نوآوری Born-Globals و مشتری مداری: آموزش Born-Globals هند

Born-Global firms, a newly emerging organizational form targeting international markets as a primary source of business from their inception, have innovativeness, requiring an intimate knowledge of their customer, as a primary feature. This study explores how a Born-Global's customer orientation leads to innovativeness through technological capability for customer relationship management (CRM) and external customer information management. Our empirical results, based on responses from 154 Indian managers, indicate that a Born-Global's customer orientation is an effective enabler of its innovativeness, whose effects are mediated by technological capability for CRM and external customer information management. Although significantly affected by customer orientation, the results further indicate that relationship quality with the buyer does not influence a Born-Global's innovativeness. When CRM technology and managing customer information obtained from external sources are employed, customer orientation significantly helps maintain the innovativeness of Born-Globals according to the results.

Born-Globals are a newly emerging type of firm in the international marketplace (Freeman et al., 2006, Knight, 1997, Knight and Cavusgil, 2004, Rialp-Criado et al., 2002 and Zhou et al., 2007). Non-conventional in that they do not follow the traditional route of internationalization suggested in the literature, which advocates that firms are internationalizing their business activities gradually, first expanding into familiar territories, then subsequently expanding into lesser known countries (Cavusgil, 1980, Cavusgil, 1982 and Johanson and Vahlne, 1977). Since the internationalization of firm activities requires learning about local market environments, varying business cultures, languages, and political and legal practices, gradual internationalization is an appropriate strategy for many firms. Recently, some firms have started serving international markets soon after their establishment (Knight, 1997, Knight and Cavusgil, 2004 and Rialp-Criado et al., 2002). Mostly relying on unique product offerings, these Born-Globals are targeting market segments that traditional mega multinational firms are unable to serve because of the emerging nature of such segments and flexibility required to quickly gain market share within these segments (Autio et al., 2000 and McDougall and Oviatt, 2000). This particular aspect of Born-Globals typically favors smaller firms with innovative product offerings due to their flexibility in serving the emerging segments (Knight and Cavusgil, 2004). While innovative product offerings are a key contributing factor to the success of Born-Globals, the specific characteristics that help them become or remain innovative is unknown. Although previous research examining Born-Global firms (e.g., Knight and Cavusgil, 2004 and Moen and Servais, 2002), scholars neglects to examine how Born-Globals remain innovative through their customer focus. Knight and Cavusgil (2004) explore unique product development and other dimensions of firm innovativeness within Born-Globals as an outcome of their international entrepreneurial and marketing orientation. However, they do not address the impact of a Born-Global's strategic customer focus on innovativeness. This study attempts to address this gap in the literature by examining how a Born-Global's customer orientation impacts its innovativeness through various mediator variables. The variables represent strategic resources possessed by the Born-Global firm. In serving and addressing international niche markets, Born-Globals must be effective in understanding and addressing customer needs. Born-Globals are relatively small in size and new to the marketplace (Knight and Cavusgil, 2004). Remaining innovative is crucial for them to gain an advantage against competitors (Knight and Cavusgil, 2004). Recognizing the potential importance of employing a customer focus, this study examines how this strategic orientation ultimately enhances a Born-Global's innovativeness in the context of Indian Born-Globals. Indian Born-Globals have not received significant research attention in the literature although they differ from Born-Globals in other emerging markets including China. While Chinese Born-Globals are manufacturing-based, Indian Born-Globals are more service-based and include call centers, information technology, and software development industries (Zaheer et al., 2009). Unlike their Chinese counterparts, Indian Born-Globals take advantage of fewer language barriers with Western business partners and customers, attributed primarily to their educational background which includes earlier exposure to English (Rai, 2009 and Zaheer et al., 2009). This eases the communication between managers in India and their international customers, allowing them to enter the service industry. However, Born-Globals in China can take full advantage of what international Chinese business networks like Guanxi offer in expanding into international markets ( Zhou et al., 2007), which is not available to Born-Globals in India. In sum, using the Born-Globals in India as the study context is expected to offer additional insights about Born-Globals from the service industry with relatively low language barriers. The remainder of the study is organized as follows. In the next section, we present the conceptual framework along with the hypotheses. Next, the methodology is provided, followed by our results. Finally, a discussion of the results is provided along with our conclusions and limitations of the study.

This study examines how Born-Global firms maintain their innovativeness by exploring relational capabilities (e.g., relationship quality) and internal capabilities (e.g., technological capability for CRM and external customer information management) as outcomes of their customer orientation. The results of the study indicate that a Born-Global's innovativeness can be effectively enhanced by focusing on internal technological capability for CRM and managing externally obtained customer information effectively, and that customer orientation plays a crucial role in enhancing innovativeness through such mediators. We hope that this study sheds light on the role of customer orientation and innovativeness of Born-Globals in retaining their competitiveness in the global marketplace.