Previous research has identified customer satisfaction and customer-company identification as two of the most important concepts in relationship marketing. Yet despite their proclaimed importance, research on their long-term effectiveness is surprisingly scarce. Furthermore, comparative research acknowledging the concepts' different theoretical roots and illuminating the differences in their long-term effectiveness is lacking. In addition, little is known about how competitive actions affect the long-term effectiveness of both concepts. This study makes a first attempt to address these research gaps and offers a comparative analysis of the effectiveness of customer satisfaction and customer-company identification in driving important customer outcomes over time. Latent growth analyses of rich longitudinal data from customers over nine measurement points spanning 43 weeks (n = 6,930) show that customer satisfaction and customer-company identification have positive initial effects on customers' loyalty and willingness to pay but differ in their ability to maintain these positive effects over time. Whereas the positive effects of customer satisfaction decrease more rapidly, the effects of customer-company identification are significantly more persistent. Analysis of the moderating effects of relative competitive advertising suggests that customer-company identification is more effective at immunizing customers against competitive actions.

This paper adds to the emerging literature stream advocating a contingency view on open innovation. Drawing on the relational view of the firm, this study sheds light on the complex interplay among collaboration partner types (market‐ and science‐focused innovation partners), governance modes (informal, self‐enforcing and formal, contractual collaboration governance), and internal research and development(R&D). More specifically, it is proposed that the use of governance modes tailored to both the characteristics of each innovation partner type and the specific innovation objectives pursued by the focal firm (incremental and radical new product development) can increase the payoff from innovation collaboration. Moreover, appropriate collaboration governance is expected to reduce the focal firm's vulnerability to possible negative side effects often assumed to be associated with the simultaneous pursuit of external collaboration and internal R&D, among which most notably the not‐invented‐here (NIH) syndrome. Cross‐industry evidence from 2502 German firms underlines the critical role of collaboration governance—a contingency factor that is at the heart of the relational view, yet has remained surprisingly absent from the open innovation debate so far.

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