Market Information Processing Research Articles

Labor Market Information System: A Review of Some Practices

Accurate and up-to-date labor market information system, which is conducted with the involvement of public decision markers, technical and vocational education and training (TVET) practitioners, employers and their associations, employee associations, training providers and learners, is an essential feature of a successful TVET system. Similarly, engagement of multiple TVET stakeholders is an important component of overall skills development system which leads to developing responsive labor market skill needs, supporting prioritized economic sectors to foster dialogue among the stakeholders to maintain balance demand and supply of labor right. It enhances integration of labor market requirements in the overall training and skills development cycle and ensures that trainees acquire market-relevant skills for their employability and self-employment. In the context of changing labor market conditions, collecting, compiling, analyzing, and disseminating current and future needs from the TVET customers can support better matching for training and employment. As labor markets are constantly evolving and changing, labor market analysis therefore needs to be conducted on a regular basis so that real time labor market information can be obtained. But the active and regular labor market information process is underexplored in a developing country like Nepal. The main objective of the article is to explore the common practices of Nepali labor market information system and the problems faced by the TVET system. Thus, the article addresses the information gap by diving deep into the clear understanding of labor market, practices of labor market information processes in some South Asian countries, including Nepal and issues and challenges facing the Nepali labor market information process.

Effect of Farmers' Socioeconomic Characteristics on Access to Agricultural Information in Gwagwalada Area Council, Abuja

This study was done to examine the information sources accessible to farmers in the Gwagwalada Area Council, Abuja. All farmers in the study region made up the population, and a sample size of 120 respondents were randomly chosen from this group. A well-structured questionnaire was used to gather data for this study's main sources. Descriptive statistics and the logit regression analysis model were used to evaluate the data. The findings showed that the majority of farmers (42.5%) were between the ages of 36 and 50, were married, and had households with 11 to 20 people. Additionally, the farmers (43%) make between N100,001 and N500,000. Results of the research revealed that farmers have access to some information such as information on fertilizer application, land preparation, improved varieties, fertilizer rate application, pest and diseases, market information and storage and processing. Few farmers had access to information on climate change, proper irrigation and farm machineries. The major source of information was radio, friend and relatives, farmers association and television. Education, marital status, and property size were all significant at the 5% level of probability, according to a logistic regression analysis of socioeconomic characteristics. The study came to the conclusion that radio, family, and friends are the most accessible sources of knowledge. The study comes to the conclusion that socioeconomic factors like gender, employment, annual revenue, farm experience, education, and farm are important for farmers. In order to motivate farmers to purchase some of the facilities that depend on these amenities to operate and provide access to information, it was suggested that the government make basic services like electricity and internet connections more affordable.

Big Data and Firm Performance: An Outside-in Approach

ABSTRACT Little research has been undertaken into how marketing capabilities can leverage on big data analytics to improve firm performance. This study investigates whether an outside-in customer relationship management (CRM) linking capabilities can leverage big data analytics and organizational resources to improve firm performance. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze data collected from 315 employees in Jordanian companies. The results indicate that big data analytics presented through the amalgamation of data, technology, and human skills have a strong impact on CRM linking capabilities. Also, market information processing capabilities combining customer-focus and inter-functional coordination for knowledge interpretation also have a positive effect on CRM linking capabilities. CRM linking consequently has a positive impact on multi-dimensional firm performance. This study contributes to the field of big data through its adoption of an outside-in approach that integrates a range of capabilities into an integrative framework that delineates the process of successful big data.

Value Chain Analysis of Pineapple (Ananas Comosus) Production and Marketing from Traditional Agroforestry System, Southern Ethiopia

Southern Ethiopia is known with favorable environment for pineapple, coffee and many other horticultural crop Production. However, the practice has been facing a number of production and marketing constraints. The aim of the present study was therefore; identifying the value chain actors and their roles, mapping the value chain of pineapple production and marketing, and examining the determinants of market supply. Using purposive sampling technique, 105 households were selected from three representative peasant associations for in depth survey. Both primary and secondary data was collected using a combination of PRA tools. Descriptive statistics and econometric analysis using Ordinary Least Square (OLS) were used to analyze the collected data. The result revealed that both primary and secondary actors were involved in pineapple production and marketing. The percentage of market margin for producer, assembler, whole seller, retailer and processor actors were 9.41, 11.86, 18.33, 26.96 and 33.43%, respectively. Producer (34.20%), assembler (3.30%), whole seller (17.39%), retailer (26.78%) and processor (18.33%) were sharing percentage of profit margin in pineapple production. The result of the OLS regression analysis model indicated that market supply of pineapple was affected by wealthy status and duration of storage (p<0.05) and price (p<0.01), positively. Enhancing the local actors’ capacity through training, providing price and market information, credit and other processing facilities and institutional support could result in increasing production and steady supply of the pineapple products. Keywords: actors, pineapple producers, profit margin, value chain DOI : 10.7176/FSQM/84-01

Synergies and tensions between and within domestic and international market activities of firms

The distinction between domestic and international market activities has an idiosyncratic meaning for international business research. This study examines the significant yet unclear role of domestic market activities for the internationalizing firm through the theoretical lens of exploitation and exploration. By means of five qualitative case studies, we show that both the dynamics between domestic–international market activities and the interplay between exploitation–exploration are intrinsically concerned with synergies and tensions. Our findings uncover how firms leverage these synergies and manage these tensions that manifest between and within their domestic and international markets. Synergies and tensions are found to revolve around ambidexterity, networks and organizational market information processes.

Beyond mere information transfer: The importance of a relational approach to market-related internal communication

ABSTRACTDespite the significance of relationship management in any information provision or exchange, public relations scholarship has typically focused on examining the underlying internal communication processes from a transactional perspective. These processes are frequently associated with organizational information dissemination, overlooking other critical contents to make strategic decisions. This study draws market information processing into the debate about internal communication, providing a greater understanding of how a relational approach can improve market intelligence dissemination. Results show that an effective management of market knowledge requires the use of such an approach, which in turn, cultivates the shared interpretation of market information and innovation performance. The findings stimulate fresh discussion about the nature and development of internal communication knowledge and practice.

How crowdsourcing improves prediction of market-oriented outcomes

Firms often struggle to be proficient in predicting uncertain market conditions and forecasting the outcomes of their business initiatives. This research introduces crowdsourcing as an innovative tool that can enhance market information processing, and in turn, improve prediction of market-oriented outcomes (e.g., sales). We field test a forecasting tournament with employees at a Fortune 100 consumer packaged goods firm, and examine the extent to which predictions based on the “wisdom of the crowd” outperform those generated by traditional forecasting approaches. We find that crowdsourcing produces results superior to the firm's incumbent approaches almost three-fourths of the time across a broad range of business decisions. Additionally, we conduct a survey with participants to open up the “black box” of crowdsourcing. We find that differences in information acquisition and interpretation are the underlying mechanisms that can explain the improved prediction accuracy found through crowdsourcing.

Integrated Market-related Internal Communication: Development of the Construct

Although companies are increasingly using integrative communication processes to develop and improve market information dissemination, research in marketing has typically conceptualised and measured dissemination in terms of the use and frequency of information-sharing activities. In view of this asynchrony between theory and practice, this research explores the above neglected domain of market information dissemination, proposing a new construct that we call ‘integrated market-related internal communication’ (IMIC), which encompasses the integrative communication processes implemented by firms aimed at enhancing employees' market information processing. After conceptualising IMIC as a fourdimensional construct, we developed and validated a measurement instrument for assessing this emergent concept. In particular, the proposed dimensions were confirmed as reflective factors of the higher order-construct IMIC, and nomological validity was assessed by demonstrating the positive influence of IMIC on both employees' capacity to assimilate market information and shared interpretation of this information.

Integrating Multiple Stakeholder Issues in New Product Development: An Exploration

Addressing the interests of a wide set of stakeholders is important because it may have positive effects on financial performance. At the same time, however, it is also very complex because managers may face conflicting stakeholder issues, much more so than organizations that listen to only one stakeholder. Little is known about how multiple stakeholder issues are dealt with in the context of new product development (NPD). The objective of this study is to delineate the elements of stakeholder integration in the context of NPD. A combination of insights from stakeholder theory and market information processing serves as a theoretical perspective to guide the empirical exploration in this study. The authors take the development of green (ecological) products as an empirical context for their qualitative multiple case study. Specifically, they selected four case studies with different expected levels of stakeholder integration, based on literature about green NPD. Data were collected through in‐depth interviews with key informants, collecting documents, and obtaining artifacts. In total, 28 informants from various domains were interviewed. Transcribed interviews were coded using qualitative analysis software. The results show that a distinction needs to be made between market and nonmarket stakeholders, and that not all organizations are equally capable of identifying issues that are important to both categories of stakeholders. Organizations that identify issues that are relevant to both market stakeholders and nonmarket stakeholders are more likely to face tensions between stakeholder issues in NPD. Organizations manage these tensions using several, sometimes redundant, coordination mechanisms and using multiple prioritization principles in conjunction. Based on the results, the authors conceptualize stakeholder integration capability in an NPD context as the combination of stakeholder issue identification techniques, coordination mechanisms, and prioritization principles. They propose that stakeholder integration capability is the result of a learning process. Moreover, they propose that proactivity of environmental management and environmental impact of the industry help to explain why stakeholder issue identification techniques are developed, and that the identification of more stakeholder issues leads organizations to develop coordination mechanisms and prioritization principles. Finally, the authors propose that stakeholder integration capability leads to competitive advantage through organizational identification by stakeholders. The study implies that integrating multiple stakeholder issues is not just a matter of feeding additional information into NPD processes, but of changing the nature of these NPD processes.

The interplay between outbound team strategy and market information processing in the course of ‘really new’ NPD projects

The purpose of the study is to explore how and when outbound team strategy – reaching out to other parts of the organization – plays a role in market information processing in really new NPD. Prior research mainly focused on intra-team factors, such as cross-functional integration, affecting market information processing in NPD. We conducted a comparative longitudinal case-study of two really new NPD projects, Shield and Anti-resist, in one chemical firm using in-depth-interviews and archival data. Case findings suggest that lack of market information processing in Shield compared with Anti-resist was rooted in differences in outbound strategies between the two projects rather than intra-team factors. While the literature has praised decentralization for enhancing information processing and creativity, we conclude that this comes with the responsibility of individual NPD teams to proactively reflect on their own marketing actions along the way in really new NPD. This implies that managers better recognize team behavior and adapt their control mechanisms to incorporate outbound team strategies.

Deep Sea vs. Inshore Fishing – Impact of Market Information Internationalization on NPD Performance

Our study examines market information processing in five different stages of the new product development (NPD) process (idea stage, R&D stage, design stage, test stage, and launch stage) and its impact on overall NPD performance. It demonstrates that using market information is especially important in the early and late stages of the NPD process. Moreover, it zooms into the location of the market information by distinguishing between domestic and international sources. Our results show that domestic market information can well be superior to foreign market information. We test our hypotheses using a panel sample of more than 1,500 German companies from both manufacturing and services.

New Venture Performance in China, Japan, and the United States: The Impact of Formalized Market Information Processes

New venture companies, starting from small entities comprising entrepreneurs and their teams, start to grow in scale by instigating formalized processes to enhance management efficiency. This includes the use of formalized processes for collecting and disseminating market information. Despite the fact that utilizing market information is one of the fundamental factors of market orientation, little is known about the way market information is processed in new venture companies. The first aim of this research was to investigate the impact of formalized market information acquisition and utilization on new venture performance. The second objective was to investigate the effect of organizational formalization on the acquisition and utilization of market information in new venture firms. The final goal was to explore the extent to which these relationships vary in different cultural contexts. Based on an extensive literature review and interviews with managers in China, Japan, and the United States, a conceptual framework is developed that relates formalized market information processes to new venture performance in the three countries. The conceptual model is tested with data collected from 453 new venture companies in these countries. The results suggest that the use of a formalized process of market information utilization has a positive effect on new venture performance regardless of country. The analysis also indicates that the effect of organizational formalization, in general, differs between countries. Organizational formalization is associated with increased formalized utilization of market information only in the United States; the relationship does not apply in the two Asian countries studied. Taken together, these results suggest that in the Asian countries, organizational formalization improves information collection, while in the United States, it also improves the utilization of information throughout the organization. One implication of these results may be the potential of added benefits accruing to organizational formalization in new ventures in countries with high levels of individualism and/or high levels of power distance, where organizational power is concentrated in formal vertical reporting relationships, as opposed to informal horizontal peer‐to‐peer networks.

Market Information Processing in New Product Development: The Importance of Process Interdependency and Data Quality

While there is a growing interest in the role of market information processing activities (i.e., the acquisition, dissemination, and use of market information) in new product development (NPD), a number of gaps remain in our knowledge on this topic. When investigating the performance impact of market information processing, most studies have treated the three activities as independent. Our research adds to the extant knowledge by exploring not only both direct relationships between each of the market information processing activities and new product performance, but also interaction effects. We, thus, ask the question of whether there may be synergies in obtaining performance increases by jointly improving two processing activities, rather than just considering each activity independently. In addition, we investigate these effects for different levels of information quality; a topic largely neglected in the market information processing literature. Our analysis is based on empirical data from 152 Dutch NPD projects. The results indicate that market information acquisition and use are both directly associated with increased performance. We also find significant interaction effects for information acquisition and dissemination, and for information dissemination and use. Finally, the importance of information quality is emphasized, with lower quality information producing lower performance and wiping out the effects between various aspects of market information processing and new product performance. We provide several implications of our findings for managers and academics.

Market Information Acquisition, Use, and New Venture Performance*

A substantial body of existing research has linked firm performance to the acquisition and use of customer, competitor, and other market information. This paper examines the impact on new venture performance of formal processes for market information collection and use. This study hypothesizes that new venture performance will be an increasing function of both market information and use. Two moderator hypotheses are also tested. In particular, it is expected that the impact of formal market information processes will be greater in market‐driven new ventures than in technology‐driven new ventures. These hypotheses were tested using data collected from 222 Chinese new ventures. The empirical analysis confirms the positive role of formal processes in new venture performance. However, the analysis does not support the moderator hypotheses. This study finds that (1) formal processes for information acquisition are equally important in technology‐driven and market‐driven firms and (2) formal processes for information use have a greater impact on new venture performance in technology‐driven firms than in market‐driven firms.

Market Information and New Venture Performance: Differences Between Established and Emerging Technology Standards

<para xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> The authors examine the significance of formal processes for market information acquisition and use as antecedents to success of Chinese new ventures. Building on insights from the entrepreneurial planning literature, the authors construct a theoretical model in which formal processes for market information and market utilization have direct, positive main effects on new venture financial performance, and in which the existence of an established technology standard has a direct effect on performance and also affects the relationship between market information processes and performance. The authors test hypotheses derived from the model using a dataset comprising 222 Chinese new ventures. Consistent with expectations, the authors find that new venture financial performance was positively associated with the use of formal processes for the generation of market information. However, the impact on performance of formal processes for market information utilization depended on the firm's technological environment. In particular, for firms facing an established technology standard, the use of formal processes for market information utilization did not significantly affect performance. In contrast, the use of formal processes for market information utilization had a significant impact on performance among ventures that faced an emerging technology standard. </para>

Innovation and performance outcomes of market information collection efforts: The role of top management team involvement

Research on organizational market information processing in marketing has not yet examined a key issue associated with information collection: the role of top management team (TMT) involvement. Research in marketing has typically studied market information collection efforts from the perspective of employees and market research companies, overlooking the role that the TMT plays in these efforts. While prior research on top managers suggests that they are often not active participants in the collection of market information, this study examines whether and under what conditions TMT involvement in market information collection efforts can contribute to a firm's innovativeness and performance. The key contribution of the study involves the development and testing of a model that shows (1) the positive effect of TMT involvement in market information collection efforts on firm innovativeness above and beyond employees' market information collection efforts; (2) the moderating effect of firm size and industry context (i.e., high-technology versus low-technology) on model relationships, indicating that the relationship is stronger for smaller firms and high-technology companies; and (3) the mediating effect of firm innovativeness on the relationship between TMT involvement in market information collection efforts and overall business performance. We test our model in a business-to-business context.

The impact of formal processes for market information acquisition and utilization on the performance of Chinese new ventures

The authors examine the performance impact of formal market information processes. Specifically, a theoretical model is developed that hypothesizes that formal processes for market information acquisition and utilization have direct and positive main effects on new venture success and is then tested using a sample of 222 new ventures located in China. Findings indicate that new venture success is positively correlated with the use of formal processes for market information acquisition and use. Moreover, the relative importance of formal processes to the acquisition and use of market information depends on whether the new venture serves an emerging or established market. In particular, the impact of formal processes for information acquisition is higher among new ventures that serve emerging markets. In contrast, the impact of formal processes for information use is higher among new ventures that serve established markets. We present managerial implications of our results. For example, a new venture with a strong market orientation can respond quickly to emerging marketplace needs, and can even seize the advantage from incumbents. If it is in an emerging market, however, the new venture management team should strive to excel at information acquisition; in an established market, it is important for the management team to excel at information utilization.

Do market information processes improve new venture performance?

Does market information improve new venture performance? While some researchers argue that entrepreneurs do not need formal processes to collect and use market information, others suggest that the use of formal market information processes is positively related to firm performance. In this paper, we hypothesize that new venture performance is an increasing function of (1) the firm's level of customer interaction and (2) the use of formal processes for collecting and utilizing market information. We also hypothesize that these linkages will be stronger among new ventures serving emerging markets (i.e., markets in which customer needs and segments are evolving). We test these hypotheses using data collected from 224 new ventures located in the United States. Our findings indicate that, regardless of market condition, formal processes for the collection of market information are positively associated with the use of formal processes for market information utilization and this relationship is stronger among firms serving established markets. In addition, new venture performance is positively associated with the use of formal processes for utilizing market information and this relationship is also stronger in established markets. We also find that, in emerging markets, new venture performance is a positive function of the use of formal processes for collecting market information. Contrary to expectations, we find that, regardless of market condition, the level of customer interaction has a negative relationship with the use of formal processes for market information utilization and no significant relationship with performance.

Further critique of GARCH/ARMA/VAR/EVT Stochastic-Volatility models and related approaches

This article critiques models of market risk (ARMA, GARCH, ARCH, EVT, VAR, Stochastic-Volatility, etc.). The existing metrics for quantifying risk such as standard deviation, VAR/GARCH/EVT/ARMA/SV, etc. are inaccurate and inadequate particularly in emerging markets; and do not account for many facets of risk and decision making; and do not incorporate the many psychological, legal, liquidity, knowledge, and price-dynamic factors inherent in markets and asset prices. Areas for further research include: (a) development of dynamic market-risk models that incorporate asset-market psychology, liquidity, market size, frequency of trading, knowledge differences among market participants, information (capabilities and processing, and trading rules in each market); and (b) further development of concepts in belief systems.

Modeling market information processing in new product development: An empirical analysis

This research explores the antecedents and consequences of market information processing during the development process of new high-tech products. To this end, we develop and test a conceptual model for market information processing in three generic stages of the new product development (NPD) process (predevelopment, development and commercialization). In addition, we explore the relationships between market information processing, its antecedents, and product advantage and success. We test our model with responses from 166 NPD-managers in Dutch high-tech firms. The findings show that the market information processing variables are related differentially to new product outcomes, even when controlling for product advantage and product newness to the market. In addition, we found that companies can enhance market information processing for new high-tech products by influencing project priority and flexibility to new products, and by reducing interdepartmental conflict.