With the development of information technology, the market situation is changing more rapidly than ever. The change is most rapid in the preferences and lifestyle of consumers. For companies to survive in such an environment, it is indispensable to develop innovative and competitive new products by better understanding the needs of consumers. Any novel and meaningful idea of a new product basically originates from knowledge, which plays an important role in the performance of new products because it is the most valuable asset for a business entity. In this study, the author considers the knowledge sharing process as a dynamic aspect based on the term “knowledge,” carrying a static meaning as used in the existing research. The nature of the knowledge sharing process pertaining to new product development has been largely divided into three terms and then re-established. The author focuses on a new product development team as the subject of sharing and providing knowledge on new products, and regards the solution to problems that may arise in the development process as the stability of the team. The moderating effect was examined by the relationship between the type of knowledge sharing process and the outcome of the new product with the variable of team stability. The results indicate that the convergence and similarity of the knowledge sharing process affect new product performance as positive variables, whereas the tacitness of the knowledge sharing process does not lead to a significant result in terms of performance of new products. This study also shows that the stability of the team has a positively direct effect on the outcome of the new product. Thus, the convergence process of various kinds of knowledge positively affects the diversity and innovation of new product concepts. Moreover, the same recognition area or shared goal awareness and sense of responsibility play important roles in the performance of the new product. The moderating effect of team stability between the type of knowledge sharing process and new product performance is described in the convergence and tacitness of the knowledge sharing process. In the process of merging existing knowledge with new knowledge or sharing embedded knowledge in the members with, the activity wherein the members of the NPD team communicate and collaborate with each other over a long period of time will provide opportunity to improve the performance of the new product. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the type of knowledge sharing process, the stability of the team, and new product performance. Academic and managerial implications and the directions for future research are discussed as well.

Lack of knowledge is reported to be the main reason that consumers do not buy products with ethical certifications. More than half (59%) of respondents from a study indicated that they had never considered buying such products due to insufficient knowledge about them (Demeritt, 2002). The purpose of this research is to provide a clear overview about the influence of product knowledge on consumer behavior and to develop a typology of fair-trade consumers. An online questionnaire in which respondents self-report their responses was developed to measure the constructs used for the study: self-perceived knowledge, purchase experience, demographic data (age, gender, education level, and income), psychographic data (attitudes and moral norms), and behavioristic data (purchase intentions of fair-trade apparel and willingness to pay more for fair-trade apparel). Data were collected using a web-based survey with 250 U.S. residents. Two-step cluster analysis was used to classify respondents into sub-groups based on their level of self-perceived knowledge and previous purchase experience of fair-trade apparel. In addition, ANOVA was used to test the predictive validity of the cluster solution. A three cluster solution was suggested by the results: 1) Less familiar and less experienced: This group was the largest among the three clusters (40.4%). It mostly consist of people with low level of self-perceived knowledge and low purchase experience related to fair-trade apparel. 2) More familiar and more experienced: This group consists of 30.8% of the sample and has moderate level of self-perceived knowledge and several experience related to fair-trade apparel. 3) More familiar but less experienced: This group was the smallest among the three clusters (28.8%). People from this group feel fairly knowledgeable about fair-trade apparel but have low experience with purchasing the product. Regarding demographic data, ANOVA results showed that there were significant differences in consumers’ income level (F=5.77, p=.004) across groups. Tukey’s HSD post hoc test indicated that the more familiar and more experienced group had higher income levels than the other two groups. Examining psychographic data showed that attitudes toward fair-trade products (F=7.42 p=.001) and moral norms (F=11.66 p<.001) significantly varied across groups. More familiar and more experienced group had more positive attitudes and higher level of moral norms than the less familiar and less experienced group. In terms of behavioristic data, groups differed significantly in both purchase intentions (F=18.16 p<.001) and willingness to pay more (F=5.02 p=.007) for fair-trade apparel. That is, more familiar and more experienced group was willing to pay significantly more and had higher purchase intentions for fair-trade apparel than the less familiar and less experienced group.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of congruency of parent brand image with self-image, perceived risk, and product knowledge on the attitude towards extended product in fashion brand extension. A survey questionnaire was used to collect data from 170 female college students and collected data were subjected to descriptive analysis and regression analysis using SPSS Window program. The results of this study showed that the congruency of parent brand image with self-image and perceived risk had a positive effect on attitude towards extended product, whereas product knowledge had a negative effect on attitude towards extended product in fashion brand extension. Also, the congruency of parent brand image with self-image had a positive effect on the attitude towards extended product in fashion brand extension with positive moderating effect of perceived risk and negative mediating effect of product knowledge.

While the necessity of closing the marketing capabilities gap is an important issue, little is known about the mechanisms that enable firms create and refine marketing capabilities to market new products. Although it is suggested that market knowledge enables firms to create and refine marketing capabilities, little is known about why some firms are better at generating market knowledge or the extent market knowledge development impacts marketing capabilities. We advance the literature by showing that the development of market knowledge through internal processes is not sole or main foundation, external ties are also required to facilitate closing the marketing capabilities gap. Building on the literature on organizational ambidexterity, relational governance, and positional advantages, we examine the extent that external ties facilitate the effect of the firm’s market knowledge development processes (MKD) on exploratory and exploitative marketing capabilities. We use the positional advantage principle (Day & Wensley, 1988) to uncover the path that exploratory and exploitative marketing capabilities drive new product success through. Data from a sample of 169 industrial firms using a multi-informant design shows that the interplay between MKD and external ties provide the foundation to build exploratory and exploitative marketing capabilities to successfully market new products. Given the differences in the nature (e.g., goal convergence, longevity) and knowledge embedded in business and political ties, we draw attention to the different impacts that business and political ties have in helping to build exploratory and exploitative marketing capabilities. Our findings reveal that business ties promote the positive effect of MKD on exploitative marketing, indicating that business ties promote a firm’s capacity to improve its existing marketing routines. Political ties, however, enhance the positive effect of MKD on exploratory marketing, indicating that political ties provide support required to create new marketing initiatives (e.g., new distribution channel). Further, we show that distinct positional advantages, differentiation and cost efficiency, help explain how exploratory and exploitative marketing capabilities may be more or less effective in driving new product success. Our results suggest that while both new product differentiation and cost efficiency are significant drivers of NPP, their antecedents are different. Hence, achieving fit between the preferred positional advantage(s) and the type of marketing capabilities represents a critical determinant of new product success.

The purpose of this study was to identify the determinants of decision-making confidence of clothing. As determinants, this study examined consumer susceptibility to interpersonal influence, vanity, and clothing knowledge. Data were collected through surveying university students in Seoul metropolitan area using convenience sampling method. Out of 324 distributed, 300 useful questionnaires were returned. The results showed that identical conformity among consumer susceptibility to interpersonal influence factors significantly influences, both directly and indirectly, decision making confidence through vanity. Although normative conformity does not influence decision-making confidence directly, it does significantly influence decision-making confidence indirectly through influencing vanity and clothing knowledge. The results suggest clothing is a manifestation tool for managing public self, which finally leads to increased clothing knowledge and decision-making confidence of clothing. These findings may be used by marketers in developing strategies for product development and promotion.

오늘날 치열한 글로벌 마켓의 경쟁환경에서 많은 회사들이 제품의 경쟁우위를 확보하기 위해 고객에 대한 빠른 대응과 유연하고 효율적인 새로운 제품을 적기에 개발하기 위한 방법으로 product family 기반의 제품개발과 고객 맞춤형 제품개발 방법을 도입하고 있다. 많은 제품들의 가장 중요한 비즈니스 프로세스 요소는 제품의 전체 라이프 씨이들동안 제품 데이터를 관리하는 것이다. 서로 다른 저장 구조를 가지는 이기종 소프트웨어 시스템에 의해 수집되는 제품

The role of customers has changed from that of passive users to value co-creators. Therefore, it is important to understand how customer learning takes place and how it affects customer experiences with services and products. However, while past studies insist on the importance of the issues in designing customer experiences, they do not empirically address these issues. This study investigates the support processes for customer learning, and their impact on customer learning, which in turn influences customer experience. To test the hypotheses, we employed the survey method. Target informants were the actual users of Apple iPods. A total of 200 survey questionnaires were distributed and 146 were collected. Among these, seven erroneous responses were excluded, leaving 139 usable ones. The proposed model was empirically analyzed using the Covariance-based SEM (Structural Equation Modelling) technique. The findings of this study suggest that, among the three support processes in customer learning, learning-by-doing support and learning-by-investment support positively affect customer learning, which influences customer experience. This study contributes to the literature by identifying different types of support for different kinds of customer learning processes and by empirically testing the impact of the support for the process on customer learning, and in turn, its impact on customer experience.

As various types of information technology systems are becoming more pervasive than ever, many studies have evaluated the systems from the user perspective. Some of them have used surveys to measure consumers’ cognitive responses to the target technology. However, this method may cause problems if the survey participants do not have a useful frame of reference for evaluating an unfamiliar system. To examine this issue, the current study empirically tested the effect of personal product knowledge on the predictability of a behavioral model, such as Technology Acceptance Model. A series of measurement invariance tests as well as multi-group comparison tests were conducted for rigorous examination of the data. Our analysis showed that the variance of attitude that is explained by the two believes (perceived usefulness and ease of use) was relatively small when the survey respondents had lower amount of product knowledge. Moreover, the group had weaker causal relationship between attitude and intention to use the technology, hindering the predictability of the research model. The results indicated that respondents should have a certain amount of knowledge of the target system in order to form accurate beliefs and behavioral decisions. The findings of this study provide important implications on sampling strategies for researchers with new technology.