New product adoption and sales performance from the importer perspective

a r t i c l e i n f o Keywords: New product adoption Exporter–importer relationship Technology–environment–organization framework International marketing From an international business setting, this paper investigates how importers determine new product adoptions and how exporters diffuse new products to offshore markets through importers. Using the technology–environment–or-ganization framework, we examine the effect of innovative characteristics of selected new products, importer-specific organizational capability, and exporter-specific environmental factors, on the adoption of new products by importers. Our sample included 585 new products from 152 local import firms nested in 34 foreign export firms. The results indicate that product meaningfulness, product superiority, and customer familiarity facilitate importer success in new product adoption. Importer host-market experience enhances new product adoption and moderates the relationship between adoption and sales performance. Exporter influence of market reputation in the host market and product-innovation capability is beneficial in promoting new products for enhanced sales performance. Instead of a single focus on new product adoption, we used a cross-level model to test the factors that foster new product adoption by importers. Global markets have resulted in numerous manufacturers increasingly launching new products into foreign markets. A manufacturer launching a new product into a foreign market, as an exporter, relies heavily on a foreign distributor or importer because of importer control of local market access (Aulakh & Gencturk, 2008). To launch a new product successfully into foreign markets, an exporter needs to be assured that the new product will be accepted by foreign importers, who provide important channels in foreign markets. Although studies have recognized the importance of channel distributors adopting new products to the success of the new product or to the, few studies have explored how importers adopt a new product in the context of foreign market entry. The lack of research in this area is surprising, particularly because fostering importers' continued adoption of a new product, which requires psychological acceptance for the product (commitment) and exerting efforts for its introduction (effort), appears to be complex. Importer commitment to new product adoption involves an importer accepting and internalizing new product goals, whereas the effort of new product adoption refers to the extent to which an importer strives to introduce and sell the new product. To address the issue abovementioned, we adopt the technology– organization–environment (TOE) framework (Tornatzky & Fleischer, 1990). Tornatzky and Fleischer (1990) suggested an innovation adoption model in which innovation adoption occurs at the …