اثرات تعدیل کننده جهت گیری بازار و راه اندازی مهارت بر رابطه مزیت عملکردمحصول

The relationship between product advantage and new product performance has been identified in prior research and cannot be overlooked. However, the moderators between the two constructs have received little attention. This study examines how market orientation and launch proficiency exert contingent influences on the product advantage–performance relationship. Prior research indicates that new product performance is a multi-dimensional concept constituted by different types of performance, yet the way product advantage and its moderators influence certain types of product performance has not been investigated. This study examines the same issues under different dimensions of new product performance. A total of 112 Taiwanese biotechnology firms form the analytical sample. Two interesting findings are revealed. First, product advantage is significantly and positively related to market performance, but has no significant influence on financial performance. Second, market orientation and launch proficiency in tactics indeed moderate the relationship between product advantage and new product performance, either as a whole or in respect to different types of product performance. Obviously, these findings contribute detailed evidence to the theoretical nexus between product advantage and new product performance.

Studies in the last decades indicate that product advantage seems to be strongly related to product performance (Atuahene-Gima, 1995, Bonner and Walker, 2004, Henard and Szymanski, 2001, Hultink and Hart, 1998 and Nakata et al., 2006). However, the relationship between product advantage and product performance is not definite. Henard and Szymanski (2001) called for more information on the topic after they conducted a meta-analysis of thirty-five new product performance studies. They concluded that product advantage and other common new product performance predictors do not always conclusively guarantee a positive product introduction. Therefore, the question of precisely how product advantage influences product performance deserves further study. Following the suggestions of Henard and Szymanski (2001), this study discusses the existence of moderators between product advantage and product performance. The resource-based view (RBV) considers market orientation (Hult, Ketchen, & Slater, 2005) and launch proficiency (Hultink et al., 1997 and Langerak et al., 2004) to be two important inimitable and unique capabilities which possibly moderate the link between product advantage and new product performance. As noted earlier, several scholars suggest that the market orientation of an organization likely influences its level of product advantage (Atuahene-Gima, 1995 and Langerak et al., 2004). As a result, organizations in more market-oriented environments may be expected to produce better products. This general argument suggests that the importance of product advantage vary according to market orientation. This study acknowledges the antecedent role which market orientation plays as confirmed by previous studies. Based on these findings, the present study further proposes that the linkage between product advantage and new product performance is also moderated by an organization's market orientation. Several factors lead to this opinion. First, not all firms developing advantageous products are necessarily market-orientated. For example, many Taiwanese high-tech firms pursue an “innovative and product-advantage” strategy when launching their new products. These firms aim to introduce products with high innovativeness and compete with rivals by providing above-average products (Hsieh, Tsai, & Hultink, 2006). Second, as stated and confirmed by prior literature, product advantage does not always promise new product performance. This study offers that market orientation is a key to enhance the linkage between product advantage and new product performance. Third, as noted by Baker and Sinkula (2005), market orientation is a value-based strategic philosophy exhibiting itself in behaviors which help firms stay close to their consumers. According to resource-based views (RBV), firms equipped with strong market orientation have the potential resources of competitive advantage (Pelham and Wilson, 1996 and Reed and DeFillippi, 1990). Product advantage, on the other hand, is a stock of capabilities needed to actualize the output of a strong market orientation. Therefore, this study complements prior studies by proposing an ideology of fit between capabilities and resources which can enable firms to garner sustainable advantage and excellent product performance. On the other hand, a superior product cannot reach its market without organizational launching proficiencies such as through planning, product introduction tactics, market testing, and budgeting (Gorchels, 2003: 144–149). This study presents above two moderating variables to clarify the product advantage–performance relationship. Measurements and analyses in previous new product performance studies have been ambiguous. Even though Griffin and Page, 1993 and Griffin and Page, 1996 provided a rich source of new product performance measures, prior studies have not clarified which performance dimensions are related to what types of market orientation. Atuahene-Gima (1995) stated that “scholars must guard against the use of highly aggregated new product performance measures as they may mask the finer details of the influence of market orientation and hinder the emergence of critical managerial insights” (p. 287). Based on existing literature, this research claims that new product performance should not be considered an entire entity, but should be broken down into smaller, different types of performance when examining the links between performance and performance predictors. The purpose of this article is twofold. First, the study examines the moderating effects of market orientation and launch proficiency on product advantage and product performance associations. Second, this research breaks down new product performance into more specific dimensions and studies precisely how product advantage and its moderators influence each aspect of new product performance. This will strengthen findings from previous studies and compensate shortfalls in the literature by examining market orientation and launch proficiency. These important factors moderate the link between product advantage and new product performance in each performance dimension and performance overall. The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 reviews previous literature to summarize the basic ideas, characteristics and fine points of the variables. Section 3 describes the associations among the research model suggested, proposes several hypotheses to be tested, and explains the methodology utilized to analyze the asserted suggestions. Section 4 presents statistical results and explains their analysis. Finally, Section 5 discusses the implications of the findings, limitations of the study, and suggestions for future research.

This article presents a conceptual case and empirical evidence which support and advance the efforts of prior authors. Echoing previous findings, product advantage positively impacts new product performance in total. However, this study further assesses the influence of product advantage on respective dimensions of new product performance. Unlike previous arguments, this study finds that product advantage does not impact each part of new product performance equally. Product advantage has a positive impact on market performance but has a slightly weaker influence on financial performance. On the other hand, market orientation and launch proficiency moderate the relationship between product advantage and new product performance as a whole and on various dimensions. The first implication pertains to the contrast between the findings of this study and prior literature. Extensive findings inform the business community that product advantage is positively related to new product performance, and managers should strive to increase a new product's competitive advantage to maximize its performance. Within this theoretical and empirical perspective, however, some conflicting results emerge. This calls for answers as several meta-studies show that the correlation coefficients between product advantage and product performance have randomly changed from negative to positive (Henard and Szymanski, 2001 and Montoya-Weiss and Calantone, 1994). The findings of the present study complement existing literature by showing that the above mentioned inconsistencies may result from not taking key moderators into account and insufficiently analyzing variable details (i.e., new product performance). This study aims to include two frequently neglected areas in future investigations to increase the explanatory power of product advantage and performance studies. From another perspective, the findings offer another managerial insight. Market orientation has positive contingent effects on the association between product advantage and new product performance. Thus firms with manufacturing capability and skill in producing superior products should particularly emphasize the cultivation of firm-wide market orientation to stimulate product performance. Especially in the biotech industry investigated in this study, the primary challenge for firms requires tremendous investment in R and D, great risks of development failure, and long cost recovery periods. According to Ernst & Young (2004), drug development times have increased from eleven years during the 1980's to approximately fifteen years at present. R and D costs also increased from 230 million to 800 million. Only three tenths of drugs can justify the costs, time and R and D resources required for their development (Ernst & Young, 2004). Therefore, it is common for firms in this industry to endure long deficit periods. The findings of this study logically indicate that market orientation influences the link between product advantage and market performance, as well as, product advantage and financial performance. In particular, market orientation helps shape firm's new product strategy and transforms market-accepted new products to financially successful ones. For instance, through the help of customer orientation, firms differentiate “what customers really need” and “what customers like to have”, and thus may gain profits by trimming costly and unnecessary product development and investment. This implication cautions managers not only to pursue the technical advantage of their products, but also to adopt market orientation as a vital catalyst for omni-dimensional product performance. For enterprises that have relatively scarce resources and rely on few new products to survive cannot afford investments concentrating on unsuitable technical strategies focusing only on product advantage which never achieves the product performance (i.e. financial growth) that firms desperately need. However, according to empirical findings of market orientation in the studies of the 1990s, observers have also detected some possible negative effects of being market orientated (Narver et al., 2004). According to Christensen and Bower (1996), firms lose their position of industry leadership because they listen too carefully to their customers. This is especially true in the biotech business, where customers usually do not know what they want, and responding to customers' wishes too closely may jeopardize a firm's innovativeness and opportunities to grasp new technology. Therefore, Narver et al. (2004) suggest that a “proactive” market orientation is necessary, in which a business attempts to discover the latent needs of its customers. A third implication of this study is that proficiency in launch tactics is a positive booster in the relationship between product advantage and product performance in total, and individual dimensions. Although not empirically supported in this study, launch strategies, market testing, and budgeting are all crucial competencies (Hsieh et al., 2006, Hultink et al., 2000 and Langerak et al., 2004) contributing to product success. They should never be overlooked by mangers pursing a product's market acceptance and financial success.