Product Management Assignment - SOLVED

The studies on product management are based on two main premises. i.e. product's capability (ultimately made by customers) and supplier's decision (to provide a particular level of product capability to customers)

Casual industry observation elaborate marketing practices that deviate from these premises, mostly products that are capable of "too little” are considered as under provision, while products that are capable of "too much” are considered as overprovision and OVERSHOT customers who consume a product but are not pleased, and even frustrated, with what it offers to them because the capabilities provided are in excess of their needs, which is outcome of overprovision.

Authors utilized Competing Value frame work having 4 cultures, expecting Adhocracy and market culture promote product overprovision and Bureaucracy and Clan culture promote product underprovision.

They argue that whether the overprovision potential of an adhocracy and market culture actually manifests itself in the form of overshot customers depends on whether restraints exist that prevent mismatches with customers' needs. They also propose that such restraints reside in other aspects of a firm's culture, namely, in its customer. If a firm's customer orientation is sufficiently strong, it may

(1)    Attenuate the general tendency of adhocracy and market cultures to overprovide

(2)    Help ensure that these CVF cultures' relevant values are adapted so that capability levels are consistent with customer needs.

Hence, Authors expect the level of product capability that is ultimately offered to a customer to depend on the interactions between certain CVF cultures and the firm's customer orientation.

The studies on product management are based on two main premises. i.e. product's capability (ultimately made by customers) and supplier's decision (to provide a particular level of product capability to customers)

Casual industry observation elaborate marketing practices that deviate from these premises, mostly products that are capable of "too little” are considered as under provision, while products that are capable of "too much” are considered as overprovision and OVERSHOT customers who consume a product but are not pleased, and even frustrated, with what it offers to them because the capabilities provided are in excess of their needs, which is outcome of overprovision.

Authors utilized Competing Value frame work having 4 cultures, expecting Adhocracy and market culture promote product overprovision and Bureaucracy and Clan culture promote product underprovision.

They argue that whether the overprovision potential of an adhocracy and market culture actually manifests itself in the form of overshot customers depends on whether restraints exist that prevent mismatches with customers' needs. They also propose that such restraints reside in other aspects of a firm's culture, namely, in its customer. If a firm's customer orientation is sufficiently strong, it may

(1)    Attenuate the general tendency of adhocracy and market cultures to overprovide

(2)    Help ensure that these CVF cultures' relevant values are adapted so that capability levels are consistent with customer needs.

Hence, Authors expect the level of product capability that is ultimately offered to a customer to depend on the interactions between certain CVF cultures and the firm's customer orientation.

Author made three specific contributions to the literature. As, previous research (e.g., Christensen 1997) documented the phenomenon of overprovision and described the difficulties overprovision causes for customers.

Authors in this paper showed

1. How certain aspects of a supplier firm may create such problems in the first place by simply demonstrating the existence of overprovision, suggesting its unique antecedents.
2. CVF cultures possess distinct "dark sides," which have the potential to compromise customer outcomes. The relevant cultural influences are important for marketers to understand not only because of the effect they can have on customers but also because firms may promote their emergence in the first place.
3. Focus on customer orientation by showing that its particular values may play an even greater role within a company than commonly assumed.

On the other hands, author explained certain theoretical arguments in this research study. A general theoretical argument is that the level of a product's capability is affected by a supplier's organizational culture, or "the pattern of shared values and beliefs that help individuals understand organizational functioning and thus provide them with the norms for behaviour in the organization". Another argument is that two particular CVF cultures i.e. adhocracy and market are associated with overprovision tendencies. Unlike bureaucracy and clan cultures, which share an internal focus on efficiency through integration, adhocracy and market cultures share an external focus on competitive positioning through differentiation.

Authors believed that demonstrating product-culture links in a domain in which the focal decisions usually involve fixed investments on the part of a supplier (Jackson 1985) represents a strong test of their theory. These variations in the provision of capability are even more likely in pure service domains, in which capability levels can be easily varied upward or downward by suppliers.

The longitudinal investigations of the relationship between capability provision and strategic positioning. Possibly, trade-offs may exist in a CVF culture (e.g., market culture) support firm-level strategic objectives (e.g., developing a reputation for being a supplier of well-engineered products).

Also, authors were successful in finding out their expected result that a customer orientation did play the predicted alignment role in certain types of CVF cultures.

A major weakness of this study is that, authors limited their study to only one particular marketing domain, namely, decisions about actual products. However, authors believe that there are some advantages associated with restricting the scope of the study in terms of fixed investment on the part of supplier.

Also, authors failed to elaborate consistent findings regarding customer orientation that did not significantly affect a firm's product-capability decisions in its own right. On the face of it, this finding appears inconsistent with the market orientation literature.

On the other hands, author mentioned in limitations of study that longitudinal investigations of the relationship between capability provision and strategic positioning. Possibly, trade-offs may exist in that a CVF culture (e.g., market culture) may have undesirable consequences at the individual customer level (i.e., in the form of overshooting, which is another main weakness of this paper.

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