Curse of Competitiveness
Kalra and Soberman (see the article The Curse of Competitiveness: How Advice from Experienced Colleagues and Training Can Hurt Marketing Profitability in the May 2008 issue) provide a key insight about competitiveness: Too much of this competitiveness trait may hurt the firm.
However, in practice, most firms take the smug view that competitiveness is a virtue. Implicit in this is the questionable assumption that as competitiveness increases, it helps the firm in question but hurts other competing firms. This is not unlike how many firms mistakenly view advertising (i.e., too much advertising cannot hurt a given firm).
The authors provide experimental evidence that indicates that managers are better off if they do not rely on either experienced colleagues or training when competitiveness increases. More specifically, marketing profitability decreases when competitiveness increases. These results may raise questions about decision-support systems when firms assume that the preservation of institutional wisdom (in the form of advice from experienced senior managers) may be detrimental.
I invite you to read this article and to share your views here.
By Siva K. Balasubramanian, Journal of Marketing Web Site Editor
Comments
I have a couple of theories on why the research indicates this. First, the best marketing and advertising campaigns are unique and original with a good value message--not something you can borrow from someone else or get good advice on. You can't take a survey or do competitor studies to get this specific creative message either. This also shows that following the trends or institutional wisdom does not lead to market success either. With our site, we write original content that is specific and relevant to our industry....that is how we draw traffic and sales. We never paid any attention to competitors or marketing strategies per se.
Jason Covington
http://www.mynah.com
Posted by: Jason Covington | July 25, 2008 7:32 PM
The authors have brought out a very pertinent and practical issue of ‘The Curse of Competitiveness’. They go on to prove that advice from experienced colleagues and training can hurt marketing profitability.
The fact that the experiments were carried out in a real life scenario (but for some of the short comings mentioned in the drawbacks section) by having entry and mid-level managers adds credence to the findings. It is worth mentioning that the results are indeed offbeat – in an era where a lot of stress is laid on training and knowledge sharing.
I would however like to bring out a few points which I think can make a difference to the results of the study.
• The authors mention, “To the best of our knowledge, there is no empirical study that directly measures the impact of culture on effectiveness”. This can be one major factor which can stop us from generalizing the observations to a larger extent.
• Nowadays, there is a shift towards outsourcing corporate training. The impact of outsourcing will nullify the negative impact of advice and training from experience. This should also be studied.
• A study from the Organizational Behavior perspective towards Competitiveness will surely heighten the assessment specific to Marketing.
• With the advent of Web 2.0, advice and training is no more restricted to a one–to one training. There is a ubiquitous shift towards digitalized learning, thanks to advancements in the area of artificial intelligence and neural networks, and corporates are embracing this big time. This can also be one area for further study in this topic.
Raghavan AG, (Roll #9433), Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai
Posted by: Raghavan AG, (Roll #9433), Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai | November 15, 2009 9:42 AM
In this article the authors try to prove that advice from experienced colleagues and training can hurt marketing profitability. The experiments were carried out in real life environment by studying entry and mid level managers and the results were quite different from the current views as training and knowledge sharing are considered integral part of the system nowadays.
There are points which need to be explored to add more credence to the article. Nowadays more and more corporate training is being outsourced which can nullify the effect of advice from experienced colleagues. Also with big companied embracing technologies like web2.0 people are exposed to everyone’s views. They have more sources of information to support their decision making. Effect of these phenomena need to be studied. The authors mention, “To the best of our knowledge, there is no empirical study that directly measures the impact of culture on effectiveness”. This can be one major factor which can stop us from generalizing the observations to a larger extent.
Posted by: rajarshi samanta(9436) | November 15, 2009 3:11 PM