How does innovativeness yield superior firm ...

Copyright © eContent Management Pty Ltd. Innovation: Management, policy & practice (2012) 14(1): 107–128.

How does innovativeness yield superior firm performance? The role of marketing effectiveness Güven Alpay, Muzaffer Bodur, Cengiz Yılmaz+ and Pinar Büyükbalci* *Department of Management, Bog˘aziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey; +Department of Business Administration, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey; *Department of Management, Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey This paper examines the role of marketing effectiveness in the relationship between innovativeness dimensions (e.g., product, market, process, strategic, and behavioral innovativeness) and firm performance. Data were collected via structured questionnaires from 112 firms operating in Turkey and analyzed through hierarchical regression analysis. Findings indicate that different dimensions of innovativeness have different effects on marketing effectiveness and firm performance. The results also support the mediating role of marketing effectiveness in the relationship between firm performance and product and strategic innovativeness dimensions. In addition, several firm characteristics (e.g., firm size, share of foreign capital) are shown to moderate the effects of innovativeness dimensions on marketing effectiveness and overall firm performance.

Keywords: product innovativeness; process innovativeness; behavioral innovativeness; strategic innovativeness; marketing effectiveness

I

ncreasing complexity and dynamism in environmental conditions and customer demand have long been forcing business firms to discover new ways of doing business by means of new tools and perspectives. This new structuring in the business world has been discussed in the management literature mostly in terms of such concepts as ‘innovation’ and ‘innovativeness’ (e.g., Adams et al. 2006). Due to profound changes in the competitive environment, which lead the emergence of new organizational forms, institutional relationships, and value-creating opportunities (Hamel 1998), ‘innovativeness’ has become a core talent for firms to differentiate themselves (Vila & Kuster 2007). Recent attempts to explain the processes through which a firm’s capacity to innovate leads to competitive success focus on impacts of different and specific forms of innovations such as strategic innovations (Hamel 1998), product innovations (Calantone et al. 2006), and process innovations (Phillips et al. 2006). Most works in this area link forms of innovativeness and their effectiveness to various aspects of internal organizational characteristics and external environmental factors (Gupta et al. 1986; Teece & Pisano 1994). In this vein, Hjalager’s (2010) recent study puts forth an extensive literature

review and highlights some important variables and dimensions by focusing on the field of services innovation. In her comprehensive work, she addresses major forms of innovation – product, process, managerial, marketing, and institutional – and takes attention to the fact that there is still need for studies revealing the level of innovative activities and their impacts. Particularly relevant in this context is the marketing function and marketing performances of a firm. Prior research has consistently revealed, for instance, that a firm’s level of market orientation relates strongly and positively to its innovative capacity or innovativeness (Keskin 2006; Lin et al. 2008). Much research also establishes a solid link between firm performance and several specific forms of innovations (Damanpour et al. 1989; Neely et al. 2001). Accordingly, the present study attempts to discover the nature of the sequence of relationships between five dimensions of innovativeness, marketing effectiveness, and organizational performance. The central thesis of the hypothesized model is that marketing effectiveness mediates, fully or partially, the specific effects of each innovativeness dimension, namely, product innovativeness, process innovativeness, market innovativeness, behavioral innovativeness, and

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strategic innovativeness, on firm performance. In addition, several firm characteristics are theorized to moderate these relationships. The hypothesized relationships are subjected empirical testing using a sample of domestic and multinational firms operating in Turkey. Conceptual framework and model development

Background Organizational innovation is the adoption of a new idea – that is related to a device, system, process, policy, programme, product or service – by an organization (Bigoness & Perreault 1981; Damanpour et al. 1989). The concept may also involve recombination of old ideas, schemes that challenge the present order, new formulas, or unique approaches (Van de Ven 1986; Baregheh et al. 2009). Most often, the conceptual framework for organizational innovation intertwines with the issue of organization-wide ‘change’. According to Damanpour and Evan (1984), innovations are responses to environmental change or means of bringing about change in an organization. Handy (1999) supports this view by stating that innovation is a part of organizational change which requires integrated marketing, production, corporate planning, organization, and finance activities. Similarly, Daft’s (2008) ‘horizontal linkage model’ of the innovation process states that research, manufacturing, and sales and marketing departments within an organization must simultaneously contribute to new products and technologies in an integrated manner. These views obviously stem from the concept of ‘innovativeness’, which embodies the ‘organization’s proclivity towards innovation’ (Salavou 2004) and which is a general concept of organizational capability (Neely et al. 2001; Tajeddini et al. 2006). Prior research has conceptualized organizational innovativeness either as a global, unidimensional construct (Girardi et al. 2005) or as a construct consisting of several specific dimensions (Damanpour 1991). The multidimensional approach to studying innovativeness by focusing on the antecedents and consequences 108

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of its several components is especially important. As Cooper (1998) states, for instance, the unidimensional conceptualization of innovativeness allows little or no comparison of findings across studies. The unidimensional conceptualization is the main reason for inconsistent empirical findings in prior research and also frequently criticized for being too narrowly limited to product innovations only (Salavou 2004). Cooper (1998) further states that a firm’s propensity to adopt innovations may be influenced by its various characteristics and that the unidimensional perspective is simply too narrow to capture all. Accordingly, based on an extensive review of prior research, Salavou (2004) proposes a framework whereby innovativeness has three main dimensions; namely, technology-related, behavior-related, and product-related. Salavou’s (2004) rather comprehensive approach also supports the notion that each dimension of innovativeness, while being closely related and intertwined, may open new avenues for further research to clarify the several distinct processes that lead to innovative outcomes in organizations. To further clarify this conceptual aspect, a cross-section of recent empirical studies is summarized in Table 1. Additional to these studies, Harmancıog˘ lu et al. (2009) put the issue in a theoretical framework and conclude that ‘customer vs. firm perspective’ should be the focus point while studying the nature of innovativeness. Here, customer perspective focuses on the degree to which new products are perceived as different and as requiring major changes in customer’s thinking, attitudes and behaviors. Firm perspective, on the other hand, focuses on technological advances and improvements in skills, levels of market understanding, processing abilities, and systems throughout the organization. Conceptual model This study adopts the firm perspective and a multidimensional conceptualization of organizational innovativeness. Following prior research (e.g., Wang & Ahmed 2004), we use five separate innovativeness dimensions as drivers of organizational performance. The

INNOVATION: MANAGEMENT, POLICY & PRACTICE Volume 14, Issue 1, March 2012


The role of marketing effectiveness

Table 1: A cross-section of recent empirical studies on ınnovativeness Author(s) (year)

Innovativeness dimensions studied

Data sources

Key relationships ıdentified

Semerciöz Product/process/ Dimensions of et al. (2011) behavioural/ ‘organizational strategic trust’ – interpersonal trust and institutional trust SantosProduct/process/ Human capital Rodrigues management dimensions: et al. (2010) Formation and knowledge creation innovative behaviour incentives to innovation Yeung et al. Innovativeness Organizational (2007) (as a learning unidimensional Internal efficiency construct) Customer satisfaction

Beverages companies serving in Pakistan and Turkey Banking companies in Turkey Firms in autocomponents sector

Institutional trust’s positive relationship with product and process innovativeness. Coworkers trust positively related to strategic innovativeness.

Szymanski Product et al. (2007) ınnovativeness

New product success

32 related studies in literature

Bell (2005)

Innovativeness (as a unidimensional construct) Cho and Innovativeness Pucik (2005) (as a unidimensional construct)

Industrial clusters Business networks

Canadian mutual fund companies

Hult et al. (2004)

Market orientation (MO) Learning orientation (LO) Entrepreneurial orientation (EO) MO Product ınnovation

Innovativeness (as a unidimensional construct)

Verhees and Innovativeness Meulenberg (as a (2004) unidimensional construct)

Related construct(s)

Manufacturing companies

Quality/growth/ Fortune web-site profitability/market Research ınsight value Global vantage database

Marketing executives from 1000 firms with sales above 100 million dollars annually 152 rose-growing SMEs in Holland

Innovativeness is dimensionalized as ‘product-process’ and ‘management’ innovativeness. Innovative behaviour and the incentives to innovation influence ‘productprocess’ innovativeness. None of the human capital dimensions influence management innovation directly. Relationships among learning, innovativeness and performance is unlikely to be established for a manufacturer pursuing a low-cost strategy and producing mature products. The relationship between product innovativeness and new product performance is more substantial when various measurement and contextual elements are considered. Innovativeness can be particularly relevant to new product success only under certain conditions. Locating in the industry cluster and centrality in the managerial tie network enhances firm innovativeness. Innovativeness mediates the relationship between quality and growth. Quality mediates the relationship between innovativeness and profitability. Innovativeness and quality mediates market value. Innovativeness improves business performance. Innovativeness partially mediates the relationship among MO, LO, and business performance. Owner’s innovativeness positively affects MO, innovation and performance. The effect of customer market intelligence on innovation depends on the owner’s innovativeness in a specific domain.

(Continued)


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Table 1: Continued Author(s) (year)

Innovativeness dimensions studied

Related construct(s)

Data sources

Key relationships ıdentified

Olson et al. (1995)

Product ınnovativeness

Structural mechanisms

45 projects from 12 firms in varying industries

Corporate culture/customer orientation/market performance

Marketing and purchasing executives at Japanese vendor firms

More participative structures contribute to product innovativeness by improving the effectiveness and timeliness of development process. Successful market innovation improves performance.

Deshpandé Market et al. (1993) ınnovativeness

specific dimensions of innovativeness studied include: (1) Product Innovativeness, ‘the novelty and meaningfulness of new products introduced to the market in a timely fashion’; (2) Market Innovativeness, ‘the newness of approaches that companies adopt to enter and exploit the targeted market’; (3) Process Innovativeness, ‘the introduction of new production methods, management approaches, and technology for the improvement of production and management processes’; (4) Behavioral Innovativeness, ‘an organization’s behavioral proclivity or willingness to change’; (5) Strategic Innovativeness, ‘an organization’s ability to manage ambitious organizational objectives

in order to stretch or leverage resources creatively’ (Wang & Ahmed 2004, pp. 304–306). As hypothesized in Figure 1, each innovativeness dimension has independent effects on overall firm performance. The main premise of the proposed model is that each dimension of innovativeness may influence firm performance through changing internal processes, impacts of marketing actions, or both. Accordingly, marketing effectiveness acts as a mediator of the relationships between innovativeness dimensions and overall firm performance. Due to lack of prior evidence and theoretical development, however, the specific nature of this mediating role (e.g., whether it is a partial or full mediation and how this

Figure 1: Research model

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role differs across dimensions of innovativeness) remains as an exploratory research issue. Further, we also investigate the moderating effects of four firm characteristics, namely, industry, firm age, firm size, and proportion of foreign capital, on the relationships of interest. Hypotheses According to Drucker (2002), organizational innovation is an ‘effort to create purposeful, focused change in an enterprise’s economic or social potential’. This change in the potential is expected to create a competitive advantage and, therefore, superior performance. In a similar vein, Neely et al. (2001, p. 118) state, ‘even if a firm is highly innovative, it has to exploit its innovations in terms of outcomes – e.g., use them to reduce costs and/or to offer products or services to its customers. This is a condition to gain better business performance’. Therefore it is suggested, provided that their potential is exploited, the five dimensions of innovativeness examined in this study would relate positively to firm performance measures. H1: Firms that have higher levels of (a) product innovativeness, (b) market innovativeness, (c) process innovativeness, (d) behavioral innovativeness, and (e) strategic innovativeness will achieve greater overall performance. Next, it is important to note that the relationships between dimensions of innovativeness (capabilities) and firm performance (outcomes) are in fact extremely complicated in that a given dimension may ultimately lead to performance through a multitude of different processes. Whereas prior research has provided robust evidence that innovativeness relates strongly to firm performance (e.g., Jin et al. 2004; Zaheer & Bell 2005; Mengüç & Auh 2006; Deshpandé & Farley 2007), the specific mechanisms through which this impact occurs are still unclear. Among these mechanisms, marketing function has been found to be highly related to innovativeness of a firm in many studies conducted recently (Tajeddini et al. 2006; Verhoef & Leeflang 2009). Accordingly, in an attempt to disentangle and study the specific effects of product, market, process, behavioral,


and strategic innovativeness on internal firm operations in relation to external marketplace outcomes, we explore the mediating role of marketing effectiveness in these relationships. Therefore; H2: Marketing effectiveness will mediate the relationships of (a) product innovativeness, (b) market innovativeness, (c) process innovativeness, (d) behavioral innovativeness, and (e) strategic innovativeness with overall firm performance. Neely et al. (2001) point out that, in some situations, innovativeness may not lead to positive effects on performance mostly due to failures to exploit already introduced innovations. Moving from this point on, the need for moderators that will help to exploit the potential of innovativeness dimensions prevails in this study (e.g., Hansen 1992; Cooper 1998). Specifically, we investigate the moderating effects of (1) industry (manufacturing vs. service), (2) firm age, (3) firm size, and (4) share of foreign capital on the relationships depicted in Figure 1. Regarding the differences across manufacturing vs. service firms in terms of how innovativeness lead to organizational outcomes, Damanpour (1991) states that there exist significant differences in terms of specialization, formalization, and vertical differentiation levels of manufacturing and service organizations. These differences may impact the innovation capacity of firms as well as the way this capacity transforms into organizational processes and outcomes. Therefore; H3: The positive effects of (a) product innovativeness, (b) market innovativeness, (c) process innovativeness, (d) behavioral innovativeness, and (e) strategic innovativeness on overall firm performance are stronger in service firms than in manufacturing firms. H4: The positive effects of (a) product innovativeness, (b) market innovativeness, (c) process innovativeness, (d) behavioral innovativeness, and (e) strategic innovativeness on marketing effectiveness are stronger in service firms than in manufacturing firms.


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Regarding firm characteristics, studies investigating the effects of firm age provide the most outstanding results. Sorenson and Stuart (2000) hypothesize that organizational age will be positively associated with the rate of innovation. Their basic premise here has been based on the required cumulative experience level that will present the knowledge needed to successfully carry on an innovation. In addition to this ‘experienced nature’ of older firms, the authors assert that, perfected routines, structures, incentive programs and other infrastructure components will create an advantage for the upcoming innovations in older firms. Likewise, Huergo and Jaumandreu (2004) provide some evidence that whereas newentrant firms present higher probability of innovating, firms above intermediate ages may in effect be even more active especially in terms of product innovations. This can be due to the ‘revitalization’ attempts of mature firms in the proceeding stages of their life cycle. Basing on these, the next hypothesis states that; H5: Firm age enhances the positive effects of (a) product innovativeness, (b) market innovativeness, (c) process innovativeness, (d) behavioral innovativeness, and (e) strategic innovativeness on overall firm performance. H6: Firm age enhances the positive effects of (a) product innovativeness, (b) market innovativeness, (c) process innovativeness, (d) behavioral innovativeness, and (e) strategic innovativeness on marketing effectiveness. In addition to age, considerable amount of research has put forth that size of the organization is also relevant to innovation performance (e.g., Damanpour 1992; Zornoza et al. 2004). Much of these research focuses on the relation between organizational resources and capabilities and organizational capacity to innovate (e.g., Galende & Fuente 2003; Sheng-Hsun 2007; Nieto & Santamaria 2010). Hewitt-Dundas (2006) demonstrates that lack of certain resources and capabilities may constrain innovations and reveals that small plants are significantly less likely to undertake innovations due to resource and capability constraints, especially in terms 112


of finance, market opportunities, and regulatory requirements. Likewise, Fiol (1996) asserts that, as the absorptive capacity of organizations increase in a parallel way with number of individuals in firms, they will be more capable of accumulating and processing the knowledge needed to generate innovative activity. Fiol (1996) further notes that the way organizations manage the process of bringing innovations to market is also critical. That is, whether or not the potential to absorb innovative inputs always leads to the ability to generate innovative outputs turns out to be an important question to answer. Therefore, it is suggested that; H7: As firm size increases, the positive effects of (a) product innovativeness, (b) market innovativeness, (c) process innovativeness, (d) behavioral innovativeness, and (e) strategic innovativeness on overall firm performance increase. H8: As firm size increases, the positive effects of (a) product innovativeness, (b) market innovativeness, (c) process innovativeness, (d) behavioral innovativeness, and (e) strategic innovativeness on marketing effectiveness increase. Besides age and size, foreign capital share of an organization also turns out to be a possible moderator in the relationship between organizational innovativeness and firm performance. Vila and Kuster (2007) found that certain types of innovations (especially strategy and process innovations) are ‘promoted’ when firms go abroad. This is a natural reaction stemming from the need to be more entrepreneurial and proactive to survive in overseas markets. Such an entrepreneurial orientation promotes an opportunistic culture in firms, which impacts the quality and quantity of innovations (Baker & Sinkula 2009). Jadesadalug (2008) describes entrepreneurial oriented firms as having a ‘higher corporate mindset’, which implies a high level of entrepreneurship including a proactive approach basing on opportunity seeking and forward looking perspective that will potentially make them achieve greater levels of innovation. Accordingly, the study also attempts to test the following hypotheses regarding the moderating effect of foreign capital share on the relation



between innovativeness dimensions and outcome variables. H9: As share of foreign capital increases, the positive effects of (a) product innovativeness, (b) market innovativeness, (c) process innovativeness, (d) behavioral innovativeness, and (e) strategic innovativeness on overall firm performance increase. H10: As share of foreign capital increases, the positive effects of (a) product innovativeness, (b) market innovativeness, (c) process innovativeness, (d) behavioral innovativeness, and (e) strategic innovativeness on marketing effectiveness increase.


firms. In general, 44.6 percent of the firms are in manufacturing and 55.4 percent are in services industries. Firm age ranges from 3 to 195 years (mean = 31 years; SD = 32 years), and firm size ranges from 4 to 38,000 employees (mean = 1754; SD = 4600). In terms of capital structure, 51 percent of the firms are owned fully by domestic investors, 33 percent are majority-foreign-owned, and 16 percent are minority-foreign-owned. Measures All measures are multiple-item five-point summated rating scales, except for firm and respondent demographics. Items for all measures and reliability estimates for the multiple-item measures are presented in Table 1.

METHOD

Sample and data collection The sampling frame of the study is generated from the available membership lists of chambers of commerce of major cities in Turkey (e.g., Istanbul, Izmir, Ankara). Data were collected during Spring 2008. Executives of 1250 (randomly chosen) firms in the sampling frame were contacted via telephone, and 112 firms agreed to participate in the study. Trained interviewers visited each of the participating 112 firms, and one respondent from each firm was interviewed using structured questionnaires. The respondents replied to questions pertaining to firm characteristics and individual demographics, organizational innovativeness, marketing effectiveness, and firm performance indicators. Respondents are on average 38.2-years-old (SD = 9.2) and have an organizational tenure of 8.3 years (SD = 6.9). Seventy-five percent of the respondents are male, 2.7 percent are primary and high school graduates, 65.2 percent hold undergraduate degrees, and 32.1 percent hold higher-level degrees. In terms of positions held, 89.3 percent of the respondents are middle- and top-managers, while 10.7 percent consist of specialists, experts, and consultants. The participating 112 firms are from a wide variety of industries, including logistics, transport and warehousing, construction services, tourism, financial services, consumer durables, food and other FMCG, automotive, textiles and clothing, and other services and manufacturing

Organizational innovativeness To measure innovativeness dimensions, Wang and Ahmed’s (2004) five-dimension (29 items) innovativeness scale is utilized. This scale is then subjected to an exploratory factor analyses and a purification process. During factor analysis, oblique rotation is used as innovativeness dimensions are expected to be correlated with each other. As a result of this process, 15 items are eliminated due to low factor loadings or unacceptable levels of crossloadings, and four innovativeness dimensions with an eigenvalue greater than one are extracted from the remaining 14 items. The results of these analyses are depicted in Table 1. An examination of the factor loadings indicates that the four extracted factors could be named as; product innovativeness (four items), process innovativeness (three items), behavioral innovativeness (four items), and strategic innovativeness (three items). Items relating to the market innovativeness dimension in Wang and Ahmed’s (2004) original conceptualization are either eliminated or tended to load on one of the four dimensions. As shown in Table 1, reliability (internal consistency) estimates for all innovativeness dimensions are above the threshold levels suggested by Nunnally (1978). Marketing effectiveness Items for measuring marketing effectiveness are developed specifically for this study based on an extensive literature review (e.g., Kotler 1977;


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Kirpalani & Macintosh 1980; Norburn et al. An exploratory factor analysis that involves 1990). Following an item-pool development and the nine marketing effectiveness items and the purification process, nine items tapping on differ- three overall firm performance items reveals ent aspects of marketing effectiveness are finally a four factor solution whereby all marketing developed, based on expert opinions, and used in effectiveness items load on their respective the questionnaire. An exploratory factor analysis dimensions and the performance items (ROI, after the collection of the data confirms the three- market share, sales) load on a single factor. dimensional structure of marketing effectiveness. The results of these analyses are presented in In general, the nine items cover product related Table 2. indicators, customer related indicators, and distribution-pricing related Table 2: Measures and psychometric properties indicators of marketing effectiveness. Measures* Factor Cronbach’s Respondents were asked to evaluate loading alpha their companies’ position vis-à-vis competitors in the industry in terms of these Organizational innovativeness three dimensions (anchors: 1 = poor perProduct ınnovativeness 0.82 formance; 5 = outstanding performance). In new product and service 0.78 Product related indicators of marketing introductions, our company is often effectiveness are measured through the first-to-market. degree of product/service quality, new Our new products and services are 0.75 product development, brand and prodoften perceived as very novel by customers. uct recognition among customers, and In comparison with our competitors, 0.66 communications through advertising our products most recent marketing and sales force. Customer related indiprogramme is revolutionary in the cators are assessed through the extent of market. customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, In comparison with our competitors, 0.55 and identifying and understanding the our company has introduced more innovative products and services in customer. Finally, distribution-pricing during the past 5 years related indicators are measured with two items that attempt to discover the level Process ınnovativeness 0.70 of effective and low-cost distribution The nature of the manufacturing 0.73 process in our company is new practices and effective and flexible priccompared with that of our main ing practices. A composite score by avercompetitors. aging the mean scores of each dimension Our company changes production 0.62 is used as an indicator of overall marketmethods at a great speed in ing effectiveness. comparison with our competitors. Firm performance To measure firm performance, respondents are asked to indicate their firms’ level of performance for the last 3 years of operations on three different criteria, namely; return on investment, market share, and total sales growth (e.g., Baker & Sinkula 2009). All three performance items use five-point scales with anchors (1) much worse than competition and (5) much better than competition. 114

We are constantly improving our business processes.

0.49

Behavioral ınnovativeness

0.71

We are willing to try new ways of doing things and seek unusual, novel solutions.

0.79

In our company, we tolerate individuals who do things in a different way.

0.61

We get a lot of support from managers if we want to try new ways of doing things.

0.50

We encourage people to think and behave in original and novel ways.

0.46




Table 2: Continued Measures*

Factor Cronbach’s loading alpha

industry groups based on their main area of operation.

Results All analyses are carried out with SPSS Management actively responds to the 0.64 14. The descriptive statistics and the adoption of ‘new ways of doing things’ bivariate correlations across the conby main competitors. structs in the study appear in Table 2 Key executives of the firm are willing to 0.63 take risk to seize and explore ‘chancy’ in order to provide a general depicgrowth opportunities. tion of the relationships of interest. Senior executives constantly seek 0.53 As Table 3 states, marketing effecunusual, novel solutions to problems via tiveness correlates positively with all the use of ‘idea men’. innovativeness dimensions. Firm per0.76 Marketing effectiveness formance, on the other hand, appears Product related ındicators 0.71 to have positive bivariate relationProduct/service quality 0.71 ships with product innovativeness, New product development 0.51 process innovativeness, and strategic Communications through advertising 0.48 innovativeness. The observed correand sales force lation coefficient linking behavioral Brand and product recognition among 0.47 innovativeness with firm performance customers is nonsignificant. Both performance Customer related ındicators 0.72 indicators (marketing effectiveness Customer loyalty 0.66 and overall firm performance) appear Customer satisfaction 0.62 to relate most strongly with product Identifying and understanding the 0.61 innovativeness. customer Next, hierarchical regression analyDistribution-pricing related ındicators 0.35** ses are conducted in order to test the Effective and low-cost distribution 0.66 study hypotheses. During the analypractices ses, the variables are entered the equaEffective and flexible pricing practices 0.50 tion in respect to their order in the Firm performance 0.64 conceptual model. First, marketing Market share 0.95 effectiveness is used as a dependent Return on investments 0.44 variable, and the antecedent factors Total sales growth 0.41 of marketing effectiveness depicted in Figure 1 are included into the analyses Loadings displayed in the table are obtained as a result of these separate analyses. as the independent variables in a hier*Factor analyses are run separately for items in the innovativeness archical order: control variables being measures. Marketing effectiveness and performance items are the first set of independents, the four analyzed together. innovativeness dimensions being the **The estimated internal consistency indicator is a correlation coefficient (p