External Interfaces or Internal Processes? Market Positioning and Divergent Professionalization Paths in Young Ventures

We explore how the initial market positioning of entrepreneurial ventures shapes how they professionalize over time, focusing specifically on the development of functional roles. In contrast to existing literature, which presumes a uniform march toward professionalization as ventures scale and complete developmental milestones, we advance a contingent perspective, distinguishing between the development of external interface functions (marketing & sales and customer development) and internal process functions (accounting, human resources, and finance). Specifically, we argue that positioning in an unconventional market space raises demand for external engagement that focuses ventures’ attention and resources toward developing external interface roles. At the same time, such unconventional ventures are less apt to elaborate their internal process roles relative to more conventional peers. We test these predictions using a novel longitudinal data set on the internal organizations of 3,748 U.S.-based entrepreneurial ventures. In contrast to common assumptions of convergent professionalization, our theory and findings advance the perspective that ventures pursue divergent professionalization paths based on their initial market positioning as they scale up.

Customer-led versus market-oriented: An investigation of the lean startup methodology framework

<p>Market-oriented approach to customer development has been strongly associated innovativeness and new product success. There is also evidence to suggest customer-led approach, or responding to explicit customer needs, impedes innovation. This thesis investigates whether the increasingly popular Lean Startup Methodology (LSM) favours customer-led or market-oriented approach to discovering and learning about customer needs. The study was conducted using a participatory action research methodology. The LSM was used as a framework for investigating the commercial value of two researched projects originating from within Victoria University. The LSM was also applied to a third project founded by the Master of Advanced Technology Enterprise (MATE) team. The LSM process is shown to assist in the discovery of both explicit and latent customer needs. However, which one the framework favours depends on whether the product or the market is the primary driver of the validation process. In one instance the entrepreneur is deliberately looking to discover a present market need in order to align it with a pre-defined solution, while the alternative is to study the market in order to identify an opportunity followed by the development of a specific solution. The latter is shown to support becoming market oriented. The findings also suggest Domain Knowledge plays a vital role in establishing and maintaining market-oriented approach to customer development. Domain knowledge aids in understanding market data in order to extract novel and meaningful insights. Establishing close relationships with emerging customers and „lead users‟ in a particular market is shown to be an effective method of compensating for a lack of domain knowledge. What‟s more, the presence of preconceived prototypes is shown to negatively impact on the entrepreneur‟s ability to approach customer development in a market-oriented manner. By drawing on the MATE team‟s experiences, this thesis aims to provide practical lessons for individuals and teams that are looking to take a market-oriented approach to customer development.</p>

Customer-led versus market-oriented: An investigation of the lean startup methodology framework

<p>Market-oriented approach to customer development has been strongly associated innovativeness and new product success. There is also evidence to suggest customer-led approach, or responding to explicit customer needs, impedes innovation. This thesis investigates whether the increasingly popular Lean Startup Methodology (LSM) favours customer-led or market-oriented approach to discovering and learning about customer needs. The study was conducted using a participatory action research methodology. The LSM was used as a framework for investigating the commercial value of two researched projects originating from within Victoria University. The LSM was also applied to a third project founded by the Master of Advanced Technology Enterprise (MATE) team. The LSM process is shown to assist in the discovery of both explicit and latent customer needs. However, which one the framework favours depends on whether the product or the market is the primary driver of the validation process. In one instance the entrepreneur is deliberately looking to discover a present market need in order to align it with a pre-defined solution, while the alternative is to study the market in order to identify an opportunity followed by the development of a specific solution. The latter is shown to support becoming market oriented. The findings also suggest Domain Knowledge plays a vital role in establishing and maintaining market-oriented approach to customer development. Domain knowledge aids in understanding market data in order to extract novel and meaningful insights. Establishing close relationships with emerging customers and „lead users‟ in a particular market is shown to be an effective method of compensating for a lack of domain knowledge. What‟s more, the presence of preconceived prototypes is shown to negatively impact on the entrepreneur‟s ability to approach customer development in a market-oriented manner. By drawing on the MATE team‟s experiences, this thesis aims to provide practical lessons for individuals and teams that are looking to take a market-oriented approach to customer development.</p>

Conversational marketing as a framework for interaction with the customer: Development & validation of the conversational agent's usage scale

Conversational agents are becoming an essential part of a growing number of personal and commercial encounters, bringing the issue of Conversational Marketing to a broader audience. A conversational agent is a developing technology that will be used in various fields throughout life, including e-commerce. The common characteristics of any conversational agent in whatever area are their capacity to engage in one-to-one personalised real-time dialogue with a human user and their availability 24 hours a day. Scale items for conversational agent phenomena have not been created scientifically or managerially in a business environment. The primary goal of this study was to develop and validate a new scale for conversational agents that could be used to quantify individual interactions in conversational marketing. As a result, the creation of a new scale for conversational agents with the objective of measuring individual customer interactions in conversational marketing was separated into two phases: Scale Development and Scale Validation. The Conversational Agent Usage Scale was developed and validated as a consequence of pilot studies. Additionally, this article discusses the practical consequences of conversational marketing, which can now be accomplished through the use of the Conversational Agent Usage Scale, which may be used by Customer Service & Support, Marketing, and Sales departments.

Creative Process Engagement Dan Intrinsic Motivation Sebagai Mediasi Humble Leadership Terhadap Employee Creativity

Creativity has an important role for organizations to implement new services and processes. This implies that employees in the organization must be creative to maintain organizational growth and to face today's business challenges.This Study aims to determine the relationship between humble leadership, creative process engagement, intrinsic motivation, and employee creativity. The study is quantitative with data collection methods using a questionnaire on 145 employees of PT Unilever Indonesia Tbk in the Customer development department and processed using analysis tools Partial Least Square (SmartPLS 3.0). The results show that humble leadership has a positive and significant effect on employee creativity when a leader applies the humble leadership style it will be able to increase the creativity of the employees. Creative process engagement mediates the relationship between humble leadership and employee creativity partially and intrinsic motivation partially mediates the relationship between humble leadership and employee creativity

Penerapan Association Rules untuk Elemen Cross Selling Pada Sistem Informasi Customer Development

Tingkat persaingan yang tinggi dalam dunia bisnis, membuat HPAI harus melakukan strategi yang kuat dalam pemasaran dan penjualan produk. Semakin hari, data transaksi penjualan semakin banyak, dikarenakan ada 1500 transaksi setiap bulan yang terdiri dari 49 produk. Selama ini, data transaksi penjualan dilaporkan kepada pimpinan dan kemudian diarsipkan. Setelah itu, data tersebut tidak diolah dengan benar. Untuk itu diperlukannya sebuah strategi bisnis untuk dapat mengenal pelanggan secara lebih detail dan melayani mereka sesuai kebutuhannya. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) adalah sebuah strategi bisnis untuk memahami, mengantisipasi dan mengelola kebutuhan pelanggan yang potensial. Salah satu bagian dari CRM yakni cross- selling, yang harus didahului oleh analisis yang mendalam mengenai data transaksi pelanggan dengan menggunakan konsep data mining yang melibatkan proses pengambilan sumber informasi dari sebuah transaksi pelanggan. Association rules merupakan salah satu metode dalam data mining yang dapat menghasilkan beberapa pola yang bisa dijadikan strategi penjualan cross selling dalam merekomendasikan suatu produk kepada pelanggan. Nilai minimun support yang digunakan yakni 9% dan 60% yang menghasilkan 3 rules yang nantinya akan direkomendasikan kepada pelanggan melalui email.

Identifying and Prioritizing the Effective Criteria in Selecting Lean Six Sigma Improvement Projects in the Healthcare Sector

The main objective of this study was to identify and prioritize effective criteria in selecting Lean Six Sigma improvement projects in the healthcare and treatment sector in Iran. The present study was an applied research in terms of objective and a descriptive and analytical one according to the research methodology and data collection approach. The research statistical population included experts and managers with experience in the field of implementing the lean six sigma methodology in the field of healthcare and treatment in Iran. We used interviews and questionnaire tools to collect the data. The effective criteria were identified through reviewing previous research, which were then prioritized based on the experts’ opinions using the BWM method. According to the results, out of the six main dimensions and 20 criteria identified, the customer development dimension with a weight of 0.387 and the customer satisfaction criterion with a weight of 0.066 were determined as the most effective dimension and the most effective criterion, respectively. Accordingly, the directors of medical centers and organizations affiliated with the healthcare sector are recommended to pay special attention to these defined criteria of the customer development dimension to effectively implement the lean six sigma methodology and managing an effective customer relationship.