The moderating role of firm age in the relationship between R&D expenditure and financial performance: evidence from Chinese and US mining firms

We examine the impact of Research and Development (R&D) on the profitability and sales of mining firms in China and the United States (US) and the moderating effect of firm age using Coarsened Exact Matching (CEM). For the combined panel of 168 major US and Chinese mining firms, we find that, on average, a firm engaging in R&D activities earns 4% to 11% higher sales and generates 4% to 13% more profits than firms that do not engage in R&D activities. We also show that, in the mining industry, firm age moderates the relationship between R&D activities and financial performance. A comparatively mature R&D active firm earns 4.4% more profit and generates 7.2% more sales than a younger non-innovative firm. The turning point at which R&D activities switch from making a negative, to positive, contribution to profit and sales is 37 years and 22 years, respectively. Our results are consistentwith the liability of newness, meaning that firm investment in R&D takes time to have a real impact on bottom line measures of financial performance. We conclude with a discussion of the practical implications of our results for Chinese and US mining firms.

Marketing research performance and strategy

Purpose - To investigate whether strategic orientation affects the evaluation of specific market research projects in for-profit firms.
Design/methodology/approach - A small-scale follow-up survey was conducted, building on qualitative and quantitative research among a sample of the top-1,000 marketing managers in Australia. The study used an existing market research evaluation tool, the USER scale and items generated from the qualitative research, to investigate the firm's most recent market research project.
Findings - Four market research performance factors were identified - market research as a knowledge enhancing (KE) function, the internal political use of market research, the misuse of market research and the generation of market understanding. The Miles and Snow strategy types were related to these factors, with Prospector types more likely to use market research rationally and less likely to use it for internal political purposes. Tactical projects were more likely to be misused than were those with a strategic orientation. Prospectors were far less likely and analysers far more likely to misuse tactical research projects. Prospectors were more often satisfied with the performance of their most recent market research. The Porter typology was less successful in predicting market research performance.
Research limitations/implications - The study was based on a small sample of market research projects in Australian for-profit firms. Future studies need to study these phenomena more intensively using ethnographic methods and more extensively using larger multi-country samples.
Practical implications - Market research suppliers should learn the nature of their client's strategic intent to improve their effectiveness. Defender firms should carefully monitor the use of market research, especially that of a tactical nature, which may be wasted or misused.
Originality/value - Contributes to an understanding of how strategic orientation relates to the ways market research information is used within the firm.

Internal social performance motivators

The growth in research and writing on social reporting over recent years has seen an overwhelming focus on the external reporting of social performance measures. A remaining gap in our knowledge relates to what motivates managers to make socially aware decisions. This project identified relevant factors that guide decision-making in a firm that publishes audited social responsibility reports.

Decades of research efforts to link economic and environmental performance: still data in search of a theory?

With the proliferation of social investment vehicles, stakeholders, particularly investors, are increasingly aware of the relationship between economic, social and environmental performance, and disclosure to external parties. This is particularly evident in The Securities and Exchange Commission's Environmental Disclosure Rules. The thesis of this paper is that, after three decades of academic and professional research efforts, there are still no firm proactive guidelines to firmly link the financial performance with environmental and social performance. The purpose of this paper is to revisit empirical research efforts spanning three decades in order to delineate potential links that may assist in systematic, comparable reporting

A conceptual model of the role of marketing employees in marketing performance

In general, there is a gap in research in marketing in relation to understanding the role of marketing employees in organisational marketing performance. An exception to this is the performance of salespeople as a subset of all marketing employees. Broader human resource management research into the people-performance link is also severely limited The proposed model argues that marketing employees are one of an organisation's strategic assets and are essential to the superior performance of the firm. Based on the People and Performance model (Purcell et al. 2003), the current model conceptualises marketing employee competencies as a precursor to performance outcomes and is, specifically, concerned with identifying and understanding the nature of the marketing employee performance relationship. Of note, where current performance research, in the main, adopts intermediate measures of labour turnover and labour productivity, this model proposes a three-tiered approach to performance measurement.

A strategic approach to target marketing-choosing the preferred generic customer : a model of shareholder value performance

In recent years the contribution of the marketing function has changed and interest now centres on its contribution to a firm’s financial performance. The Marketing Science Institute in the USA has stated that it is the number one marketing issue facing corporate America. The Australian Marketing Institute is promoting a set of marketing metrics that will help Australian firms measure the function’s contribution to shareholder value creation. Much of the literature relates notions such as customer satisfaction and other marketing activities with a firm’s profit. A missing link appears to be the choice firms make in terms of which customer groups to target and the resultant impact on shareholder value performance. The generic customer groups comprise: existing customers, former customers and prospects. A review of the literature reveals that marketing costs and benefits vary across these groups. The challenge for management is to determine which group represents the best target and to allocate scarce marketing resources accordingly. The task is made even more challenging because the economic value of members within each group also varies and some product lines may be unprofitable and therefore, may not be worth pursuing. To generate superior shareholder value it may not simply be the case of acquiring the maximum number of new customers from any source but to find the appropriate mix of the generic customer groups and manage the individual customer relationships accordingly. This paper seeks to firstly summarise and review the recent literature on marketing and its relationship to shareholder value and secondly to propose a model for allocating marketing resources across generic customer groups in order to generate improved shareholder value performance. Importantly, the model not only covers increasing business with customers but also shedding customers or shedding the extent of business conducted with customers as means of generating shareholder value.

Corporate social responsibility : a resource-based view of the firm

This paper reviews the application of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) as an intangible dynamic resource, its application in the formulation of marketing strategies and its association with business performance, using the theoretical framework of resource-based view of the firm (RBV). The study aims to address the control and governance of the application of the CSR with respect to self-control and regulatory control of corporate compliance. A model of CSR is suggested that represents the predictors of the construct (CSR) to facilitate the test of its usefulness in explaining the extent to which organisations may choose to be socially responsible.

CSR orientation and organisational performance in the Australian retail industry

This paper aims to contribute to current business ethics literature by conceptualising the relationship between organisational culture, corporate strategy, and target stakeholders and the formation of a CSR orientation. The paper will further explore whether corporate social responsibility policies and practices will result in an overall improved positional advantage for the firm and, as a consequence, positively enhance organisational performance. These relationships will be examined within the context of the retail industry in Australia, focusing on the food, clothing and textiles, and footwear sectors.

Corporate social responsibility : corporate reputation, business performance and public liability

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) may be viewed as a business strategy rather than a philanthropic concept. The increasing use of CSR as a corporate core strategy, in reaction to consumers‘ growing sentiments, can influence aggregate consumption and consumers‘ quality of life. As such, CSR would be of interest to the policy makers and may become subject to corporate governance and control mechanism. CSR is largely unregulated. Reliance on corporations‘ self-restraint and voluntary initiatives is inadequate to protect the society and avoid the disadvantages that may emerge from the potential deceptive practices in using a CSR strategy. This study investigates the evidence of economic benefits as incentives to corporations for using CSR. CSR is measured in terms of the firm‘s relationships with primary stakeholders. A model is constructed to identify the primary stakeholders and to estimate the association between CSR, corporate reputation and business performance. Policy implications of CSR are discussed.

Market fit and business performance : an empirical investigation

This paper argues that an organisation needs to be managed for its fit to its intended target market. Market fit is defined as the capability configuration of a firm moderated by the relevant factors in the external environment. It is conceptualised within the integrated dynamic resource-based view of the firm. The study is based on survey data collected from 216 larger Australian businesses. Drawing on the existing literature on the resource-based view of the firm (RBV), a model of market fit has been developed and tested empirically. The results of the study suggest that the intangible internal assets of marketing planning, decision-making process, and marketing strategy form the core capability configuration of an organisation and that the market fit measure associates positively with business performance indicators. The assertion is that while the internal intangible assets form the core capability of an organisation, this capability is influenced by the market dynamics that may alter its character, intensity, and effectiveness in relation to its intended business performance objectives.

Measuring the performance of a regional cluster in innovation facilitation

Regional industry clusters have been promoted for several years as effective mechanisms to assist firms become more innovative and more competitive. But do they really achieve this goal, and more importantly, just how should an assessment of cluster performance in supporting and facilitating innovation within its members, be undertaken? In this paper we report on a study of a regional IT cluster in Western Sydney, Australia, develop some criteria for assessing the innovation facilitation performance of industry clusters, and discuss the cluster in relation to these criteria. We suggest that engagement with a cluster may enhance the innovation capacity of a firm, and the type of required innovation support varies significantly with the maturity and absorptive capacity of individual firms.

Chinese construction industry performance after entry into the world trade organization

The Chinese construction industry has had significant activity in the international market in the last decade following the entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). However the degree of activity and the sector performance is still relatively uncertain. A review of the literature in this field indicates that there is very little rigor in relation to adoption of quantitative measurement and performance indicators for internationalization, in particular for the measurement of the degree of internationalization specifically related to the international construction sector at both firm and country level. In addition the estimation of the influence and status of a country's construction activity in the international market has not been considered. There are useful indicators that we can borrow and consider from mainstream economics literature, such as, Dunning's Eclectic Paradigm (based on the ownership (0), location (L) and internalization (1) advantages of a firm) and Low et al.'s OLI+S Model (based on the Ownership, Location, Internalization and Specialty). Through an analysis of the attributes of the Chinese construction industry and a discussion on trends for the last decade, this paper proposes to develop a new model by adapting the Dunning model and acknowledging the significance of "Specialty" to measure the degree of internationalization both at the firm and country level. The International Level and Status Index was generated to measure the level and status of a country's construction industry in the international market by adopting the Depth Index (revenue composition), Height Index (top enterprises) and Width Index (fields involved). The key finding is that the degree of internationalization of Chinese construction industry and the status and influence of Chinese construction industry in the international market has not increased quickly. Surprisingly even though China had expectations of high growth after entry to WTO it has in fact declined. Contrarily, both of them declined in the early years after the accession to WTO.

Reflexive capability maturity assessment for firm management of multipartner international projects

This paper reports the findings of a research project which was aimed at developing and promoting a greater understanding of the uniqueness of successful Australian-Malaysian partnerships and joint ventures undertaken on complex multi-partner mega construction projects. The aim of the investigation was to identify the critical success factors specific to such partnerships. The theoretical framework was grounded in a previous empirical study on design firm internationalisation which demonstrated that long-term success in international markets is enhanced by the management of integration of transformation of social, cultural and intellectual capital within the firm. A generic adaptive performance framework mapping the key performance indicators for each of these dimensions was developed which can be modified to unique contexts related to specific geographical localities. In the Australian Malaysian Institute study the framework is tested within the context of firm and shared partnership capital. The broad interpretive framework of adaptive performance was refined as a result of the findings of the four case studies of Malaysian organisations to develop a partnerships capacity performance measurement framework for Malaysian firms working on international projects. Six in-depth interviews were conducted with ten participants across the four Malaysian firms and a thematic analysis was undertaken of the transcripts. A reflexive capability maturity assessment tool was developed from insights gained into the underlying causes of key barriers coupled with common themes emerging in relation to the successful approaches used by case study firms to overcome those barriers. Specific examples of the case study firms' demonstration of reflexive capability in the areas of market knowledge, design management and market entry are presented.

A theoretical framework of alliance performance : the role of trust, social capital and knowledge development

While studies on alliances have been substantial in the international business literature, much is still unexplored in understanding what alliance performance really is and how superior alliance performance is facilitated (Das & Teng 2003). Drawing from research on alliances, we develop a theoretical framework to examine alliance performance by integrating a partner analysis approach, focusing on alliance trust, alliance partners' social capital, and knowledge development from alliance relationships. We consider the level of mutual trust between alliance partners to be the precursor to such relationship (Das & Teng 1998). Trust, we argue, subsequently builds and enhances the partners' social capital. Two types of social capital are considered in this article: internal social capital and external social capital. In developing our framework, we further subscribe to the notion that knowledge is a contributing factor to superior alliance performance, and consider how such relationships influence the development of partners' knowledge in terms of the development in the tacit firm-specific and the more explicit market-specific knowledge. Key managerial implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.