IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbrese/v145y2022icp130-143.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

When customer involvement hinders/promotes product innovation performance: The concurrent effect of relationship quality and role ambiguity

Author

Listed:
  • Najafi-Tavani, Saeed
  • Zaefarian, Ghasem
  • Robson, Matthew J.
  • Naudé, Peter
  • Abbasi, Faramarz

Abstract

Despite recent attempts to explain the nature of customer involvement, the question of how to curb its negative effect on product innovation has yet to be explored. This study focuses on the association between customer involvement and developers’ product innovation performance, and relies on relationship management theory and the role hazard perspective to explore what levels of relationship quality and role ambiguity, which coexist in partnerships, can turn ineffective customer involvement into a successful strategy. Using a survey of 273 manufacturing firms, we found an inverted U-shaped relationship between customer involvement and product innovation performance, and verified that the interplay of relationship quality and role ambiguity significantly moderate this association. We unpack the role of our moderators by developing a 2 × 2 matrix of high versus low levels of role ambiguity and relationship quality, and exploring the nature of the association between customer involvement and product innovation performance in each quadrant.

Suggested Citation

  • Najafi-Tavani, Saeed & Zaefarian, Ghasem & Robson, Matthew J. & Naudé, Peter & Abbasi, Faramarz, 2022. "When customer involvement hinders/promotes product innovation performance: The concurrent effect of relationship quality and role ambiguity," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 130-143.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:145:y:2022:i:c:p:130-143
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.03.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296322002296
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.03.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yihui (Elina) Tang & Detelina Marinova, 2020. "When less is more: the downside of customer knowledge sharing in new product development teams," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 288-307, March.
    2. Ruey-Jer (Bryan) Jean & Rudolf R Sinkovics & S Tamer Cavusgil, 2010. "Enhancing international customer–supplier relationships through IT resources: A study of Taiwanese electronics suppliers," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 41(7), pages 1218-1239, September.
    3. Aaron K. Chatterji & Kira R. Fabrizio, 2014. "Using users: When does external knowledge enhance corporate product innovation?," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(10), pages 1427-1445, October.
    4. Oded Shenkar & Yoram Zeira, 1992. "Role Conflict and Role Ambiguity of Chief Executive Officers in International Joint Ventures," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 23(1), pages 55-75, March.
    5. Richard F. J. Haans & Constant Pieters & Zi-Lin He, 2016. "Thinking about U: Theorizing and testing U- and inverted U-shaped relationships in strategy research," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(7), pages 1177-1195, July.
    6. Sungho Park & Sachin Gupta, 2012. "Handling Endogenous Regressors by Joint Estimation Using Copulas," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(4), pages 567-586, July.
    7. Anning-Dorson, Thomas, 2018. "Customer involvement capability and service firm performance: The mediating role of innovation," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 269-280.
    8. Wang, Liwen & Jin, Jason Lu & Zhou, Kevin Zheng & Li, Caroline Bingxin & Yin, Eden, 2020. "Does customer participation hurt new product development performance? Customer role, product newness, and conflict," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 246-259.
    9. Homburg, Christian & Kuehnl, Christina, 2014. "Is the more always better? A comparative study of internal and external integration practices in new product and new service development," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(7), pages 1360-1367.
    10. Tseng, Fang-Mei & Chiang, Lan-Lung (Luke), 2016. "Why does customer co-creation improve new travel product performance?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(6), pages 2309-2317.
    11. Najafi-Tavani, Zhaleh & Mousavi, Sahar & Zaefarian, Ghasem & Naudé, Peter, 2020. "Relationship learning and international customer involvement in new product design: The moderating roles of customer dependence and cultural distance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 42-58.
    12. Hemmert, Martin & Kim, DaeSoo & Kim, Jisun & Cho, BooYun, 2016. "Building the supplier's trust: Role of institutional forces and buyer firm practices," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 25-37.
    13. Morgan, Todd & Obal, Michael & Anokhin, Sergey, 2018. "Customer participation and new product performance: Towards the understanding of the mechanisms and key contingencies," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 498-510.
    14. Coelho, Filipe & Augusto, Mário & Lages, Luis Filipe, 2011. "Contextual Factors and the Creativity of Frontline Employees: The Mediating Effects of Role Stress and Intrinsic Motivation," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 31-45.
    15. Sameer B. Srivastava, 2015. "Intraorganizational Network Dynamics in Times of Ambiguity," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(5), pages 1365-1380, October.
    16. Hwang, Sunil & Kim, Hyojin & Hur, Daesik & Schoenherr, Tobias, 2019. "Interorganizational information processing and the contingency effects of buyer-incurred uncertainty in a supplier's component development project," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 210(C), pages 169-183.
    17. Gounaris, Spiros P., 2005. "Trust and commitment influences on customer retention: insights from business-to-business services," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 126-140, February.
    18. Brown, Brian P. & Mohan, Mayoor & Eric Boyd, D., 2017. "Top management attention to trade shows and firm performance: A relationship marketing perspective," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 40-50.
    19. Carayannopoulos, Sofy & Auster, Ellen R., 2010. "External knowledge sourcing in biotechnology through acquisition versus alliance: A KBV approach," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 254-267, March.
    20. Anna S. Cui & Fang Wu, 2016. "Utilizing customer knowledge in innovation: antecedents and impact of customer involvement on new product performance," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 44(4), pages 516-538, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cubillas-Para, Clara & Cegarra-Navarro, Juan Gabriel & Vătămănescu, Elena-Mădălina, 2024. "Gliding from regenerative unlearning toward digital transformation via collaboration with customers and organisational agility," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kindermann, Bastian & Schmidt, Corinna Vera Hedwig & Burger, Oliver & Flatten, Tessa Christina, 2022. "Why teams matter in customer involvement – The moderating effects of team social cohesion and team autonomy," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 70-83.
    2. Bin Sang & Nasrin Aghamohammadi & Rafidah Md Noor, 2024. "The Effects of Dynamic Strategy and Updating Network Structure Towards Customer Participation Innovation Performance," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 15(2), pages 5480-5510, June.
    3. Najafi-Tavani, Zhaleh & Mousavi, Sahar & Zaefarian, Ghasem & Naudé, Peter, 2020. "Relationship learning and international customer involvement in new product design: The moderating roles of customer dependence and cultural distance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 42-58.
    4. Lu, Keying & Zou, Tengjian & Du, Jian, 2024. "Two forms of customer involvement and new product development performance in the digital context: The moderating role of new product development stage," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    5. Ghasem Zaefarian & Matthew J. Robson & Zhaleh Najafi-Tavani & Stavroula Spyropoulou, 2023. "Relationships of stressors and opportunism in cross-border exchange partnership contexts: When and how monitoring matters," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 54(3), pages 441-475, April.
    6. Yuk, Hyeyeon & Garrett, Tony C., 2023. "Does customer participation moderate the effects of innovation on cost-based financial performance? An examination of different forms of customer participation," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    7. Xie, Xuemei & Wang, Hongwei & García, Javier Sendra, 2021. "How does customer involvement in service innovation motivate service innovation performance? The roles of relationship learning and knowledge absorptive capacity," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 630-643.
    8. Xie, Xuemei & Wang, Lijun & Zhang, Tao, 2023. "Involving online community customers in product innovation: The double-edged sword effect," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    9. Mei, Maggie Qiuzhu & Wang, Le & Yan, Jie, 2023. "Maintaining product quality consistency when offshoring to emerging markets: The role of subsidiary control," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 29(1).
    10. Obadia, Claude & Vida, Irena, 2024. "Export marketing strategy and performance: A focus on SMEs promotion," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(2).
    11. Chao, Shih-Liang & Yu, Ming-Miin & Wei, Sin-Yi, 2024. "Ascertaining the impact of e-service quality on e-loyalty for the e-commerce platform of liner shipping companies," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    12. Gabriela Menet & Marek Szarucki, 2020. "Impact of Value Co-Creation on International Customer Satisfaction in the Airsoft Industry: Does Country of Origin Matter?," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-23, September.
    13. Nguyen Hong Phuoc & Le Nguyen Hau & Pham Ngoc Thuy, 2022. "The dual outcomes of frontliner’s autonomous motivation and deep acting in service co-creation: a dyadic approach," Service Business, Springer;Pan-Pacific Business Association, vol. 16(1), pages 159-186, March.
    14. Yayla, Serdar & Kutlubay, Omer Cem & Cicek, Mesut & Yeniyurt, Sengun, 2023. "Once upon a time in a foreign market: The role of cultural distance in the economic performance of multilateral non-equity partnerships," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(4).
    15. Vaquero Martín, María & Reinhardt, Ronny & Gurtner, Sebastian, 2021. "The dilemma of downstream market stakeholder involvement in NPD: Untangling the effects of involvement and capabilities on performance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 136-151.
    16. Jean, Ruey Jer Bryan & Kim, Daekwan & Choi, Kyuyeong, 2021. "Pattern of information technology use and relationship learning in international customer-supplier relationships," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(4).
    17. Nijssen, Edwin J. & Ordanini, Andrea, 2020. "How important is alignment of social media use and R&D–Marketing cooperation for innovation success?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 1-12.
    18. Wang, Chun-Hsien & Chang, Ching-Hsing & Shen, George C., 2015. "The effect of inbound open innovation on firm performance: Evidence from high-tech industry," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 222-230.
    19. Belkhouja, Mustapha & Fattoum, Senda & Yoon, Hyungseok (David), 2021. "Does greater diversification increase individual productivity? The moderating effect of attention allocation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(6).
    20. Eiteneyer, Nils & Bendig, David & Brettel, Malte, 2019. "Social capital and the digital crowd: Involving backers to promote new product innovativeness," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(8), pages 1-1.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:145:y:2022:i:c:p:130-143. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.