the performance benefits of being market oriented (MO) are widely
accepted, some scholars and managers remain skeptical. Marketing
scholars recently have argued that this is the result of an incomplete
understanding of market orientation by demonstrating that it has both
responsive and proactive dimensions. Drawing on theories of
resource-based advantage and organizational search behavior, we argue
that responsive and proactive market orientations have curvilinear
effects on product development performance, that their interaction is
positively related to product development performance, and that their
effects on new product program performance are moderated by the
organizational implementation conditions and marketing function power.
 Survey results from 175 U.S. firms indicate support for most of the
hypotheses. Specifically, whereas responsive MO has a U-shaped
relationship with new product program performance, proactive MO has an
inverted U-shaped relationship with new product program performance.
Contrary to our arguments, the interaction of the orientations is
negatively related to new product program performance. We find that new
product program performance is enhanced when one orientation is high and
the other is low. Finally, responsive MO is only positively related to
new product program performance under specific conditions, such as when
consensus among managers is high. However, the positive effect of
proactive MO on new product program performance is strengthened when
learning orientation and marketing’s power are high. Overall, our study
suggests that the effects of responsive and proactive MO on new product
program performance are more complex than previously argued and
empirically examined.
Journal of Product Innovation Management (2005), 22 (6), 464-482. |
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Eli Jones, Andrea L. Dixon, Lawrence B. Chonko, and
Joseph P. Cannon
 As sales organizations increase their reliance on sales teams, they must
learn how organizational and interpersonal relationships influence sales
teams, how sales teams play a learning role for organizations, and what
makes sales teams effective. Presenting a model of interrelationships
among members of the selling firm and between the selling and buying
firms, we identify five key team selling relationships between: (1)
members of the same team; (2) members of different teams within the
firm; (3) the selling team and the buying center; (4) the selling team
and other groups in the selling firm; and (5) the selling team and the
firm’s strategy. This model leads to a conceptual framework highlighting
relationship drivers, factors, and outcomes instrumental to team selling
success. After presenting propositions for future research, theoretical
and methodological suggestions are included to facilitate research in
this area. We conclude with perspectives on the future of research and
practice in key accounts and team selling.
Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management (2005), 25 (2),
182-198. |
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Ritu Lohtia, Daniel C. Bello, Teruhisa Yamada, and
David I. Gilliland
 A lack of commitment between Japanese buyers and their foreign trading
partners is often attributed as the cause of failure for foreign sellers
in Japan. Due to Japanese idiosyncrasies, commitment plays a dominant,
but poorly understood, role in the business relationship between foreign
sellers and Japanese buyers. This research examines the role that the
attachment bond between U.S. sellers and Japanese buyers plays in
mediating the impact of exchange characteristics on performance in the
domestic Japanese market. An analysis of 198 U.S. sellers in Japan
demonstrates the complex web of calculative, social, and normative
factors that account for the commitment existing in this
foreign-Japanese trading relationship. The results highlight the
importance of specific investments and cultural sensitivity for the
seller’s commitment and the role of trust and switching costs in the
buyer’s commitment.
Journal of Business Research (2005), 58 (8), 1009-1018. |
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Derek Johnston
 This paper investigates the firm-specific economic consequences of
regulatory and voluntary environmental capital expenditures. Using
firm-level environmental data, I decompose total environmental capital
expenditures into estimates of regulatory and voluntary components. I
then examine the relations of regulatory and voluntary environmental
capital outlays with future abnormal earnings, stock prices, and stock
returns. As predicted, the empirical analysis reveals that regulatory
environmental capital expenditures are negatively associated with future
abnormal earnings. Moreover, market-based tests indicate that the
regulatory component of environmental capital expenditures is negatively
priced. Finally, the results suggest that voluntary environmental
capital expenditures and regulatory environmental capital expenditures
have different firm-specific economic consequences.
Journal of Accounting and Public Policy (2005), 24 (3), 175-206. |
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Gabriel R. Gonzalez, K. Douglas Hoffman, and
Thomas N. Ingram
  Despite widespread recognition that relationship selling should focus on
long-term mutually satisfying buyer-seller relationships, current
conceptualizations overlook two important components: salesperson
failure analysis and recovery efforts. This paper proposes that
salespeople should be trained in five intertwined skill set areas of
failure analysis and recovery efforts: failure identification,
failure attribution, recovery strategy selection, recovery
implementation, and tracking, monitoring and evaluating effectiveness.
By systematically categorizing sales process failures, a hierarchy of
criteria emerge which reflect the customer’s perspective of effective
performance.
Recovery strategies involve the actions salespersons
and/or sales organizations take in response to failure situations. In
addition, the outcomes connected to the recovery strategy: the
recovery process itself, the interpersonal behaviors enacted
during the recovery process, and the delivery of outcomes are all
critical in recovery evaluation. Tracking failures over time
leads to several worthwhile managerial insights. First and foremost,
systematically tracking failures indicates areas of weakness in the
firm’s sales process. Monitoring employee recovery efforts
provides valuable insights into how a salesperson personally and/or the
organization systematically responds to failures that occur. Finally,
effective failure analysis and recovery efforts have the potential
to achieve a variety of worthwhile goals for customers, salespersons,
and the sales organization itself. Ultimately, we believe that failure
analysis and recovery efforts are missing links in the relationship
selling model. Consequently, this paper is intended to: (1) stimulate
empirical investigations regarding these two important areas of study;
and (2) provide a framework to facilitate sales training in failure
analysis and recovery efforts.
Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management (2005), 25 (1),
57-65. |
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Raymond Hogler
 In the United States, workers have the right to organize unions and
engage in collective bargaining through their designated
representatives. Historically, unions demanded a “closed shop” as part
of a labor agreement, which required the employer to hire only union
labor. The objective was to prevent free riding. When Senator Robert
Wagner drafted the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, he legalized
closed shops under federal law. Wagner also said that state law could be
applied to regulate the closed shop. Subsequently, in the 1947
Taft-Hartley Amendments, Congress outlawed the closed shop altogether
and substituted a rule that union security could be enforced after an
employee had been employed for 30 days in a unionized workplace.
Congress also added Section 14(b) to the law, which allows states to
prohibit union security. Presently, 22 states have “right-to-work” laws,
and a federal bill is pending in Congress. My article aims to do two
things. First, I argue that Wagner never intended that a state could
completely prohibit union security, and the legislative history of
Section 14(b) misrepresents his meaning about state law. Second, I argue
that right-to-work laws are an unwarranted, unjustified perversion of
our national labor policy. The argument about individual “liberties”
misconstrues the basic purpose of collective bargaining. To conclude, I
assert that right-to-work laws pervert the macroeconomic goals of the
Wagner Act and Section 14(b) should be repealed rather than extended.
Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal (2005), 23 (1), 101-52. |
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Thomas N. Ingram, Raymond W. LaForge,
William B. Locander, Scott B. MacKenzie, and Philip M. Podsakoff
The changing business environment facing sales organizations is
characterized by the recurring three fundamental dimensions: complexity,
collaboration, and accountability. The increase in the complexity of the
product offerings by bundling of products and services, the infusion of
technology, shorter product life cycles, and more adaptations to meet
customer needs have made the sales role and sales leadership tasks more
complex. Sales success requires collaboration with customers in terms of
different types of relationship strategies and collaboration within the
firm, such as integrating sales and marketing efforts, working in
cross-functional teams, and more sales organization teamwork. The focus
on accountability is exhibited by an emphasis on multiple efficiency and
effectiveness metrics as well as more attention to ethical sales and
sales management behavior.
A key thesis of this paper is that sales leadership
is not confined to the actions of sales executives. Instead, leadership
activities must be performed by senior sales leaders, field sales
managers, and salespeople in an integrated, shared leadership approach.
This paper develops a comprehensive inventory of leadership challenges
and related research questions for each level of leadership within sales
organizations. This inventory of more than 70 leadership challenges and
their related research questions comprises an agenda for future research
in sales leadership. In addition, several avenues for future research
are discussed, including the applicability of social network frameworks,
the role of emotional intelligence, and the incorporation of
entrepreneurial perspectives into future studies of sales leadership.
Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management (2005), 25 (2),
137-154. |
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Gretchen Irwin and Daniel Turk
  Use case modeling is a popular technique for representing the functional
requirements of an information system. The simple graphical notation of
use case diagrams, accompanied by well-structured narrative
descriptions, makes use case models fairly easy to read and understand.
This simplicity, however, belies the challenges associated with creating
use case models. There is little, if any, theory underlying use cases,
and little more than loose guidelines for creating a complete,
consistent, and integrated set of use cases. We argue that there is a
need for more rigor and consistency in the grammatical constructs used
in use case modeling. Toward this end, we present a theoretically- and
practice-based assessment of use case modeling constructs, and make
recommendations for future research to improve and strengthen this
technique.
Journal of the Association of Information Systems (2005), 6 (1),
1-36. |
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Yolanda Sarason, Tom Dean, and Jesse F.
Dillard
 The domain of entrepreneurship has been defined as the study of sources
of opportunities, the processes of discovery, evaluation, and
exploitation of opportunities, and the set of individuals who discover,
evaluate, and exploit them (Shane and Venkataraman, 2000). However, much
of the work in entrepreneurship has focused either on the nature of the
entrepreneur or on the nature of the opportunity but does not adequately
consider the entrepreneurial process articulated by Shane and
Venkataraman (2000). One step toward overcoming this chasm is to provide
a more complete theorizing of the entrepreneurial process that reflects
the dynamic interaction of the individual and the opportunity.
We suggest that a structuration view of
entrepreneurship offers unique insights to the traditional view of
entrepreneurship.
The traditional view holds that the entrepreneur
fills market gaps, while structuration theory (Giddens, 1984) suggests
that the entrepreneur and social systems co-evolve. The traditional view
presents entrepreneurial ventures as being designed ex-ante by the
entrepreneur. The structuration view presents entrepreneurial ventures
as recursive processes that evolve as the entrepreneur interfaces with
the sources of opportunity and engages in the venturing process. Perhaps
most importantly, the traditional view presumes the relationship between
the entrepreneur and opportunity as a dualism in that the
constructs are separate and distinct from each other. A structuration
view portrays the entrepreneur and opportunity as a duality in that each
is interdependent upon the other. The entrepreneur is enabled and
constrained by the sources of opportunity identified and the structured
processes of the venturing process.
Journal of Business Venturing (2006), 21 (3), 286-305. |
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Marc W. Simpson, Sanjay Ramchander, and
Mukesh Chaudhry
This study evaluates the reaction of spot and forward exchange rates, as
well as the forward premium, of five currencies against the U.S. dollar,
to the release of twenty-three types of periodic U.S. macroeconomic
announcements. The sample period is from 1990 through 2000, and the
analysis is conducted within a vector error correction model, and
importantly, employs pooled estimation techniques. Results from the
study will shed light on some popular theories of exchange rate
determination, such as purchasing power parity (PPP), covered interest
rate parity, and the international Fisher effect.
Several important findings emerge. First, the daily
change in spot and forward exchange rates is significantly influenced by
surprises in 10 of the 23 types of announcements. The impact of six of
the announcements is sufficiently different on the forward versus the
spot rate so as to have a significant effect on the forward premium.
Second, as in the balance-of-payment framework, announcements that
convey a decline in consumer demand increase foreign exchange rates.
Third, the PPP hypothesis is rejected in favor of portfolio balance
effects in determining exchange rates. Fourth, the behavior of forward
premiums is consistent with covered interest rate parity. Fifth,
exchange rates respond to announcements related to consumer demand,
inflation, and interest rates, but not to the announcements directly
related to the general strength of the economy. Finally, among the news
releases considered, surprises in the Treasury budget, trade balance,
and capacity utilization have the strongest influence in the currency
market.
Journal of International Money and Finance (2005), 24 (5),
693-718. |
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Bento J. Lobo, Ali F. Darrat, and Sanjay
Ramchander
 Consistent with the view that asset markets are a key channel for the
transmission of monetary policy, this study analyzes the reaction of
exchange rates to announcements by the U.S. Federal Open Market
Committee (FOMC) concerning changes in its target for the federal funds
rate. Specific attention is given to the possibility that the effect of
monetary policy on exchange rates is asymmetric.
Using daily data on four exchange rates from 1989 to
2001, the study finds that monetary policy actions convey unique
information to currency markets, and that tightening and easing policy
actions affect currency markets differently. Surprises associated with
monetary tightening (rate hikes) have a larger announcement effect on
the British pound, German mark, and Canadian dollar compared to
surprises associated with monetary ease (rate cuts). However, the
opposite is true for the Japanese yen. The results survive a series of
robustness checks. We also find that the British pound and German mark
react significantly less to rate cuts during 1994-2001 compared to the
pre-1994 period. Furthermore, we find that while the change in
disclosure policy beginning in 1994 has had ambiguous effects on
currency markets, exchange rate reactions to the Fed’s policy choices
appear to be driven by the likely reaction of foreign central banks to
the Fed’s actions and by the Fed’s credibility as a policy maker. Our
findings are consistent with asymmetry findings reported in other
studies for stock markets in which easing actions have a larger
announcement effect than tightening actions.
Financial Review (2006), 41 (2), 289-303. |
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Willie E. Hopkins, Shirley A. Hopkins, and
Michael A. Gross
 The increased occurrence of organizations operating across national
boundaries, demographic changes that are occurring around the world, and
the embracing of cultural diversity as a business strategy represent a
variety of recent trends. The convergence of these trends virtually
ensures that the membership of groups, functioning within the context of
domestic and non-domestic organizations, will become more culturally
diverse. Researchers who have studied cultural diversity in groups
suggest that if organizations are to be successful, there is a need for
managers to have knowledge of the impact that increasing cultural
diversity in the membership of groups might have on group effectiveness.
In this article, we discuss different types of
cultural diversity recomposition that can occur in monoculture work
groups. Several direct effect propositions are set forth about the
impact of cultural diversity recomposition type on monoculture group
effectiveness, as are several moderating effect propositions. We
identify potential moderators that have not been explored in prior
research and discuss the implications that each has for organizational
behavior and practice. We then discuss some implications for future
research. We conclude this article with a call for establishing a
research agenda that will guide our thinking as we explore this topic in
more depth.
Journal of Organizational Behavior (2005), 26 (8), 949-964. |
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Pamela J. Hopp, C.A.P. Smith, Benjamin A.
Clegg, and Eric D. Heggestad
 Providing informative cues about interrupting stimuli can help people
who are engaged in a multi-tasking environment. However, auditory and
visual cues can be ineffective in certain situations. The objective of
this study was to explore whether attention-directing tactile cues aid
or interfere with performance. Participants completed sessions
consisting of both a continuous aircraft monitoring task and a periodic
gauge reading task. Tactile signals were administered to a treatment
group to indicate the arrival and location of interrupting tasks.
Control participants had to remember to visually check for the
interrupting tasks. Participants in the treatment group responded to
more interrupting tasks and responded faster than control participants.
Groups did not differ on error rates of the interrupting tasks,
performance of the primary task, or subjective workload
perceptions. In the context of the tasks used in the present research,
tactile cues allowed participants to effectively direct attention where
needed without disrupting ongoing information processing. Potential
applications exist for aviation, user-interface design, vigilance tasks,
and team environments.
Human Factors (2005), 47 (1), 1-11. |
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