Telecommunications demand forecasting—a review

PurposeFor international product managers, one critical question is how fast a new product is likely to be adopted and diffused in different nations. One possible way to answer this question is by collecting data on the diffusion in a large number of countries and analyzing them. However, one of the main problems associated with collecting data are the lack of sufficient early‐period sales data to ensure reliable estimations. The estimation process becomes even harder since word‐of‐mouth and imitation play significant roles in the adoption of a new product given that the spread of information in a social system is complex. The purpose of this paper is to assess the relationship among social interactions, cultural differences, and the adoption of new products, and propose a new technique to work with the complexity arising from social interactions, as well as the few data points.Design/methodology/approachA conceptual framework is presented and propositions are constructed.FindingsThe study suggests that, while social interactions are an important element for adoption of new products in every country, the strength of their impact on adoption varies across countries based on culture.Research limitations/implicationsThis study contributes by offering a deeper understanding of the impact of social interactions on international innovation adoption and provides a new foundation for the literature by combining individual heterogeneity, cultural differences, and word‐of‐mouth communication in one study.Practical implicationsUnderstanding the effect of cultural variations on the adoption of new products in a specific country will help management in the forecasting of demand by decreasing the perceived uncertainty of foreign cultural environments.Originality/valueEven though diffusion models often describe innovation diffusion patterns over time fairly well, it is unclear how social interaction processes in different countries influence the adoption and diffusion speed of new products. There seems to be a large gap in the international marketing literature since it has long been accepted that personal interactions play a key role in product adoption and dissemination and that individuals communicate differently in the different parts of the world. An understanding of social interactions role on adoption of innovation will contribute to the international marketing field.

<p id="p00005">Successful new product development is an important factor for enterprise to gain competitive advantages, but the diffusion of most new products often ends in failure because the innovative products are not always accepted by the market. Therefore, the industry and academia have conducted a lot of explorations on the issue of new product adoption. New product adoption refers to the process of innovative products from being designed and manufactured to being recognized and adopted by consumers or potential consumers. This paper explores the essential causes of consumers’ new products adoption and the influencing factors of these causes from the perspective of consumers. Through literature review, we find that although many influencing factors such as consumer characteristics and product characteristics have been discussed in the past research on consumers’ adoption of new products, the root reasons have not been discovered. There is also a lack of an overall review of research on consumers’ new product adoption from the perspective of consumers. Therefore, this paper uses the Rogers’ innovation diffusion model as the theoretical basis and extracts the three fundamental reasons for consumers’ new product adoption: innovativeness, product understanding, and susceptibility according to the differences in adoption time and characteristics of adopters. We use this as an analysis framework to further explore the key factors affecting these three fundamental reasons. <break/>The innovations of this paper are as follows: <break/>Previous research mainly analyzed consumers' new product adoption behavior from different aspects such as consumer characteristics, product characteristics, or social influence. Although the research was comprehensive, it failed to explore the fundamental reasons for consumers’ adoption of new products. Our research proposes to systematically explore the root causes of new product adoption from the consumer’s perspective. We extract three essential reasons namely innovativeness, product understanding, and susceptibility for the first time, and construct the research framework based on this. <break/>Previous literature mainly divided consumers into early adopters and late adopters based on the adoption time of new products and the characteristics of adopters without analyzing the mechanism. Our research uses the Roger’s innovation diffusion model as the theoretical basis to make a preliminary distinction between adopters. We expound the essential reasons why consumers become early adopters and late adopters of new products from three aspects: innovativeness, product understanding, and susceptibility. <break/>We also sort out and summarize the influencing factors of consumers’ new products adoption in detail under the framework based on the three aspects of consumer innovativeness, product understanding, and susceptibility. Previous studies rarely considered these three essential reasons, but mainly discussed in isolation from the aspects of consumer characteristics and product characteristics. <break/>Through analysis, it is concluded that early adopters have high innovativeness, high product understanding, and low susceptibility; while late adopters have low innovativeness, low product understanding, and high susceptibility. We also further explore the specific factors influencing consumers’ new products adoption in various dimensions. Future research can be expanded from these three dimensions, combining the deficiencies of existing research, the current environment, and consumption characteristics.

The adoption and diffusion patterns of new products have long been of interest to scholars from management and economics. A plethora of studies aimed at explaining the emergence of the typical S-shaped diffusion curve (Rogers 1983) and identified various drivers that influence the diffusion and adoption of new products.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to further current understanding of the relationship between consumption attitudes and new product adoption and how the relationship may be contingent upon consumers' other characteristics.Design/methodology/approachFollowing a contingency framework, five consumption attitudes derived from Schwartz's value systems framework were examined, along with demographic variables, for their associations with consumer new product adoption (NPA). Negative binominal regression models were estimated using syndicated data from a large urban Chinese consumer sample to test the main and interactive effect hypotheses.FindingsConsumption attitudes have significant effects on NPA. Consumers' adoption of market innovations is associated negatively with their attitude toward existing products and positively with independent decision making and preference for high‐tech products. Further, the magnitude of the effects of consumption attitudes depends on consumers' demographic characteristics. The effects are stronger among consumers who are older and have lower income.Originality/valueUsing syndicated data from a large random sample of urban Chinese consumers, this study offers a deeper understanding of the attitudinal and personal antecedents of consumer new product adoption.

This document contains the information relevant to the development of the inter-networking interfaces underway in the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN)/Internet Inter-Networking (PINT) Working Group. It addresses technologies, architectures, and several (but by no means all) existing pre-PINT implementations of the arrangements through which Internet applications can request and enrich PSTN telecommunications services. The common denominator of the enriched services (a.k.a. PINT services) is that they combine the Internet and PSTN services in such a way that the Internet is used for non-voice interactions, while the voice (and fax) are carried entirely over the PSTN. One key observation is that the pre-PINT implementations, being developed independently, do not inter-operate. It is a task of the PINT Working Group to define the inter-networking interfaces that

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the joint effect of product and international diversification strategies on the performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Spain.Design/methodology/approachThe authors rely on a panel data of small and medium Spanish manufacturing enterprises over the period 1993‐2006, collected from the Spanish Survey of Business Strategies.FindingsThe evidence reveals the existence of a negative relationship between geographic expansion and profitability. Likewise, the adoption of both product and international diversification is not associated with higher performance.Research limitations/implicationsA promising avenue for future research is the analysis of firms located in different countries (for example, emerging economies), or the study of this issue considering factors such as the ownership structure (family firms, the role of the state and banks, etc.).Practical implicationsThe authors' analysis underlines the fact that the distinctive particularities of SMEs – for example, limited resources, lack of previous experience in the adoption of new products and accessing new markets – might constrain diversification as an alternative for firm growth. As a practical implication, Spanish SMEs should overcome their shortcomings before adopting diversification in order to improve the profitability associated with these strategies.Originality/valueAlthough Spain's economic structure is highly segmented and made up of mainly SMEs, research on these companies in this country is rather scarce. In particular, the distinctive characteristics of SMEs mean that diversification might have different performance implications than for larger companies. Moreover, the authors' analysis offers new insights compared to previous research, which has traditionally relied on cross‐section data.

Purpose This paper aims to examine the role of a large competitor’s entry and level of innovativeness in consumer adoption of new products. Design/methodology/approach This paper is based on a comparison between market uncertainty and technological uncertainty. This paper henceforth defines and analyzes the following key factors affecting the purchase intention of small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) new products: type of new products and entry of large competitors. The study further verifies mediator variables that exert impacts: uncertainties regarding both technology and market. Findings The findings are as follows: purchase intention of SME new products does vary according primarily to the product types and entry of large competitors. More specifically, the entry of large competitors reduces uncertainties about really new products, thereby positively affecting SME new products. Originality/value There was no causal relationship found, however, on incrementally new products. Further findings clarify that the mediator variables affecting reciprocal interactions between purchase intention of SME new products and the entry of large competitors hold valid only for market uncertainties and not for technological uncertainties.

New product adoption and sales performance from the importer perspective

The growing demand for mobile and wireless access to Internet services has generated interest in how to use broadband infrastructures to provide such services. In this paper we provide, as a first step, an introductory presentation of alternative architectures for providing wireless Internet access, and in particular, the mobile IP service, when the fixed backbone network, either in the Internet or the public switched telephone network (PSTN) contains ATM entities. All the architectures use an interworking function (IWF) which encapsulates the functions of protocol adaptation, inter-BSC handoff encryption, authentication and packet routing and addressing. The first architecture we consider provides a wireless Internet access service only, without integration with voice services or provision for non-Internet data services (e.g. messaging or fax), and uses a centralized IWF. The second architecture is similar but uses a distributed IWF. We then consider two architectures where voice and data services are integrated. In architecture 3, voice and data services share the radio system only, with switching and other functions being provided separately for each service. architecture 4 not only allows voice and data to share the PSTN switching resources, but also considers the interworking of ATM switches in the PSTN backbones with narrowband PSTN switches as well as Internet ATM transport.

PurposeGiven the increasing number of new products competing for limited shelf space, retailer acceptance of new products is crucial to both retailers and suppliers. However, limited empirical research has investigated what drives retailers to accept or decline a new product offering. Extant research on retailers' new product acceptance focuses mainly on product and market factors. Despite the growing importance of buyer‐supplier relationships in new product marketing, few studies have addressed their influence on retailers' acceptance of new products. This study aims to fill the research gap by proposing a model of retailers' new product acceptance that incorporates the buyer‐supplier relationship perspective.Design/methodology/approachThis study develops an integrated research framework assessing the determinants of retailers' acceptance of new products. Four constructs were derived from the literature on buyer‐supplier relationship marketing and new products literature to investigate their influence on the retailer's decision to adopt a new product. The constructs include buyer‐seller relationship factors (relationship intensity and channel motivation) and non‐relationship factors (product advantage and market competitiveness). Hypotheses were developed and tested with a sample of retailers.FindingsOwing to the lack of appropriate existing scales for the four constructs that influence retailers' adoption of new products, this study developed and validated multiple‐item scales through psychometric scale development procedures. Hypotheses were then tested with ordinary least squares regression analysis, and all factors were found to have a positive relationship with the retailer's acceptance of new products. Results further show that buyer‐supplier relationship factors are stronger predictors of retailer new product adoption than traditional non‐relationship factors.Research limitations/implicationsThis research represents an attempt to incorporate the buyer‐supplier relationship into the process of retailer new product acceptance. Future research directions are discussed, with an emphasis on two‐way viewpoints, multiple supplier choice, and product sales performance after acceptance.Practical implicationsThe willingness of a retailer to stock a new product does not depend solely on product and market factors. In an age of intense competition and seemingly limitless product choices, suppliers must also consider the implications of the buyer‐supplier relationship before entering negotiations with retailers regarding the stocking of a new product.Originality/valueThis paper represents the first study to propose and empirically test a research model that incorporates the literature regarding both buyer‐supplier relationship marketing and new product literature. Suppliers can strengthen their competitive advantage by understanding and enhancing their performance in these factors.

Some firms take salesforce commitment to any new product as a given, seemingly adopting the attitude, “If we build it, they will sell.” However, management has no guarantee of salesforce commitment to a new product. For various reasons, salespeople may fail to sell a new product, or they may engage in dysfunctional behavior during the selling process—for example, misrepresenting the product's benefits to gain short‐term sales. Ensuring salesforce adoption of a new product requires careful consideration of the characteristics of the product, the competitive environment, the firm, and the members of the salesforce. In other words, managers who hope to engender support for a new product would do well to view the salespeople as a first line of customers.Successfully launching a new product to the company's salesforce requires the same high levels of creativity, energy, and managerial insight as does the product's launch into the marketplace. Consequently, managers and researchers need to examine more closely the factors underlying the successful launch of a new product to a firm's salesforce. As a first stop toward gaining greater insight into those factors, Kwaku Atuahene‐Gima develops a model for exploring the characteristics that affect new‐product adoption by the salesforce.His model suggests that a salesperson's commitment to a new product depends, to a large extent, on the salesperson's learning style, performance orientation, and problem‐solving style. For example, he proposes that, compared to their colleagues with systematic problem‐solving styles, salespeople with intuitive problem‐solving styles are more likely to adopt a new product and are less likely to engage in dysfunctional behavior in the selling process.The model also suggests that the salesforce's perceptions of the firm's commitment to new products, tolerance for failure, and attitude toward intradepartmental conflict during the product development process play key roles in determining whether the salesforce will take an active, positive approach to selling the new product. For example, a firm that views occasional failures as opportunities for learning and growth offers an environment in which salespeople can accept the risks that selling a new product entails. The proposed model also takes into account the moderating effects of the product's innovativeness, the intensity of market competition, and the type of sales control systems that the firm uses.

Factors Influencing Patients’ Perspectives of Radiology Imaging Centers: Evaluation Using an Online Social Media Ratings Website

ABSTRACTThis study extended current understandings of the relationships among domain specific innovativeness (DSI), the desire for unique consumer products (DUCPs), perceived new product characteristics (PNPCs), and Chinese consumers’ new product adoption behavior. It also investigated the indirect effect of vicarious learning behavior on Chinese consumers’ acceptance of new products. Data was collected in Shanghai, China. The results demonstrated that DSI and PNPCs were the primary drivers of new product adoption. The study also showed that PNPCs played a mediating role in the relationship between vicarious learning and the adoption of new products by Chinese consumers. The results confirmed the predictive power of DSI and how PNPCs affect Chinese innovative buying behavior. The results also suggest that PNPCs facilitate Chinese consumers’ new product learning behavior.

The effect of medical artificial intelligence innovation locus on consumer adoption of new products

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