Knowledge that Transforms

The authors examine Japanese executives’ perceptions of the veracity of various PIMS strategy principles developed from analysis of the pooled experience of businesses in the United States. They draw on a separate study of U.S. executives and report a comparison of Japanese executives’ perceptions with those of U.S. executives. The findings suggest that most of the PIMS principles found in the United States are perceived by Japanese executives to apply in Japan. In addition, Japanese executives are found to Perceive a firm's market position to be the most important influence on firm performance. However, the findings also indicate that Japanese and U.S. executives differ in their views on the level of veracity of many strategy issues.

The authors examine Japanese executives’ perceptions of the veracity of various PIMS strategy principles developed from analysis of the pooled experience of businesses in the United States. They draw on a separate study of U.S. executives and report a comparison of Japanese executives’ perceptions with those of U.S. executives. The findings suggest that most of the PIMS principles found in the United States are perceived by Japanese executives to apply in Japan. In addition, Japanese executives are found to Perceive a firm's market position to be the most important influence on firm performance. However, the findings also indicate that Japanese and U.S. executives differ in their views on the level of veracity of many strategy issues.

Building on two previous works, Japanese Techniques and World Class Manufacturing - the latter regarded by the prestigious journal Quality Progress as a milestone in the second Industrial Revolution - Richard Schonberger introduces a new concept. He argues that each of the four main business functions - design, manufacturing, accounting, and marketing - becomes a for the other three and that the many links between and within departments form a continuous of customers that extends to those who buy the product. Through hundreds of real company examples of the customer chain of action, Dr Schonberger shows how it quickens response rates, increases product quality, lowers costs, adds greater flexibility to change volume and product mix and takes sales away from the laggard competition.

A sweeping change in trademark law has created benefits and pitfalls for marketing decision makers; recent court decisions on trademarks have had similar impact. Marketing managers should become familiar with these new regulatory guidelines to implement an effective trademark strategy and to provide insight into the future interpretation and development of trademark law.

Both marketing managers and consumers must make decisions for which the good and bad outcomes may occur at various points in time in the future. A model of time and outcome valuation (TOV) is developed and shown to expand and complement a variety of marketing models and theories, including exchange models, salesforce motivation models, and decision calculus models. The TOV model is derived from six basic assumptions. From the assumptions a series of managerially important decision phenomena are described, including individual traps and fences, speedup costs, delay charge effects, and future optimism. A series of managerial propositions on the impact of the timing of outcomes on marketing decision making is also developed from the TOV model.

A sweeping change in trademark law has created benefits and pitfalls for marketing decision makers; recent court decisions on trademarks have had similar impact. Marketing managers should become familiar with these new regulatory guidelines to implement an effective trademark strategy and to provide insight into the future interpretation and development of trademark law.

Several models of consumer response to promotions suggest that a current decision on brand and purchase quantity depends on the expected time until the next price reduction and the expected size of future reductions. In spite of the importance of expected deal frequency and expected deal price to a consumer's decision, relatively little empirical work has been reported on those topics. The authors investigate several aspects of consumer perceptions of deal frequency and deal prices. First, a conceptual model is presented to describe how consumers develop and use those perceptions. Second, results of an extensive survey are used to estimate the degree of consumer knowledge about deal frequency and deal prices. Third, hypotheses about which types of consumers have better knowledge of promotions are tested. Results from the survey indicate that many consumers are reasonably accurate about deal frequency and sale price. In addition, recall on deal frequency and sale price is higher for consumers with larger family sizes and those who read weekly fliers for items on sale, devote a higher percentage of product class purchases to the brand, and purchase the package size more frequently. It is lower for older buyers.

A study was conducted to develop a better understanding of the timing of consumer durable good replacement purchases. The demographic characteristics, attitudes and perceptions, and search behavior of consumers who replace a product during the early and late parts of its lifetime were examined. Results based on univariate and multivariate analyses of replacement buyers of new automobiles indicate that “early” replacement buyers are more concerned with styling and image and less concerned with costs than “late” replacement buyers. Further, early replacers have higher income, but lower levels of educational achievement and occupational status, than late replacers. Late replacers engage in more search activity. Findings also suggest that marketing efforts have differential effects on the replacement buyer segments.