GAIA RUBERA

Rubera Gaia and Tellis Gerard J.
Strategic Management Journal, 35(13), 2043-2052.

This research compares innovation-related spinoffs and buyouts. Innovation-related divestitures are companies created with the intent of better developing and marketing new products in new or existing markets. We investigate how and why spinoffs’ and buyouts’ strategic emphasis, radicalness of products, and profits diverge over time. Using longitudinal data on 145 spinoffs and 121 buyouts over 5 years, this study provides three critical findings. First, spinoffs and buyouts have similar profits in the first two years after divestiture; afterwards buyouts have much higher profits than spinoffs. Second, divestiture type influences performance through two routes: a one-step mediated effect via strategic emphasis; and a two-step mediated effect via strategic emphasis and radicalness. The two routes have opposite effects on performance. Third, strategic emphasis is the central, causal mechanism that generates heterogeneity in the evolution of spinoffs’ and buyouts’ performance.

• Spinoffs versus Buyouts: Profitability of Alternate Routes for Commercializing Innovations (659 Kb)

Rubera Gaia, Chandrasekaran Deepa and Ordanini Andrea
Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science

Despite a growing interest in the phenomenon of open innovation (OI), empirical evidence documenting the link between new product development capabilities, OI practices, and new product innovativeness is scarce. Eminent scholars have called for large-scale studies that systematically investigate the OI paradigm. Drawing on the knowledge-based view of the firm, new product development, and NPD capabilities literature streams, we conceptualize a framework in which OI practices are disentangled according to the stage of the new product development process in which they occur (development stage or commercialization stage). We identify two major types of OI practices: development-centric OI (which occurs in the development stage); and commercialization-centric OI (which occurs in the commercialization stage). Specific types of NPD capabilities - R&D, market information management, and launch - are expected to both predict the extent to which each OI practice is implemented, and moderate the effect of each OI practice on product portfolio innovativeness and firm performance. The empirical analysis combines primary data from a survey of 239 firms with secondary data on innovation and financial outcomes. Our results support our hypotheses, and indicate a need to differentiate among the different kinds of OI practices while elaborating on the complex role played by NPD capabilities in influencing OI practices.

• Open Innovation, Product Portfolio Innovativeness and Firm Performance: The Dual Role of New Product Development Capabilities (401 Kb)

Ordanini Andrea , A. Parasuraman, and Gaia Rubera
Journal of Service Research

Service innovation is a primary source of competitive advantage and a research priority. However, empirical evidence about the impact of innovativeness on new service adoption is inconclusive. A plausible explanation is that service innovation has thus far been studied using new product frameworks that do not fully capture the complexity of new service assessments by customers.
We propose a different, holistic framework, which posits that new service adoption does not depend on individual service attributes, but on specific configurations of such attributes. We investigate this framework in a luxury hotel service context, using qualitative comparative analysis, a set-membership technique that is new to service research and suitable for configuration analyses. Results confirm that individual service attributes have complex trade-off effects and that only specific combinations of attributes act as sufficient conditions for new service adoption. Moreover, the composition of such combinations differs according to the different coproduction requirements. Our findings contribute to managerial practice by providing new insights for improving the service-development process and the launch strategy for new services. They also augment extant service knowledge by demonstrating why interdependencies among various innovation attributes are important to consider for gaining an accurate understanding of new service adoption.

• When the Recipe Is More Important Than the Ingredients: A Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) of Service Innovation Configurations (338 Kb)

Gaia Rubera, Andrea Ordanini, and Roger Calantone
Journal of Product Innovation Management, 29(5): 766-783.
Integration of research and development (R&D) with marketing remains a frequent topic in the new product development (NPD) literature, largely because it represents a critical antecedent of new product performance (NPP). Two divergent opinions about this integration exist, such that those who contend that firms should pursue high levels of integration in every case provoke criticisms from those who propose that various NPD processes require different levels of integration. This paper proposes that the two perspectives can be reconciled by taking into account the fact that R&D and marketing are integrated mainly to combine critical knowledge (technological and market) that otherwise would be separate to achieve market success. Following Danneels's approach, we investigate how the effect of R&D–marketing integration on performance change across four types of NPD processes: pure exploitation, pure exploration, technological competence exploitation, and market competence exploitation.

Data derived from a deep study of 11 NPD projects by five firms, analyzed through qualitative methods, highlight the necessity to vary the level of integration according to the type of competence to be developed during the NPD process. Our analysis suggests two main conclusions. First, the effect of integration depends strictly on the type of competence that the firm uses to develop and launch a new product. Second, integration does not have a unique effect on performance, but it is necessary to distinguish between market performance (e.g., sales and market share) and process performance (e.g., meeting the planned budget and time to market). In some projects, the effect of integration on the two types of performance is diametrically opposite. In particular, we propose that (1) higher performance will be associated with lower integration in pure exploitative projects; (2) in projects that exploit existing market knowledge, higher market performance will be associated with a higher integration, although these projects tend to offer poor process performance regardless of integration level; (3) in projects that exploit technical knowledge, higher performance will be associated with higher integration; and (4) higher integration will be associated with higher market performance but poorer process performance in pure explorative projects.

• Whether to Integrate R&D and Marketing: The Effect of Firm Competence (306 Kb)

Calantone Roger and Rubera Gaia
Journal of Product Innovation Management, 29(1), 144-157.
Collaboration between research, development, and engineering (RD&E) and marketing has traditionally been regarded as beneficial for new product performance (NPP). However, some studies have pointed out the drawbacks of excessive collaboration. Because collaboration simultaneously presents costs and benefits that vary with conditions, a contingent view of managerial practices suggests that the optimal level of integration should vary according to some factors that indicate when high levels of collaboration are preferable to lower levels. Although the literature on the many different factors that may impact the desirable level of collaboration is abundant, only a few studies have investigated the role of the peculiar characteristics of the new products being developed. This paper investigates the moderating role of an explorative versus an exploitive innovation program. It also controls for the moderating role of environmental uncertainty, which has been traditionally considered a moderator of the relationship between RD&E–marketing collaboration and new product program performance.
The paper also investigates how a firm’s innovation posture—a cultural trait—influences both directly and indirectly, via marketing’s technical knowledge, RD&E–marketing collaboration. Indeed, several scholars have recognized that cultural differences create the main barrier between RD&E and marketing. Hence, a firm’s culture should have an impact on the cultural barriers between the two departments. Further, the firm’s innovation posture affects the extent to which the departments have to share resources and exchange information.
The antecedents and effects of RD&E–marketing collaboration are tested in a sample of 80 companies operating in the U.S. auto industry through partial least squares. The paper shows that the extent to which a company develops explorative rather than exploitative innovations is a better moderator than environmental uncertainty in the relationship between RD&E–marketing collaboration and new product program performance. Second, the paper demonstrates that firms with a more aggressive innovation posture tend to develop greater collaboration between RD&E and marketing. Also, the marketing department tends to have a better understanding of the RD&E processes and capabilities in companies with an aggressive innovation posture than in companies with a defensive one.onecollaboration between RD&E and marketing. Also, the marketing department tends to have a better understanding of the RD&E processes and capabilities in companies with an aggressive innovation posture than in companies with a defensive one.

• When should RD&E and Marketing Collaborate? (264 Kb)

Eisingerich Andreas, Rubera Gaia, and Seifert Matthias
Journal of Service Research, 11(4): 344-356
An increasing body of research suggests interorganizational relationships as being critical to the financial performance of firms. Similarly, innovation has been considered a key driver of the growth and success of firms. However, little work has examined how the extent firms’ interorganizational relationship commitment and diversity influence their innovation focus and performance. In this article, the authors show that diverse interorganizational relationships reduce the positive impact of innovation focus on firm performance. In contrast, interorganizational relationship commitment increases service innovation focus and strengthens the innovation focus–firm performance relationship. The findings are based on multi-source and longitudinal performance data and highlight the positive impact of relationship commitment on the effects of service innovation focus on firm performance. Implications for management and research are discussed.

• Managing service innovation and interorganizational relationships for firm performance (842 Kb)

David A. Griffith, Goksel Yalcinkaya, Gaia Rubera, and Verdiana Giannetti
Journal of International Marketing

Employing the resource-based view of the firm and the competitive forces perspective, the authors examine howbrand equity (star power, director power, and brand extensions), financial resources, and competitive intensity serve both as antecedents to the length of global product rollout and asmoderators of the effect of length of global product rollout on global product performance. The results, based on data from themotion picture industry, demonstrate that brand equity, financial resources, and competitive intensity result in shorter global product rollout and that shorter global product rollout enhances global product performance. They also find that brand equity and financial resources operate asmoderators, magnifying the effect of length of global product rollout on global product performance.

• Understanding the Importance of the Length of Global Product Rollout: An Examination in the Motion Picture Industry (602 Kb)

Eisingerich Andreas, Rubera Gaia, Seifert Matthias and Bhardwaj Gunjan
Journal of Service Research, 14(1), 60-75.
Despite increased research on the various effects of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), the question of whether CSR is worthwhile for firms still remains to be addressed. Prior work suggests that CSR offers firms insurance-like protection against negative publicity due to greater levels of goodwill with various stakeholders. Yet, we still miss an answer to the following question: How effective, if at all, is CSR in insulating firms from scrutiny compared to other important marketing measures, such as customer orientation and service quality orientation? This study develops and empirically tests a theoretical framework that demonstrates the relative impact of CSR on consumer resistance to negative information when confronted with negative information about a firm. The results demonstrate that CSR shields firms from negative information about CSR practices but not information related to firms’ core service offerings. Managerially, the findings demonstrate that CSR may offer less of blanket insurance than assumed in previous research. Furthermore, results indicate that firms with a consumer base of experts should favor a focus on service quality orientation over CSR; conversely, when consumers are novices firms should focus on CSR for greater consumer resistance to negative information.

• Doing Good and Doing Better despite Negative Information? (286 Kb)

Eisingerich Andreas and Rubera Gaia
Journal of International Marketing, 18(2), 64-79
Firms increasingly employ global brand management strategies for the effective coordination of their global activities. Effective coordination requires adapting global brand management strategies to cultural nuances. This study examines the influence of culture on the impact of four key brand management elements (i.e., brand innovativeness, brand customer orientation, brand self-relevance, and social responsibility) on customer commitment to a brand. Using responses from 167 U.K. and 230 Chinese consumers, the authors empirically demonstrate that brand innovativeness and brand self-relevance have a greater effect on brand commitment in cultures that are individualist, short-term oriented, and low on power distance (i.e., the United Kingdom), while brand customer orientation and social responsibility have a greater impact on brand commitment in cultures that are collectivist, long-term oriented, and high on power distance (i.e., China). Furthermore, the findings reveal that in collectivist, long-term-oriented, and high-power-distance cultures, the four brand management activities equally contribute to brand commitment. The research informs global brand managers wanting to optimize brand positioning and strengthen customers’ brand commitment across cultures.

• Drivers of Brand Commitment: A Cross-National Investigation (112 Kb)