Impact of Customer Predictive Ability on Sustainable Innovation in Customized Enterprises

Abstract

Customer-centric service innovation performance has become a common businesses goal to pursue, particularly for service-oriented manufacturing companies. However, the continuous focus on the impact of enterprise resources and capabilities in service innovation fails to truly consider market orientation and customer capabilities as core influencing factors of service innovation performance at an individual level. This article explores new service behaviors driven by market orientation and customer predictive abilities, revealing the process of customer-driven value creation for sustainable innovation within enterprises. Ships are typical representatives of customized enterprises. This study examines the role of customer predictive capabilities in the sustainable innovation of shipbuilding companies, starting from a 20-year historical analysis of the global shipping and shipbuilding markets. By exploring the market orientation characteristics of the shipbuilding and shipping markets, this study investigates the behavioral impact of customer predictive abilities on sustainable innovation within shipbuilding enterprises. Employing time series and panel data in machine learning algorithms, specifically the random forest model, reveals a strong and statistically significant correlation between new ship deliveries and the Baltic dry index (BDI), with larger value ships having a more pronounced impact on the consumer market. The correlation analysis confirms that these two variables, in combination, can comprehensively reflect customer predictive ability and serve as crucial decision criteria for customer investment in new ship production. Furthermore, based on the principal component analysis of customer predictive ability and ship innovation levels Granger causality tests, this study demonstrates that customer predictive ability is a Granger cause of sustainable innovation in customized production. Customer predictive ability influences sustainable innovation in customized enterprises to varying degrees. This research provides valuable insights for shipbuilding companies regarding engaging in sustainable innovation in international markets and understanding the value of international market customers.