The management of customer relationships based on customers’ value to the selling firm has been a central topic in marketing research for decades. Yet, extant research has devoted only scant ...attention to the management of customer future value potential, focusing mostly on advanced statistical modeling based on firm-internal and historical data, which often lacks relevance in B-to-B settings. We employ a longitudinal intervention study, rooted in a constructive research approach, to assess the relevance of a novel customer value potential management model in business markets. The results, based on realized sales and customer portfolio dynamics, demonstrate that a firm can effectively manage customer value potential by adopting a non-statistical, sales force-driven analysis perspective. Further, the study presents evidence for the effectiveness of combinative outward-looking and future-oriented value potential criteria in value potential analysis. Finally, the findings demonstrate how a supplier can proactively manage customer portfolio dynamics in the long run by systematically enhancing its competitive position and capitalizing on customers’ organic growth at individual customer account level, through the interplay of organizational value management and sales force value appropriation efforts.
•The majority of studies to date have examined customer value potential based on historical and firm-internal data.•This study proposes a novel customer value potential segmentation model based on outward- and forward-looking metrics.•We apply a constructive research approach to assess the relevance of the developed tool in business markets.•A sales force-driven estimation enables an effective and cost-efficient alternative to manage customer value potential.•The study provides rare empirical evidence how a supplier can proactively manage customer portfolio dynamics in the long run.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
The ‘Need to Tech discovery’ tool (N2T) is a design tool aimed at improving the interface between the scientific community and the market-driven innovation community. N2T embeds technological and ...scientific inputs into human-centered design processes. Once the design team has inputs from the human-centered research, it iteratively applies a divergence map and tech functional scenarios to interact with researchers. The output is a situated list of technologies that could be embedded in the solution concepts. N2T was developed using an Action Research Innovation Management Framework during four iterations of the Oper.CBI Open Innovation Program in connection with IdeaSquare, CERN. Results show better outcomes of the design team in exploring the potential applications of technologies and a higher engagement of scientists and researchers in the challenge domain.
Since 2013, CERN IdeaSquare has issued thousands of “licenses to dream” to students, faculties, and stakeholders engaged in Challenge Based Innovation (CBI) inspired programs (CBI-like) together with ...universities and institutions willing to inspire future change-makers to tackle global challenges. This special issue was inspired by these eight years of experimentation, leading to six papers that focus on three main topics: (1) learning from experimenting with CBI, (2) experimenting with deep tech in innovation processes, and (3) impact and future of CBI experimentations.
Focusing on the role of efficiency and novelty design themes, this paper examines how (a) the initial business model of a start-up, (b) the subsequent changes in the design themes and (c) the ...combinative effect of efficiency and novelty (contextual ambidexterity) impact a start-up's growth performance. The study is based on a survey involving 267 new ventures from high-tech industries. The results highlight the importance of pursuing higher efficiency over the life cycle of a start-up, although not at the moment of its establishment. In relation to business model ambidexterity, the findings highlight the different effect that contextual ambidexterity can have on the growth performance of a start-up firm in different stages of its life cycle. While initial ambidexterity is found to have a negative effect on growth performance, successive increases in the level of ambidexterity have a positive influence on growth.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
Expectations from Higher Education institutions are increasing towards the education of professionals able to face complex societal issues. In this context, traditional thinking is losing ground, and ...scholars agree on the importance of promoting a Design Thinking (DT) Mindset in educational settings to address wicked problems. However, an explanation of and measurement for the DT mindset still needs to be adequately developed. We developed and validated a scale to measure DT mindset to fill this gap. After a comprehensive literature review, quantitative research was performed on two samples of professionals (N = 151) and students (N = 201). We employed confirmatory factor analysis, which yielded a 31-item scale based on ten dimensions. Overall, this study supports the conceptualization and operationalization of the DT mindset as a second-order factor that reflects uncertainty and risk, empathy, holistic thinking, collaboration and diversity, learning orientation, experimentation, critical questioning, abduction, creative confidence, and impact. Our findings advance knowledge that facilitates new research paths and has practical implications for educational and management fields.
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BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
•Founders’ team composition variety is not a neutral element in academic spin-offs.•A moderate degree of variety does not allow to grasp spontaneous coordination mechanisms of homogenous team.•High ...variety increases growth performance and contributes to mitigate coordination and integration problems challenging academic spin-offs.•The integration of venture capitalist fund is preferable to sustain the heterogenization process of the founding team.
University spin-offs are a peculiar type of venture that encapsulate a core technology or key scientific knowledge stemming from academic research activities and that are founded by university personnel, professors, or researchers. The high level of scientific knowledge of the team is a critical factor for the new academic venture, but previous research shows that the low cognitive variety of the team members, and in particular, the absence of market-based knowledge, may hinder subsequent performance rates. The aim of the paper is to understand how the degree of composition variety of the founding team affects the growth performance of the university spin-offs, given the founders’ roles in shaping the future development path of the new ventures and their origin within the scientific and academic domain. Based on a new hand-picked database of Italian university spin-offs, we evaluate the nonlinear relationship between founding teams with low, moderate, and high levels of composition variety and subsequent growth performance by studying also the role of external backers as moderating variables. Results show a higher performance with high or low levels of founding team variety and a lower performance with moderate levels of variety. In addition, venture capitalist funds play a positive moderating role.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
This paper demonstrates the crucial role of retail service quality as a key activator in the formation of customer loyalty to the store; the latter is understood in a conative and action sense. ...Applying a modified version of the RSQS scale, a model is tested by administering a questionnaire to 450 customers in an under-investigated retail setting, i.e. supermarkets, within the Italian context. Structural equation modelling was employed. The results prove that customers consider retail service quality as a second-order dimension and recognize the main contribution of physical aspects and reliability first-order dimensions. Findings corroborate the crucial role played by perceived service quality and the mediating role of customer satisfaction and conative loyalty within the relationship between service quality and action loyalty.
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BFBNIB, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
In the context of buyer–supplier relationship, the present study will not only analyse the role of formal and informal mechanisms to transfer knowledge but also the direct and moderating effect of ...trustworthiness, as relational dimensions, to understand how customers acquire knowledge from suppliers. The results related to a sample of 105 customers belonging to a medium-sized Italian manufacturer's customer portfolio show that both formal and informal transfer mechanisms positively impact knowledge acquisition. Trustworthiness positively moderates the effect of informal transfer mechanisms and negatively moderates the effect of formal transfer mechanisms on knowledge transfer. Some considerations regarding the customer portfolio are suggested to enhance our understanding of the effectiveness of knowledge transfer mechanisms in relation to different trustworthiness contexts.
•Both the supplier's informal and formal knowledge transfer mechanisms show a positive effect on knowledge transferred to its customers.•The effect of informal transfer mechanisms on knowledge transfer is stronger when the supplier's trustworthiness is high.•The effect of formal transfer mechanisms on knowledge transfer is weaker when the supplier's trustworthiness is high.•From a customer portfolio perspective, the tailoring of customer-specific knowledge transfer mechanisms becomes essential to better activate value-creation strategies.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
The paper analyzes the effect of country of origin (COO) multidimensionality on the intention to buy Italian footwear in samples of retail buyers operating in three different countries, namely Spain, ...Russia and China. Specifically, it proposes a model aimed at testing the relationships among three different country image dimensions - Country Image (CI), Product-Country Image (PCI), and Country-Related Product Image (CRPI) - and the retail buyers' intention to purchase products originating in Italy, while also verifying the effect of product-country congruity (FIT). A total of 483 questionnaires were collected from samples of Spanish, Russian, and Chinese fashion retailers and processed applying Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Results show that COO influences retail buyers through a causal link within the three COOs' dimensions, reinforced by the FIT, as the CI effect is fully mediated by PCI. Theoretical and managerial implications for fashion firms are derived.
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BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the curvilinear effects of firm innovativeness (i.e. product, organisational and marketing innovation) on international expansion as well as the effect ...of expansion on performance in the developing countries (DCs) setting.
Design/methodology/approach
Research hypotheses are tested using survey data obtained from firms located in four South-East European DCs. Covariance-based structural equation modelling is used to test the proposed conceptual framework.
Findings
Empirical findings support the hypothesised U-shaped relationship between product innovation and organisational innovation and the level of international expansion of firms in developing markets. The authors found an inverse U-shaped relationship between marketing innovation and the level of international expansion. Furthermore, the existence of a strong positive link between the level of international expansion and firm performance is also confirmed.
Research limitations/implications
While this research utilises a sample of firms from a homogenous group of DCs, further research could use a more heterogeneous sample and thus control the model for various contingency effects (e.g. environment turbulence, market structure and competitive dynamics).
Practical implications
When it comes to product and organisational innovation, international expansion is achieved only with a higher level of innovativeness. On the contrary, beyond a certain level, further investments in marketing innovation do not have additional positive effects on international expansion.
Originality/value
This study is one of the first that explicitly focuses on examining the non-linear effects of innovativeness on international expansion in the DC context.
