This paper explores the link between quality, cost and concentration. Using concentration and cost data and product quality indicators for 2,244 products in over eighty industries in 1997 and 2002 in the US, a two-stage, ordered probit, random effects estimation explores the impact of...

Quality has typically been regarded as a key strategic component of competitive advantage and, therefore, the enhancement of product quality has been a matter of prime interest to firms. Quality provides a basis for strategic advantage, and thus improvement in product quality may lead to...

Purpose – Widely accepted classifications of benchmarking distinguish between different levels of benchmarking. Strategic‐level benchmarking is considered to be of a higher sophistication than product‐level benchmarking. Such strategic benchmarking would be based on process information...

Purpose – In this study, an optimal green product is selected from three newly developed ecological products and a non-environmentally friendly product. An analytic network process (ANP), used widely for multi-criteria decision making (MCDM), is applied to account for the tradeoff issues among...

Discusses the threats and opportunities presented to US manufacturers by the elimination of the trade restrictions for the European Community (EC), the unification of Germany, and the move towards capitalism in Russia. The biggest challenge will be to get involved in Europe′s industry early...

The inventor of the first personal computer in the world advocates a conceptual shift in the way companies will have to nurture customers and seek innovations in products or services that were designed to satisfy yet to be defined needs.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper it to investigate how sophistication of top management view on information technology (IT) infrastructure influences the firm's IT infrastructure capability and the effect of IT infrastructure capability on new product development (NPD) process outcomes such...

Examines the use of warranty and warrantor reputations, which have been shown to be credible signals of product quality for uni‐national products, to overcome consumers’ negative perceptions about hybrid products. An experiment is conducted, in which the level of warranty coverage and the...

This paper develops a general service sector model of repurchase intention from the consumer theory literature. A key contribution of the structural equation model is the incorporation of customer perceptions of equity and value and customer brand preference into an integrated repurchase...

Purpose – This paper examines consumer motivations for shopping abroad and explores the role of demographic versus socio‐psychological factors in explaining the phenomenon of cross‐border shopping. Design/methodology/approach – Empirical data were collected via personal interviews from...