This study investigates how market turbulence, technological turbulence, and competitive intensity affect the perceived importance of innovation and innovativeness, and thus SMEs' business ...performance. Structural equation modeling is conducted on a sample of 373 SMEs. Our findings show that both market and technological turbulence increase the perceived importance of innovation, but only market turbulence impacts SMEs' innovativeness directly. The perceived importance of innovation mediates environmental turbulence's influence on a firm's innovativeness. Competitive intensity has no significant effect on the perceived importance of innovation and innovativeness. Finally, innovativeness enhances business performance when using both perceptual and lagged objective performance data.
•Both forms of market orientation have different effects on marketing capabilities.•Responsive market orientation is better at enhancing exporting SMEs’ pricing capabilities.•Proactive market ...orientation is more beneficial for enhancing product development capabilities.•Both marketing capabilities are positively related to differentiation advantage.•Differentiation advantage enhances SMEs’ export venture performance.
This study aims to improve understanding of how export market orientation and marketing capabilities relate to export venture performance. Results are reported for a sample of 339 exporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across multiple industries from a highly open post-transitional European country. The findings show that a responsive and a proactive market orientation have different effects on pricing and product development capabilities, which in turn are both positively related to differentiation advantage and thereby export venture performance. These findings may help exporting SMEs while deciding on how to allocate their limited resources to improve their export market orientation and marketing capabilities with a view to enhancing their export venture performance.
The article examines how product and relationship quality influence customer commitment along with their combined effect on customer loyalty. The results show that product quality influences positive ...and negative calculative commitment. With regard to relationship quality, its “social” dimensions such as cooperation and trust have a much greater influence on commitment than its “technical” dimensions such as knowledge transfers and adaptation. On the “social” side, cooperation and trust positively influence affective and normative commitment, with trust also positively affecting positive calculative commitment, while on the “technical” side the only significant link is between adaptation and normative commitment. As for the consequences of commitment, affective commitment positively influences attitudinal and behavioral loyalty, while negative calculative commitment positively influences behavioral loyalty. In addition to indirect effects, product quality also directly positively influences attitudinal and behavioral loyalty. The results imply that customer loyalty depends more on “emotional” (affective commitment) than on “rational” (negative calculative commitment and product quality) motivation to continue the relationship.
In the sharing economy market, B2B relationships between service providers and sharing economy platforms are largely built on the platforms' promise of ensuring a successful sharing experience, which ...is not always delivered. Moreover, platforms have the opportunity to take advantage of their dominant positions in the market. Despite the growing number of studies on the dark side of the sharing economy, little is known about psychological contract breach and opportunism in the context of B2B platforms. Building on these notions, this study set out to examine the determinants of individual service providers' relationship with a sharing economy platform using psychological contract theory. The study was conducted in the UK on a sample of 252 Airbnb hosts who were recruited through an online consumer panel. The results show that psychological contract breach is an important construct within platform B2B relationships which increases feelings of violation and reduces trust. Furthermore, perceived opportunism was found to be negatively related to feelings of violation. These feelings contribute positively to negative word-of-mouth, while trust leads to continuance intentions. In addition, the indirect effects of opportunism on negative word-of-mouth and of psychological contract breach on continuance intentions were confirmed.
•Psychological contract breach increases feelings of violation and reduces trust.•Perceived opportunism is negatively related to feelings of violation.•Feelings of violation contribute positively to negative word-of-mouth.•Opportunism indirectly effects negative word-of-mouth.•Psychological contract breach indirectly effects continuance intentions.
PurposeThe paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of the drivers for the use of Industry 4.0 technologies by investigating (1) what motivates companies to consider using I4 technologies ...and (2) what enables (or hinders) the intention to use I4 technologies to translate into their actual use.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses survey data collected from a sample of export-oriented manufacturing companies with more than 10 employees. Final analysis is conducted on 124 companies.FindingsThe results show that companies are proactively approaching I4. Only efficiency motives and expected competitive advantage have a positive effect on the intention to use I4 technologies, which in turn positively influences their actual use. The external, legitimacy-based, motives do not play a significant role in explaining the intention to use. With respect to I4 technology enablers, employee competency positively moderates and availability of finance negatively moderates the relationship between intention to use and actual use.Research limitations/implicationsThe work extends the existing knowledge base on I4 technology drivers in companies that are not major global trendsetters but are heavily embedded in the value chains of companies from the most industrially developed economies. The study is limited to manufacturing companies in a small European economy and should be retested in other contexts.Practical implicationsThe study can help managers implement I4 technologies in their companies more successfully.Originality/valueWe take a novel research approach by proposing a framework that clearly distinguishes between motives and enablers for the use of I4 technologies.
Purpose - The paper's purpose is to broaden knowledge of customer satisfaction and loyalty in business-to-business markets.Design methodology approach - The authors propose and test a model in which ...customer satisfaction is conceived as mediating the relationship between the elements of relationship value (price, product quality, delivery performance, supplier know-how, time-to-market, service support and personal interaction) and attitudinal and behavioural customer loyalty. The empirical analysis uses structural equation modelling and is based on 477 customer-supplier relationships in the manufacturing context.Findings - The results show that satisfaction is negatively affected by price and positively by delivery performance, supplier know-how and personal interaction. On the other hand, satisfaction positively influences behavioural and attitudinal loyalty. In addition, behavioural loyalty is also negatively affected by price and positively by product quality, while attitudinal loyalty is positively affected by personal interaction.Research limitations implications - Future research could add views from the supplier's side and also examine the focal relationship in a network of relationships. The model should be cross-validated with the same instruments in other contexts.Practical implications - The paper's main finding that satisfaction is more affected by delivery performance, supplier know-how and personal interaction than by price holds direct implications for generic business strategies. By building unique relationships with their customers, suppliers can demonstrate they have something different to offer when there is strong market pressure on price. In addition, the finding that the antecedents of behavioural loyalty are more "rational" and "firm-related", while the antecedents of attitudinal loyalty are more "emotional" and "individual-related", can be used by marketers to improve the relationships with their customers.Originality value - The paper systematically addresses the antecedents of customer satisfaction and loyalty from the perspective of relationship value dimensions - an approach that has not yet been taken in the literature.
Purpose
This paper theoretically and empirically aims to explore customer group flow experiences with an urban adventure game called “escape rooms”.
Design/methodology/approach
A comprehensive model ...of group flow antecedents and consequences is proposed and empirically verified by means of survey research and SEM methodology.
Findings
The results indicate that key determinants of group flow experiences are the collective challenge/skills balance, and theming and storytelling. Group flow, in turn, significantly affects participants’ revisit intentions and word-of-mouth communications, as well as group cohesion and subjective quality of life.
Practical implications
The supported research model provides an insight into how group flow experiences can be facilitated by means of gamification and yields important managerial implications. These are systematically discussed in regard to antecedent and consequence constructs.
Originality/value
This paper is one of the first papers to systematically examine the antecedents and consequences of group flow experiences at adventure game-based attractions. It contributes to the understanding and management of peak experiences in contemporary hospitality and tourism.
This study addresses the dearth of research on what enables firms' performance in the context of Industry 4.0 (I4.0). We investigate how I4.0 shapes the effects of firm investments over time and ...whether the effects of people and equipment depend on innovative management approaches. A longitudinal multi-sector study is conducted of 157 export-oriented, manufacturing firms in a European Union member state (Slovenia) over a 14-year period (in total, consisting of 1791 total observations). The findings suggest that firms which invest more in technology complement these costs by making investments in people, which over time leads to a higher firm performance. The I4.0 phase moderates this mediated relationship in that firms more advanced with respect to engaging in I4.0 tend to lower their human resources costs despite investing in technology while still showing a superior firm performance. This indicates the substitution effect of technology vis-à-vis human resources. The moderation of management innovation proved to be weaker, calling for a detailed look at its nuances across the studied levels. Taken together, our paper contributes in advancing the stream of research focused on internal factors and processes specifically related to firm investments and management processes, thereby leading to the outcomes of new technology use and capitalization. The findings highlight the link between I4.0 and technology management, and innovation, and complements the existing research on the link between management innovation and performance by contextualizing it within I4.0's new technology and socio-economic changes.
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