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The purpose of the paper is to develop and test a contingency model of buyer involvement when developing new products in technology-based industrial markets. Information Dissemination and degree of product co-development are identified as two behavioral dimensions of seller–buyer relationships. Further, the paper proposes that perceived buyer knowledge, innovation discontinuity, product customization and technological uncertainty moderate the impact of the behavioral dimensions on sellers’ relationship satisfaction.

The paper uses moderated regression on a data set of 296 small and mid-sized firms in a variety of high-tech industries to test relevant hypotheses.

The authors find that sellers can enhance relationship satisfaction by engaging in either unilateral or bilateral relationships. This is important because sellers have to be judicious in expending their relationship resources. While information dissemination is more satisfying when targeting less knowledgeable buyers, product co-development enhances satisfaction when targeting more knowledgeable buyers. Similarly, information dissemination can enhance satisfaction for discontinuous innovations; in contrast, product co-development has a similar outcome for customized products. However, when technological uncertainty is high, such co-development leads to reduced satisfaction.

Extant literature provides useful insights on the behavioral dimensions of seller–buyer relationships, the antecedents and consequences of such relationships and the stages of the new product development process when such relationships are more valuable. Despite this progress, important gaps remain in current understanding of seller–buyer relationships. In particular, findings regarding the contribution of relationships to desired outcomes are inconsistent. This suggests that important moderators of the relationship–outcomes link are being overlooked and warrant greater attention. This paper addresses this deficiency.

Customer experience management (CXM) and Innovation are two important capabilities on which businesses compete today. However, research to date has not empirically investigated their potential symbiotic relationship. Specifically, does better CXM improve innovation; similarly, does better innovation improve CXM? As a starting point, our research focuses on the former: how does effective CXM correlate with innovation success?

Data was collected by querying marketing managers from 251 goods and services firms involved in CX design and implementation. Managers answered questions related to their innovation efforts, customer experience management initiatives, and innovation outcomes. Cluster analysis was used to identify a taxonomy of CXM approaches contingent upon environmental factors (market turbulence, competitive intensity, and technological turbulence).

Our research found that higher levels of CXM engagement result in greater innovation success – i.e. higher success rates, revenues, and profits from new products or services. In addition, we find that there are three distinct approaches to CXM: (1) Extensive CXM approach (43% of firms in our sample); (2) Moderate CXM approach (39%); and (3) Limited CXM approach (18%). Firms with an extensive CXM approach operate in intensely competitive environments that are characterized by very high technological turbulence. Firms that employ a limited CXM approach operate in environments with the lowest levels of competitive intensity and technological change. Market turbulence did not factor into the choice of CXM approach.

To our knowledge, our study is the first to provide empirical evidence that firms adopt different CXM approaches. Further, we identify factors external to the firm that are considered when selecting these CXM approaches; namely, market turbulence, competitive intensity, and technological turbulence. Finally, our findings related to CXM approaches and innovation success indicate that managers should make investments in CXM to help improve innovation.

With the considerable attention given to customer experience (CX) today, customer experience management (CXM) has been touted as one of the most promising management approaches for organizations. The purpose of this paper is threefold: develop a scale to measure the CXM construct, investigate the financial outcomes of CXM and assess the impact of moderator variables (e.g. market turbulence) on these financial outcomes while accounting for the effects of control variables (e.g. firm size).

The study involves a survey of 233 firms (across 10 industries) involved in CXM. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), structural equation modeling (SEM), instrumental variables and moderated regression analyzes are used to test four hypotheses.

The results support treating CXM as a second-order construct comprising three dimensions: cultural mindset toward CXs, strategic directions for designing CXs and firm capabilities of continually renewing CXs. Furthermore, CXM is positively related to financial performance; this effect increases as market turbulence, competitive intensity and technological turbulence increases.

With our CXM measure, future research can advance CXM theory by examining other outcome variables (e.g. employee satisfaction) and moderators (e.g. culture), as well as introduce antecedents to CXM (e.g. company heritage). Limitations include the concerns normally associated with using self-reported measures of performance, convenience samples and cross-sectional designs.

This research provides managerial prescriptions of when to invest in CXM initiatives to enhance financial performance. It also provides managers a CXM diagnostic to help assess their level of CXM maturity.

This paper develops CXM theory by advancing a measure of the CXM construct, relating the construct to an outcome variable (main effect) and introducing moderating variables to shed light on the generalizability of the main effect.

The purpose of this research is to investigate whether the brand name–mark sound symbolism relationship extends beyond US marketplaces to emerging markets. Sound symbolism research indicates that consistent brand name meaning can be conveyed across international marketplaces. Yet, prior work has not investigated whether visual branding elements provide consistent meaning across such contexts.

To contrast effects across international contexts, we replicate both studies of Klink (2003) with bilingual subjects in Mumbai, India. Study 1 examined whether the sound symbolic relationship between brand name and brand mark holds in this emerging market. Study 2 investigated whether both the brand name and brand mark together can enhance brand meaning in this context.

Study 1 finds support for the relationship between higher-frequency brand names and brand marks that are angular and smaller in size, with limited support regarding color. Study 2 finds a significant effect for brand marks and a marginally significant effect for brand names on conveying intended meaning.

The authors confirm the relationship between the brand mark and brand name; however, color meaning may be less universal than prior theory and research indicates. In addition, the effect of the brand name on conveying sound symbolism meaning may be less important than visual branding elements in emerging markets. Hence, future research may wish to include additional branding elements in experimental stimuli when testing sound symbolism theory.