How B2B relationships influence new product development in entrepreneurial firms? The role of psychological tension

Although tension commonly exists in business-to-business (B2B) relationships, past research pays little attention to the potential dark side effects of psychological tensions, especially those between entrepreneurial firms and their client firms, despite their significant impact on these firms’ perf...

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Main Authors: Zheng, Leven L, Zhang, Yameng, Zhan, Wu, Sharma, Piyush
Format: Journal Article
Published: Elsevier 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/86066
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author Zheng, Leven L
Zhang, Yameng
Zhan, Wu
Sharma, Piyush
author_facet Zheng, Leven L
Zhang, Yameng
Zhan, Wu
Sharma, Piyush
author_sort Zheng, Leven L
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Although tension commonly exists in business-to-business (B2B) relationships, past research pays little attention to the potential dark side effects of psychological tensions, especially those between entrepreneurial firms and their client firms, despite their significant impact on these firms’ performance. We address this important research gap by exploring the nature and impact of psychological tensions between entrepreneurial firms and their client firms during the conceptualization and commercialization stages of the new product development (NPD) process. We employ a qualitative approach to conduct semi-structured interviews with 19 entrepreneurial firms operating in the artificial intelligence field in China, and identify two types of psychological tensions at the conceptualization stage (fear of losing the B2B relationship and divergent expectations) and one type of psychological tension at the commercialization stage (attention embeddedness). We also find that fear of losing the B2B relationship and divergent expectations lead to technological decontextualization, while attention embeddedness yields singular learning.
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institution Curtin University Malaysia
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publishDate 2021
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-860662024-12-10T02:33:55Z How B2B relationships influence new product development in entrepreneurial firms? The role of psychological tension Zheng, Leven L Zhang, Yameng Zhan, Wu Sharma, Piyush 1505 - Marketing Although tension commonly exists in business-to-business (B2B) relationships, past research pays little attention to the potential dark side effects of psychological tensions, especially those between entrepreneurial firms and their client firms, despite their significant impact on these firms’ performance. We address this important research gap by exploring the nature and impact of psychological tensions between entrepreneurial firms and their client firms during the conceptualization and commercialization stages of the new product development (NPD) process. We employ a qualitative approach to conduct semi-structured interviews with 19 entrepreneurial firms operating in the artificial intelligence field in China, and identify two types of psychological tensions at the conceptualization stage (fear of losing the B2B relationship and divergent expectations) and one type of psychological tension at the commercialization stage (attention embeddedness). We also find that fear of losing the B2B relationship and divergent expectations lead to technological decontextualization, while attention embeddedness yields singular learning. 2021 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/86066 10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.10.059 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Elsevier fulltext
spellingShingle 1505 - Marketing
Zheng, Leven L
Zhang, Yameng
Zhan, Wu
Sharma, Piyush
How B2B relationships influence new product development in entrepreneurial firms? The role of psychological tension
title How B2B relationships influence new product development in entrepreneurial firms? The role of psychological tension
title_full How B2B relationships influence new product development in entrepreneurial firms? The role of psychological tension
title_fullStr How B2B relationships influence new product development in entrepreneurial firms? The role of psychological tension
title_full_unstemmed How B2B relationships influence new product development in entrepreneurial firms? The role of psychological tension
title_short How B2B relationships influence new product development in entrepreneurial firms? The role of psychological tension
title_sort how b2b relationships influence new product development in entrepreneurial firms? the role of psychological tension
topic 1505 - Marketing
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/86066