Marketing Innovation in Rural Small Food Industries in Iran

Abstract

Marketing innovation is essential for small industries to transform products into profit and therefore, understanding its nature and determinants is of utmost importance. This study aimed at understanding marketing innovation and its determinants in the 60 small food industries in the rural areas of Tehran province, Iran. Using a census sampling method, 111 managers of these firms were interviewed. Results showed that the firms' performance in marketing innovation is generally weak and a higher level of radical innovation in marketing is perceived compared to the incremental innovation. Also, a cause and effect relationship exists between both "product and organizational innovations" and "marketing innovation". Furthermore, while "incremental marketing innovation" was negatively influenced by formal R&D unit, product diversification, and the manager's years of experience, "radical marketing innovation" was affected by the capacity of production, product diversification, and managers' age and education. The study concluded that in order to boost marketing innovation, innovation should be made also in products and organization.Besides, in order to facilitate the process of marketing innovation, practical and up-dated trainings for managers, encouraging incremental innovation in marketing, product diversification, and improving R&D activities in the studied firms should be regarded.

Marketing innovation and sustainable competitive advantage of manufacturing SMEs in Ghana

“…Alternatively, marketing innovation is defined as the significant changes in aesthetic designs, improved product packaging, new mass media, new pricing and sales strategies (Moreira et al, 2012). Yeh-Yun Lin and Yi-Ching Chen (2007) in their study revealed that manufacturing SMEs adopt marketing innovation as one of the major types of innovations to transform their products into profit (Soltani et al, 2015) and also determine the innovation focus of the firm (Woschke et al, 2017). Stošić (2007), therefore, identified four strands of marketing innovation which includes product design and packaging innovation; new pricing strategies; new retail concept and new promotion concepts.…”

“…However, Medrano and Olarte-Pascual (2016) disagreed with this assertion, arguing that it is currently difficult in any academic discourse to limit studies on innovation to any form of innovation. Further studies have shown that SMEs that conduct process, product or organisational innovations are likely to undertake marketing innovation too (Medrano and Olarte-Pascual, 2016;Soltani et al, 2015). A study by Forés and Camisón (2016) reported that SME managers should rather concentrate on the distinguishing feature, which is the "novelty" of the innovation outcome.…”

The Influence of Project Manager’s Age on Project Success

“…Compared to younger project managers, older project managers took more risks, which could be an explanation of higher project failure rate (Fabricius and Büttgen, 2015). Soltani et al's (2015) research in marketing demonstrated that, compared to younger managers, older managers took a more radical approach and demonstrated they were more willing to take risks. According to Henderson et al (2013), young female project managers, in contrast, were found more reluctant to take risks when than older women.…”

Incidencia de la innovación en marketing en el rendimiento empresarial: una aplicación basada en modelamiento con ecuaciones estructurales

“…Por ejemplo, la coordinación intraorganizacional, que es una constituyente de la orientación emprendedora, media el efecto de diversos tipos de innovación sobre el desempeño, pero no es significativa para la innovación en marketing (Jaaffar et al, 2017). Por lo tanto, algunos otros autores plantean que un buen rendimiento administrativo/organizacional no es efecto de la innovación en marketing, sino un prerrequisito (Naidoo, 2010;Soltani, Azadi, Hosseini, Witlox y Passel, 2015).…”