For middle managers, behavioural integrity — the perception by subordinates that management behaviour matches their words — is a key factor for success. Unfortunately, organizations often undermine their middle managers’ behavioural integrity with contradictory policies and decisions — or policies, directives or decisions for which they never acquired middle management buy-in.
Prior experience impacts the speed with which multi-national enterprises re-enter foreign markets they previously exited — although as time passes, the environmental context of the market becomes more important.
When multinational companies re-enter a foreign market, the key strategic decision is choosing whether to change the operation mode (e.g. distribution partnership, joint ventures, fully owned operations) from their previous experience in the market. A new study finds that the motives of their original decision to exit the market has a great impact on whether they choose the same operation mode or escalate (e.g. from distribution to manufacturing) or de-escalate (e.g. from fully owned operations to joint ventures) their commitment.
While higher brand equity products will attract greater loyalty from their customers, new research reveals different ways to strengthen the relationship between equity and loyalty. Such efforts to strengthen the link are worthwhile since the relationship does not always hold true. One customer segment, the study shows, perceives a brand’s equity as high but is not loyal — and surprisingly another segment perceives a brand’s equity as low but still remains loyal.
A team of researchers offers a framework to help organizations support creativity more effectively. Elements of this framework including balancing the usefulness and originality of creative ideas depending on the organization’s needs and choosing the best approach to creative ideas: 1) focusing on the sheer quantity of new ideas, 2) exploring the potential of a category, or 3) looking for creative ideas across categories.
A new study shows that adding gaming elements to the performance feedback process can increase employee effort, especially when extrinsic motivation is low and internal task motivation is high.
A recent study confirms that consumers’ desire for control over their lives can act as a psychological barrier to the acceptance of new or innovative products. However, framing a new product as increasing consumer control can eliminate this barrier.
Is branded paid advertising worth the money? A 2015 study based on eBay traffic said no: prospects using brand name searches will find their way to the website, with or without paid ads to lead them. A new study, however, using a brand that is not one of the largest in the world, shows a different result: about half of the customers are lost.
Can leaders be too smart? A recent study offers a surprising answer: up to a certain point, the smarter you are, the more effective you are as a leader. But being too smart can actually reduce how effective you are perceived— in large part because you lose touch with your subordinates.
The use of innovation intermediaries to find outside solutions and ideas or innovation partners is becoming more common. Choosing the right intermediary can depend on factors such as the type and complexity of problems or needs, whether the search for partners or solutions, and the extent of the envisioned collaboration among innovators.
In the case of major industry disruption, successful companies survive through a well-orchestrated series of strategic moves. New research shows that the sequence and timing of those moves can make the difference between failure and success.
While digital age marketing channels such as social media marketing and mobile marketing has captured the public’s attention, the view from the Chief Marketing Officer’s desk is more measured, according to a new survey of marketing leaders in the U.S. Social media marketing continues to grab more and more of the marketing budget, for example, but measuring its impact on the bottom line remains elusive.
With traditional marketing losing its impact in today’s overcrowded marketplaces, marketers are developing creative covert campaigns to create buzz around their products. Sometimes, however, these covert campaigns can backfire.
New research reveals that promotions are more effective with luxury and hedonic products (think Godiva chocolates or that vacation by the sea) than for more utilitarian products. The reason: they help reduce consumer guilt about the purchase.
Reflecting the impact of customer review sites, new research shows that independent hotels are adjusting their advertising spending based on reader reviews — the better the reviews, the less they spend.
The benefit to companies of bundling products and services is complicated. Consumers will demand more compensation and feel greater dissatisfaction if a component is missing from a bundle than if it is missing in isolation. However, consumers will be willing to pay less for an item added to a bundle (and derive less satisfaction from that item) compared to the same item purchased separately.
Third party influence can have a major impact on a company’s reputation. By replacing the traditional company-centric communication strategy, a new stakeholder-centric Channel Strategy Model helps companies understand stakeholder perspectives that are outside the companies’ sphere of experience — and opens up new avenues of indirect communication.
New research based on 2800 corporate CEOs shows that extraverted CEOs are more likely to engage their firms in the uncertainty of M&A activities, proving that CEO personality can drive firm behaviour. However, under certain conditions, the situation dictates the options available to CEOs, regardless of their personalities. Thus, for example, even less extraverted CEOs make more acquisitions in highly competitive industries.
New research reveals that buyers of hedonistic, luxurious products often feel guilty about their indulgent purchase — but that bundling even a small utilitarian feature with the product can assuage this guilt and make consumers more likely to buy and increase willingness to pay.
Forget discounts. Customers perceiving a genuine effort by companies to invest in the customer relationship will feel grateful toward the company — an emotion that leads to overall (and longer lasting) customer satisfaction.
While emerging countries are starting to generate more innovation, most of the world’s innovation continues to be clustered in regions of the advanced economies.
Our brains prefer to think in straight lines: if one bag of oranges costs $5, then two bags cost $10 and three cost $15. However, this bias toward linear thinking often traps unwary business decision-makers who fail to recognize the non-linear relationships they are dealing with (e.g. increasing retention rates from 10% to 30% or from 60% to 80% does not have an equal 20% impact on customer lifetime value).
Organizations find that knowledge often gets ‘stuck’ within the different professional cliques. In a health care setting, for example, nurses talk to nurses and doctors talk to doctors, and knowledge has difficulty passing between these two professions. However, all organizations have individuals who can act information ‘brokers’, bridging the gap between the professions.
Friendships in the workplace lay the foundation for collaboration and learning. Friendship cliques, however, can also produce fissures that only people with personalities of the diplomats in the organization can span.
Leadership success is built not only on the competencies of the leader but also the perceptions of followers. Conceptualizing perceptions as attitudes unveils a more nuanced and complete explanation of leadership success (and failure).
Research shows that the existence of a generation of ‘digital natives’ and the ability of this generation to multi-task are in fact two harmful myths — myths that lead to erroneous assumptions about learning and work efficiency.
A groundbreaking 2004 journal article showed how behavioural economics could explain self-defeating retirement savings decisions made by employees. It was an early example of the power of behavioural economics over standard economic theory by the ‘father of behavioural economics’.
A large field experiment involving Norwegian taxpayers underreporting foreign income reveals that the probability of detection deters the greatest number of potential non-compliant taxpayers; moral arguments sways fewer non-compliant taxpayers but inspires those who listen to significantly increase their reported income.
A new study shows that the appearance of self-confidence resulting from high performance gives men greater influence in their organizations. The same is not true for women, who in addition to appearing self-confident must also demonstrate active concern and support for others.
Risk aversion and career concerns are pushing managers to play it safe, reducing the shareholder value of their companies — and the incentive compensation structures meant to motivate managers often have the opposite effect.
