No abstract

Research was conducted among undergraduates in the target market for a marketing research course to find ways of improving the course image, content, and teaching methodology. This study is unique because it applies the principles of marketing research to a course on marketing research, using the class to identify what students want from their marketing research course. Because the research was personally relevant to the students, they were highly motivated in a course that is historically unpopular. Students saw how they could work to improve their own experience and that of their peers, and they began to appreciate the value of carefully conceived and executed research in effective and successful service design.

In a product category based on dynamic technology, new products enter the market in rapid succession, and the competitive situation changes almost daily. Because technological features of available products tend to improve while prices tend to decline, customers develop expectations that may influence their purchase decisions. We model the impact of customer expectations regarding and on product market share in the personal computer industry, finding significant nonlinear effects of both. These effects are observed when actual product price and/or technology differ from expectations by a threshold amount. Our results suggest implementable implications for high-tech product managers: in particular, price and technology should meet, but not exceed, customer expectations. This does not mean that managers should strive for mediocrity; rather, continuous improvement should be implemented so that product development efforts lead customer expectations.competitive strategy, pricing research, product policy

No abstract

Diffusion of innovation has been the focus of an entire stream of research in marketing, and firm entry and exit decisions have been investigated by marketers, strategists, and economists. However, little attention has been paid to the relationship between changing demand and the entry and exit behaviors of competitors in the marketplace. Understanding this relationship is essential in making resource commitments, as profitability of options depends not only on the size and growth of the market, but also on the number of competitors likely to be encountered. This is particularly important in innovative markets, where changes occur rapidly and one cannot assume that either customer needs or competitors faced tomorrow will be the same as today. We simultaneously model demand and number of competitors, including the interactive relationship between these dynamics in the marketplace, and empirically investigate three technology-intensive markets-video cassette recorders, personal computers, and workstations. Our results suggest that competition and demand impact entry and exit, but that the nature of this impact may depend on whether or not a 'shakeout' has occurred in the marketplace. Further, an increasing number of competitors may lead to improved marketplace offerings, resulting in demand expansion.