This case study examines the new product development (NPD) process of digital information products (DIPs) and its critical success factors (CSFs) in a small-sized German…
Abstract
Purpose
This case study examines the new product development (NPD) process of digital information products (DIPs) and its critical success factors (CSFs) in a small-sized German enterprise.
Design/methodology/approach
A case study was conducted with a small firm focused on the development of DIPs; data were obtained through semi-structured interviews, direct observation and document analysis.
Findings
The firm uses an informal and cross-functional NPD process (idea generation, idea validation, product creation and product launch) in converting an idea into a sellable product. Peculiar aspects of each stage within the process as well as ten CSFs to NPD projects were verified.
Research limitations/implications
Limitations are attributed to its qualitative nature, which does not allow generalizations, though careful attention was given to validity and reliability issues through the use of data source triangulation.
Practical implications
The paper provides a conceptual process that may benefit further initiatives for developing and launching DIPs, as well as a comprehensive list of CSFs for such projects.
Originality/value
This paper is the first one to schematize the NPD process and practices for DIPs, as well as key capabilities. It contributes to the NPD literature in discussing dynamic aspects that are typical to the firm analyzed and to others operating in a digital context. At the same time, it reinforces other traditional aspects that have become overlooked in digital business debates.
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Pascal Kottemann, Anja Plumeyer and Reinhold Decker
The purpose of this paper is to apply the (advanced) brand concept maps (BCM) approach to reinvestigate previous findings on feedback effects resulting from brand extension…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to apply the (advanced) brand concept maps (BCM) approach to reinvestigate previous findings on feedback effects resulting from brand extension information (BEI) and to explore whether this information affects the structure of a brand’s associative network.
Design/methodology/approach
This research builds on the associative network memory model, as well as Keller’s conceptualization of customer-based brand equity, and uses a series of empirical studies with a total of 839 respondents in two different countries.
Findings
The findings reveal that BEI has no significant impact on the structure of the parent brand’s associative network at the individual level. Furthermore, key brand image dimensions (i.e. favorability, strength, and uniqueness of brand associations) are not affected.
Research limitations/implications
By applying the (advanced) BCM approach, this paper is able to address shortcomings that are incorporated with the use of Likert scales for measuring a brand’s image and for investigating feedback effects in the field of brand extension. As the results indicate that the identification of feedback effects might be influenced by the approach used to measure a brand’s image, this paper calls for further investigations of feedback effects on a brand’s image.
Originality/value
Data from three empirical studies provide insights into the cognitive processing of BEI and their impact on a brand’s associative network.
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Daniel Böger, Pascal Kottemann and Reinhold Decker
This paper aims to investigate what influence the perceptions of two parent brands have on the perception of a newly formed co-brand. Furthermore, it elaborates whether…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate what influence the perceptions of two parent brands have on the perception of a newly formed co-brand. Furthermore, it elaborates whether respondents’ evaluations of the parent brands, their familiarity towards the parent brands and their usage of the parent brands affect this influence.
Design/methodology/approach
Building on both cognitive consistency and information integration theory, this paper proposes a model-based approach to quantify the parent brands’ influence on the co-brand’s perception. Using an empirical study with 317 respondents collected by a professional online market research firm, this paper highlights the benefits of this model-based approach.
Findings
The results indicate that the perception of a co-brand arises from a weighted merge of the parent brands’ perceptions. The findings further reveal that the better (worse) a parent brand’s evaluation is in contrast to the other parent brand’s evaluation, the more (less) familiar a parent brand is in contrast to the other parent brand, and the more (less) frequent a parent brand is used in contrast to the other parent brand, the larger (smaller) is its influence on the co-brand’s perception.
Originality/value
The findings shed light on the formation of a co-brand’s perception which can be crucial when selecting the right co-branding partner. Additionally, by quantifying the parent brands’ influence on the perception of the co-brand, this model-based approach helps brand managers to analyze co-brand pairings beforehand and select the best pairing in accordance with their goals.
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Ekta Srivastava, Satish S. Maheswarappa and Bharadhwaj Sivakumaran
The purpose of this paper is to study the affective outcome of ambivalent nostalgia through use of executional variables, develop a framework linking nostalgia (through affect…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to study the affective outcome of ambivalent nostalgia through use of executional variables, develop a framework linking nostalgia (through affect) and consumers’ cognitive processing, and explain the relationship of nostalgia with self-brand connection (SBC) and willingness to pay a premium (WTPP) through a mediator, cognitive processing.
Design/methodology/approach
This research is based on two experiments. In study 1, students were shown a nostalgic ad paired with a vignette to manipulate “past–present contrast.” In study 2, positive and negative moods were induced and an informative nostalgic ad was shown to measure processing styles and SBC and WTPP; this was followed by mediation analysis.
Findings
The findings are as follows: first, “Past–present contrast” can reduce the negative affect in nostalgia, making it less ambivalent; second, positive (negative) affect leads to top-down (bottom-up) processing; third, SBC and WTPP are higher when top-down processing is used; and, fourth, processing style is a mediator between affect and SBC/WTPP.
Practical implications
Managers may use the “good past, good present” scenario to mitigate negative affect in nostalgia. Nostalgic ads may be used by brands that want consumers to pay a price premium, have a strong SBC and when they want consumers to use top-down processing.
Originality/value
This paper demonstrates how to reduce ambivalence and associate brands with positive affect in nostalgia, and gain SBC and WTPP; the mediating role of cognitive processing in the relationship of nostalgia with SBC and WTPP is delineated.
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A Chamkha, S Abbasbandy and A.M. Rashad
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of uniform lateral mass flux on non-Darcy natural convection of non-Newtonian fluid along a vertical cone embedded in a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of uniform lateral mass flux on non-Darcy natural convection of non-Newtonian fluid along a vertical cone embedded in a porous medium filled with a nanofluid.
Design/methodology/approach
The resulting governing equations are non-dimensionalized and transformed into a non-similar form and then solved numerically by Keller box finite-difference method.
Findings
A comparison with previously published works is performed and excellent agreement is obtained.
Research limitations/implications
The model used for the nanofluid incorporates the effects of Brownian motion and thermophoresis. It is assumed that the cone surface is preamble for possible nanofluid wall suction/injection, under the condition of uniform heat and nanoparticles volume fraction fluxes.
Originality/value
The effects of nanofluid parameters, Ergun number, surface mass flux and viscosity index are investigated on the velocity, temperature, and volume fraction profiles as well as the local Nusselt and Sherwood numbers.
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A.Z. Keller, S.J‐Fendi Al‐Saadi and L. Leckie
Analyses maintenance data collected by Greater Manchester Fire Service for their fire‐fighting vehicles and their equipment over the period 1980‐90. Details the three stages of…
Abstract
Analyses maintenance data collected by Greater Manchester Fire Service for their fire‐fighting vehicles and their equipment over the period 1980‐90. Details the three stages of analysis: preliminary, reliability, metrology. Reports the results of the preliminary analysis only. Draws specific and general conclusions for the study.
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Michael Brown argues that what unites the human and social sciences is their evolving character, made explicit in the concepts of “reflexivity,” “course of activity,” and…
Abstract
Michael Brown argues that what unites the human and social sciences is their evolving character, made explicit in the concepts of “reflexivity,” “course of activity,” and “theorizing.” Once the social sciences are taken as a whole, the notion of “sociality” will allow to grasp society as ever changing, as a becoming. I shall examine the notion of sociality in the literary criticism of Lukács, Goldmann, and Adorno, three authors who consider the essay as the adequate open form of critique in times of rapid social change. Originally adopted by the young Lukács, the essay tended to be abandoned by him when elaborating the concept of critical or socialist realism as a repository of timeless cultural values. In his studies in the European realist or the soviet novel, for example, on Balzac, Stendhal, Thomas Mann, or Solzhenitsyn, the dialectical concept of social totality becomes a sum of orientations, presenting the individual writer with the moral task to choose “progress” and discard “negativity.” The social is thus narrowed to individual choice. Different from Lukács, Goldmann's literary theory defines cultural production as a matter of the social group, the transindividual subject. Goldmann was deeply marked by Lukács's early writings from which he gained notably the notion of tragedy and the concept of maximum possible consciousness—the world vision of a social group which structures the work of a writer. Cultural creation is resistance to capitalist society, as evident in the literature of absence, Malraux's novels, and the nouveau roman. In the writings of Adorno the social is lodged within the avant-garde, provided that one takes its means and procedures literally, e.g., the writings of Kafka. By formal innovation—among others the adoption of the essay, the small form, the fragment—art exercises criticism of the ongoing rationalization process and preserves the possibility of change (p. 319).
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Pascal Paillé, Pierre‐Sébastien Fournier and Sophie Lamontagne
The purpose of this study is to use three foci of commitment (to the organization, to the colleagues, and to the superior) to improve employee retention in high turnover work…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to use three foci of commitment (to the organization, to the colleagues, and to the superior) to improve employee retention in high turnover work environments.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, survey questionnaires measuring affective commitment to the organization, the supervisor‐dispatcher and colleagues were administered to 294 truckers. The two‐step approach was used. While the first step involved a confirmatory factor analysis, the second step used structural equation modeling to test hypotheses.
Findings
Findings show that the model that best fits the data is the one in which both affective commitments to the dispatcher and to the colleagues affects the intention to leave the organization through affective commitment to the organization.
Originality/value
Existing research on trucker turnover has neglected to examine the role of psychological variables such as employee commitment. Using field theory premises, this research contributes to the literature on trucker turnover by demonstrating the relevance of using several foci of commitment to predict intention to leave the organization.
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This chapter engages with both religion and paradox in leadership and organization research by focusing on three sources of paradoxical tensions and how they are shaped by…
Abstract
This chapter engages with both religion and paradox in leadership and organization research by focusing on three sources of paradoxical tensions and how they are shaped by religion: worldly limits, diverse interpretations, and emerging relationships. First, regarding worldly limits, religion is predicated on an additional “very macro” level of reality, transcendence. This belief offers a distinct way of engaging with paradoxes as it extends the worldly realm’s boundaries. Second, contradictory interpretations of religions may rise, even among members of the same faith, leading to new cognitive paradoxes. Dynamizing boundaries between contradictory elements may allow organizations to maintain unity in a diversity of interpretations. Third, concerning emerging relationships, religions are global phenomena that are experienced side by side in multiple societal terrains. They cut across diverse social systems and give rise to novel relationships. This creates new tensions and paradoxical encounters, as religions traverse borders and boundaries and encounter existing social beliefs, structures, and practices. The expansion, dynamization, and shifting of boundaries then shapes persistent contradictions among interdependent elements. Our field should appreciate and embrace conflicting mysteries and paradoxes across boundaries. We may only need some faith.
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Huanshu Jiang, Jiaoju Ge and Jie Yao
Using Generation Z consumers from China as an example and focusing on the nostalgia-driven design of brand spokes-character, this study sought to update research on the causal…
Abstract
Purpose
Using Generation Z consumers from China as an example and focusing on the nostalgia-driven design of brand spokes-character, this study sought to update research on the causal relationship between nostalgia and brand attitude for younger consumers. Two types of nostalgic brand spokes-characters (i.e., eliciting personal nostalgia and historical nostalgia) were examined separately and compared to verify their contributions to more positive brand attitude, as well as related mechanisms, that is, whether consumer trust in the spokes-character mediated the relationship between nostalgic spokes-characters and brand attitude.
Design/methodology/approach
An experiment was first conducted to test the causal effects of brand spokes-characters designed to elicit two types of nostalgic feelings (i.e., personal nostalgia and historical nostalgia). Then, the authors investigated the influencing mechanism of nostalgic brand spokes-characters based on bootstrap mediation models.
Findings
The results revealed that for less familiar brand spokes-characters, either type of nostalgia-driven design would enhance consumers' brand attitude. Moreover, consumer trust in the spokes-character mediated the relationship between personal-nostalgic brand spokes-characters and brand attitude.
Originality/value
This study was the first to examine personal nostalgia and historical nostalgia separately regarding the effects of nostalgic spokes-characters and related mechanisms. By combining methods of experimental design and bootstrap mediation modeling, it provided a more robust evaluation of nostalgia-driven design, and supported using certain nostalgic styles for designing brand spokes-characters, which can help modern brands draw more interest from young consumers and promote more positive brand attitude.