Several studies have demonstrated an order-of-entry effect on market share, suggesting that pioneers outperform later entrants. However, other research has pointed out the limitations of these studies and found evidence that many pioneers fail or have low market share. Given this background, the...

Innovation research tends to consider only the post-commercialization period or examine a few innovations through case studies. In this study, we examine 29 radical innovations from initial concept to mass-market commercialization. We find that these innovations were developed over an average of...

We examine the relationship between objective and perceived quality for 241 products in 46 product categories over a period of 12 years. On average, we find that the effect of a change in objective quality is not fully reflected in customer perceptions of quality until after about six years. In...

Researchers in marketing have long recognized that current populations of customers can influence the behavior of prospective customers. This paper draws on existing marketing theories to empirically examine how changes in student body demographic segments influence future demand for MBA...

Good metrics are well-defined formulae (often involving averaging) that transmute multiple measures of raw numerical performance (e.g., dollar sales, referrals, number of customers) to create informative summary statistics (e.g., average share of wallet, average customer tenure). Despite myriad...

Stiving (2000) proposes an interesting model to explain price-endings. His analysis shows that even when customer demand increases at 9-ending price points, certain firms that use high prices to signal quality are more likely to set those prices at round numbers. This comment raises two issues...

New products have been a key focus of research in marketing for decades. As such, there is a huge literature associated with (and numerous books on) the subject, which makes it impossible to provide a comprehensive treatment in this short chapter. To provide some focus, this chapter concentrates...

A consistent pattern observed for really new household consumer durables is a takeoff or dramatic increase in sales early in their history. The takeoff tends to appear as an elbow-shaped discontinuity in the sales curve showing an average sales increase of over 400%. In contrast, most marketing...

Research on the product life cycle (PLC) has focused primarily on the role of diffusion. This study takes a broader theoretical perspective on the PLC by incorporating informational cascades and developing and testing many new hypotheses based on this theory. On average, across 30 product...

We evaluate whether stock prices can predict the sales takeoff and the long-term survival of firms at takeoff. We find that abnormal returns are strongly positive in the year prior to takeoff, thus suggesting an important signal of the takeoff. Moreover, we find that negative abnormal returns in...