Innovation and performance outcomes of market information collection efforts: The role of top management team involvement

Research on organizational market information processing in marketing has not yet examined a key issue associated with information collection: the role of top management team (TMT) involvement. Research in marketing has typically studied market information collection efforts from the perspective of employees and market research companies, overlooking the role that the TMT plays in these efforts. While prior research on top managers suggests that they are often not active participants in the collection of market information, this study examines whether and under what conditions TMT involvement in market information collection efforts can contribute to a firm's innovativeness and performance. The key contribution of the study involves the development and testing of a model that shows (1) the positive effect of TMT involvement in market information collection efforts on firm innovativeness above and beyond employees' market information collection efforts; (2) the moderating effect of firm size and industry context (i.e., high-technology versus low-technology) on model relationships, indicating that the relationship is stronger for smaller firms and high-technology companies; and (3) the mediating effect of firm innovativeness on the relationship between TMT involvement in market information collection efforts and overall business performance. We test our model in a business-to-business context. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.