Author : Christopher Joseph Shanahan
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (212 download)
Book Synopsis Sustainable Competitive Advantage, Process Adoption and the Diffusion of Innovation by : Christopher Joseph Shanahan
Download or read book Sustainable Competitive Advantage, Process Adoption and the Diffusion of Innovation written by Christopher Joseph Shanahan and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abstract: The implementation of National Organic Program (NOP) in October 2002 has impacted the US organic market and, in turn, firm decisions to adopt a given quality standard. The current temporal and spatial diffusion of the innovative quality standard through the pool of potential adopters is the focus of this research. Through the combination of several paradigms, the objective is to determine the factors that influence and constrain the individual and social acceptance, integration and use of innovations among US food manufacturers and to determine if evidence of regional organic market agglomeration exists. The conditions that influence a food manufacturer's likelihood of adoption of NOP seal qualified organic production practices is shown to be a function of the demand conditions and the external threats of rivalry facing the adopter. Adopting organic production practices is found to be negatively impacted by threats of competitive rivalry, the complexity of the adopter's product line and the timing of adoption since the inception of NOP. The odds of NOP seal-use qualification is also negatively impacted by threats of competitive rivalry and the complexity of the adopter's product line. The degree of differentiation effort is a positive determinant of the adoption decision. The likelihood a new organic products will use the NOP seal has been significantly increasing every year since 2002 which suggests the extent of information diffusion about the new organic standard through the market place and that the use of the NOP seal is becoming an increasingly more critical component within the organic marketing strategy decision over time. A possible theoretical construct of the innovation diffusion process is demonstrated that tests the hypotheses that the rate of NOP qualified adoption relative to the rate of NOP non-qualified adoption is a function of a number of demand, supply and market environmental conditions facing each organic firm. Positive impact variables include the timing of first adoption within a food category and product differentiation effort. Negative impact variables include the average number of ingredients in the potential adopting product, market concentration and threat of entry by close substitutes. The distributional impact NOP has had on the current market structure of US organic production and processing is also statistically explored in order to determine if there is evidence of regional industrialization or agglomeration. It was found that the distribution of the relative size of the accumulated number of organic producers, overall farm gate sales of organic product, the number of new products released per state and third party certifiers over a given a set of regions are positively inter-correlated. The findings of this research imply that the primary factor why adopters fail to adopt an innovative marketing strategy is ignorance of the innovation's existence, its benefits and market accessibility. Removing physical market constraints and increasing information accessibility is an essential component of the adoption decision and thus, the ultimate rate of innovation diffusion in a given market. Pro-active joint action, in the form of voluntary private producer associations, is one way to by-pass these adoption accessibility constraints.
