If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -Building a strong brand is an important way to build a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Brand-oriented companies regard their brands as strategic resources, and they create value and increase competitiveness by building a strong brand. However, studies on how companies become brand-oriented and how brand orientation influences brand performance are still rather limited. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to propose a theoretical model explaining what factors contribute to brand orientation, as well as the impact of brand orientation. Design/methodology/approach -Questionnaire surveys were distributed to branding companies in Taiwan. The sample data of 106 branding companies were collected in order to test the theoretical model using partial least squares (PLS). Findings -The empirical results showed that organizational resources (product differentiation capability), organizational structure (cross-function departmental integration), and organizational culture (members' organizational identification and long-term remuneration criteria) could facilitate the building of brand-oriented companies. It was also found that a higher level of brand orientation contributed to better brand performance. Practical implications -According to this research, corporate managers can understand how to build brand-oriented companies by shaping their organizational context. In other words, if companies want to become brand-oriented, they should build product differentiation capabilities, promote cross-functional integration among departments, and develop an organizational culture with high organizational members' identification and long-term remuneration criteria. Originality/value -This paper is the first study to propose some antecedents of brand-oriented companies based on the organizational context perspective. The empirical results of this study illustrate how companies can become brand-oriented by arranging their organizational context, as well as the impact of brand orientation on brand performance.

PurposeFaced with increased global competition, suppliers must continually update their technology and capabilities to effectively respond to the rapid changes in customer requirements. In the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) supply relationships, it is particularly important for suppliers to enhance their product development capabilities by learning from customers. However, few existing studies have empirically explored this issue. This paper aims to fill some of the gaps.Design/methodology/approachBased on the organisational learning perspective, this paper investigates learning between the suppliers and customers of OEM relations as well as its impact on suppliers' product development capabilities. Structure equation modelling was used with data collected from 147 OEM supply relations of 117 Taiwanese information technology (IT) companies. The relationships among learning intent, interactive learning, internalised learning, and product development capabilities were examined.FindingsResults show that suppliers with a high learning intent are able to facilitate inter‐organisational and intra‐organisational learning to enhance their product development capabilities.Originality/valueThe paper proposes and empirically tests a model to explain how the OEM suppliers' product development capabilities are enhanced by the relationships between learning intent, inter‐organisational learning, and intra‐organisational learning.

Purpose -Facing increasing global competition, firms must ceaselessly acquire new knowledge and enhance their capabilities in response to rapidly changing customer requirements. Amidst the varying collaborative relationships that occur between firms, it is particularly important for firms to learn from international joint ventures. However, few existing studies have explored this issue empirically. Rooted in the organizational learning perspective, this study seeks to investigate the learning intent, learning process and learning outcomes of host parent companies taking part in international joint ventures, and to propose and verify a theoretical model of learning for host parent companies. Design/methodology/approach -The study used Taiwanese firms as research objects and employed the survey method to collect sample data. In total, 64 international joint ventures involving Taiwanese firms were collected and analyzed. The objective of this study was to examine the relationships between latent constructs, such as learning intent, learning process and learning outcome. Thus, the structural equation modeling approach was adopted to test the theoretical model. However, the sample size used in this study was small, so the partial least squares (PLS) method was employed. Findings -The empirical results showed that a parent company's learning outcome is affected by the interaction between the parent company and the joint venture, as well as the internal knowledge integration capacity of the parent company. The interaction between the parent company and the joint venture will simultaneously drive the parent's intra-organisational knowledge integration. Moreover, the parent company's strategic intent to learning from the joint venture will affect the parent company's knowledge integration, along with the interaction between the parent company and the joint venture. Likewise, the parent company's learning intent will affect its evaluation of the joint venture's knowledge, while further influencing its intraorganizational knowledge integration. Originality/value -The paper combines the perspectives of learning intent, learning process and learning outcomes in order to propose and test empirically a model that explains how the host parents of developing countries enhance their knowledge and capabilities by means of international joint ventures. Thus, the study attends to the deficiency of the literature in addressing the field of learning through international joint ventures. It also provides some insights and suggestions for firms that regard alliance strategy as a learning opportunity for enhancing a firm's knowledge base and organizational capabilities.

This study explored the position of the customer knowledge development in the new product development (NPD) process and the antecedents and consequences of the customer knowledge development. Customer knowledge development means that NPD teams created, integrated, and applied the knowledge about customers' need and preference in the NPD process. This study proposed customer knowledge development is composed of customer interaction process and team learning process. Most of the hypotheses are supported by the analyzing of 77 valid samples with PLS (partial least squares) model. These samples are from the survey done by Printed Circuit Boards and Power Supply of Taiwanese firms. The insightful implication in theory and practice are also discussed in this paper. *