Distinctive Marketing and Information Technology Capabilities and Strategic Types: A Cross-National Investigation

Abstract

The authors examine the relationship between strategic type and development of distinctive marketing, market-linking, technology, and information technology (IT) capabilities to implement innovation strategy. They hypothesize that prospectors must build technical and IT capabilities, whereas defenders develop market-linking and marketing capabilities. The authors collect data from 709 firms across the United States, Japan, and China. They find support for their capability hypotheses, as well as for some of their cross-national hypotheses that are based on cultural and business environment differences among the three countries. In particular, they find support for the hypotheses that Japanese firms have greater technology and IT capabilities than U.S. firms of the same strategic type. They conclude with implications for management.

Understanding the role of technology in service innovation: Comparison of three theoretical perspectives

“…Therefore, we hypothesize the followings: Marketing capability: Marketing capability is defined as the ability to differentiate products and services from competitors by adding value and building successful brands (Kotabe et al, 2002). Firms with marketing capability use their tangible and intangible resources to interact with customers; these interactions help firms gain better understanding of complex consumer specific needs and market demands, as well as achieve product differentiation and superior brand equity (Song et al, 2008). Marketing capability is important in successfully developing new products and services, because specific customer needs and market demand for development are the results of marketing activity (Song et al, 1997).…”

Impact of Human Resource Management (HRM) Practices on Hotel Industry’s Performance: The Mediating role of Employee Competencies

“…This industry is characterized by being labour-intensive and focused on satisfying guests needs (Tracey, 2014 (Maxwell, et al, 2000;Watson et al,2007). Along the same line, few studies have focused on employee competencies of this type of organization (Kabanoff and Brown, 2008;Song et al, 2008). For this reason, and in line with other studies, this study can confirm, HRM practices impacts employee competencies in hotel industry through training and development initiative which enhances employee"s capabilities and instrumental in improving overall organizational performance (Mackelprang et al, 2012) and employee participation initiative which leads to the fulfillment of individual and organizational goals (Ardichvili, et al, 2003).…”

A contingency view to novelty

“…Consistent with prior research (e.g. Song et al, 2008), the cut-off factor loading of 0.4 was considered for removal.…”

“…Although the bias linked to this limitation is a threat that the respondent may endeavour to exaggerate their firm's status (Song et al, 2008) and create spurious results, is has been largely used in several relevant studies (e.g. Gruber et al, 2010;Fink, 2011;Claver-Cortés et al, 2012;Zona et al, 2013).…”