Much scholarly work has explored the benefits firms accrue from innovation activities. Although some research has shown that firm innovativeness is associated with enhanced export success, the conditions under which firm innovativeness activities are most and least beneficial are not well understood. The authors take a contingency perspective and use social capital theory to investigate how internal channel networking capability and structural factors as well as external environment factors affect the innovativeness–export performance relationship. Analysis of samples of exporting firms from Ghana and Bosnia and Herzegovina indicates that innovativeness is most beneficial for firms operating in competitive and dynamic export markets; those in less competitive and static markets do not benefit from their innovation activities to the same extent. Stronger networking capabilities and a more organic structure also enhance the innovativeness–export performance relationship. The findings imply that the management of firm innovativeness is not a straightforward task in which greater emphasis on innovation activities is always beneficial for firms; rather, exporting organizations must match firm innovativeness levels to external environmental conditions and internal capabilities and structures.

Journal of Product & Brand Management1 Drivers and Outcomes of Branded Mobile App Usage Intention AbstractPurpose: This study examines the drivers and outcomes of the usage intention of branded mobile applications (apps), revealing findings of theoretical and practical relevance. First, it uncovers the specific technological features that underpin the perceived usefulness and ease of use of branded apps driving (directly and indirectly) usage intention. Second, it outlines two key outcomes that are relevant to the strategic management of branded apps: willingness to recommend the app and willingness to pay to continue using the app.Approach: This study uses data randomly derived from a panel of one million UK consumers, analyzed via structural equations modeling. The unit of analysis was individual apps prominently displaying a brand identity. The study tested indirect relationships between the key drivers considered and usage intention, via perceived usefulness and ease of use. Findings:Consumers who view branded apps as protecting their privacy, customizable and compatible with what they do, will have stronger perceptions of usefulness and ease of use, and greater intention to use the app. These effects also occur indirectly. Furthermore, usage intention drives the willingness to recommend the app and to pay to continue using it. Practical implications:To influence usage intention, managers can improve the perception of usefulness of branded apps by protecting consumer privacy, and improving the app's design and its compatibility with people's needs and lifestyle. Managers can also enhance the perception of ease of use of the branded app by heightening its security and ubiquity. Combined, these factors can enhance (directly and indirectly) the intention to use the app, which will lead to the willingness to recommend the app and pay for it.Originality/value: This study extends previous research by examining factors driving the intention to use branded apps and the resulting outcomes. It also offers a model that yields predictions for individual branded apps (not the brand powering the app), thus providing practical recommendations on how to manage, in general, apps with a brand identity.Research on adoption has been significant, although it has primarily concerned the uptake of mobile technology in general and/or specific instances of mobile technologies, such as mobile data services, mobile payments, mobile marketing and, of course, mobile apps. Importantly, as Alnawas and Aburub (2016) remark, many scholars have drawn upon the Technology Acceptance Model (Davies et al., 1989) to understand how and why consumers adopt apps. This strand of research has consistently highlighted that perceived usefulness and ease of use are the key drivers of attitudes, intention to use, and actual use of mobile apps (see Kim, Yoon and Han, 2016; Tojib and Tsarenko, 2012;Yang, 2013). However, these aspects have not been explored in relation to branded apps, i.e. apps clearly showing a brand identity (Bellman et al., 2011).Moreove...

Further information on publisher's website:http://dx.doi.org/10.1509/jim.14.0071Publisher's copyright statement:Additional information: Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Surprisingly, planning and improvisation have historically been viewed as opposite poles of the same continuum, and therefore mutually exclusive (Moorman and Miner 1998), rather than as decision-making approaches, which can potentially be used simultaneously. Very little research has attempted to examine how both can be used within the same context, in a bid to maximize performance. When used alone, formalized (and inherently more rigid) planning undermines the decision-maker's ability to deal with unexpected opportunities and threats in a timely manner. By the same token, if managers rely exclusively on improvisation, there is a danger that decision-making will become chaotic (Brown and Eisenhardt 1998). This may go some way towards explaining discrepancies in export planning research. Specifically, it is likely that the drawbacks of planning and improvisation could be cancelled out when the two approaches are applied together, with their combined application possibly resulting in better outcomes for companies (Slater, Olson, and Hult 2006). The third research gap identified, therefore, concerns the dearth of theoretical and empirical information on the outcomes of 5 combining planning and improvisation within the export context. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to investigate the value and use of improvisation in exporting, and the extent to which the interaction of planning and improvisation is related to export responsiveness and performance.The theoretical contributions of this study address the research gaps identified above. Firstly, we complement the literature on antecedents to export performance by examining, not the substantive export decisions that are made, but how these are made. In so doing, we bring decision theory to the realm of export marketing research, thereby ensuring theoretical rigor to the conceptual development. Secondly, we introduce the concept of improvisation to the export decision-making field, in a bid to provide a more holistic perspective on export decisions. We anchor our export improvisation research in preliminary fieldwork, constituted of in-depth interviews with export decision-makers, thus ensuring the direct relevance and applicability of our work. Finally, previous studies on planning and improvisation have typically focused on the effects of either planning or improvisation on performance, a...

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