This special issue contains five articles that analyze various marketing phenomena using qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). QCA is a relatively new method for testing complicated hypotheses in the social sciences. Several overseas journals have published special issues on QCA, but no issues with a focus on QCA have been organized by marketing journals in Japan. As the first of its sort on QCA in Japan, this special issue provides both high quality QCA articles and datasets that support the hypotheses in each of these articles.

Consumers use online customer reviews as an indicator of product quality before making their purchase decisions. The brand is also a powerful cue of product quality for individual products from strong brands, and the impact of customer reviews for these products may be relatively low compared to that for products from weaker brands. However, in the existing literature, the role of customer reviews on the sales performance of products from strong brands has not been examined thoroughly. To address this problem, the present study examines sales of headset data in Japan using a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). The results show that products from strong brands can achieve high sales regardless of customer review ratings during the new product period. However, high customer review ratings play an important role, as an INUS condition, for these brands to be successful in terms of sales beyond the new product phase. This implies that even if a brand is strong, it is still important to develop superior products that result in high customer review ratings.

Marketing mix is the first tool that marketers learn, but the issue of how the 4 P’s are combined has not been clearly addressed. The reason for this is that in regression analysis, which has become a mainstream approach in the social sciences, it is difficult to examine combinations of three or more variables. In this paper, three outcome variables: (1) price elasticity (high or low), (2) product category (shopping goods or convenience goods), and (3) top market share or not, are identified, and a hypothesis on the marketing mix is proposed to realize these variables. Product-level marketing mix data (n=167) are then collected from Japanese consumer goods companies and evaluated using qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to examine the marketing mix combinations.

A visual metaphor is an advertising creative that can evoke cognitive elaboration and improve comprehension. To offer useful guidance in designing effective visual metaphors for target markets, the present research focuses on the cognitive effort required to interpret visual metaphors and explores how configurations of five factors can increase cognitive elaboration and comprehension. These factors are visual structure complexity, conceptual similarity, explicitness, verbal messages, and need for cognition. Our fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis reveals that visual metaphor ads evoke increased cognitive elaboration in the presence of visual structure complexity and need for cognition, and in the absence of conceptual similarity, explicitness, and verbal messages. The analysis also shows that consumers accurately comprehend visual metaphor ads that include conceptual similarity, explicitness, and direct verbal messages, and do not have visual structure complexity.

In research on competitive dynamics, several studies exploring the relationships between competitive action patterns and firm performance have argued that competitive aggressiveness is necessary for firm survival in markets where the advantage is temporal. These studies have identified three components of competitive aggressiveness: volume, complexity, and competitive heterogeneity, and have analyzed the causal relationship between these components and firm performance to test their hypothesis. However, due to the limitations of the statistical analysis, the possibility of causal complexity, causal asymmetry, and causal equifinality between the three components and firm performance has not been considered. This paper explores the relationship between the three components of aggressive competitive action patterns (product introduction patterns) and firm performance (market share expansion/erosion) using fsQCA, an analytical method suitable for analysis of causal complexity, causal asymmetry, and causal equifinality. A fsQCA using data from the soft drink industry revealed two product introduction patterns for firms that have increased their market share and two other product introduction patterns for firms that have lost their market share.

Prior research on distribution channel strategies has limitations of: (1) use of effectiveness indicators such as sales growth as outcomes, (2) no examination of the combination effects of channel tactics, and (3) overlooking the effects of channel structure. This paper aims to address these limitations by investigating the impact of a combination of six channel tactics: relationship-specific investment, communication, power, conflict, channel integration, and dual channels. The results of a fuzzy set QCA (fsQCA) show that there are four patterns of channel strategies that generate high profitability. This paper contributes to the advancement of channel research by suggesting that combinations of channel strategies, rather than individual channel tactics, determine firm performance.

As more consumers shop online, avatars are being used to support consumer purchase behavior in many online shopping sites and virtual worlds. Previous studies have suggested that avatars have positive effects on consumers’ online shopping experience and are important for the successful operation of a website. Despite their increasing importance, findings from previous studies have not been organized to provide a systematic understanding of avatars. Therefore, in this paper, previous research on avatars is reviewed in terms of the effects of (1) the existence of avatars, (2) avatar design, and (3) avatar communication. Based on this review, this paper suggests that future research should (1) examine new moderation variables, (2) focus on avatars in social media, (3) examine new avatar design factors, and (4) simultaneously examine the effects of avatar design and communication.

This article reviews studies on perceived crowding conducted in marketing research over the past decade. The findings of these studies are organized into three perspectives: the effects of perceived crowding on consumers’ cognition and emotion, the effects of perceived crowding on consumers’ utilitarian and value-expressive behaviors, and perceived crowding as a cue for inference. The review confirmed that studies on perceived crowding have been extended from in-store behavior research to consumer information processing and decision making. We also point out three issues for future research: the need for more detailed discussion of crowding as a cue for inference, the limited number of studies that address today’s in-store research and perceived crowding, and the lack of discussion of perceived crowding research through the stages of purchase decision making. This comprehensive review of empirical studies on perceived crowding explain this concept in marketing and summarize findings that are useful for understanding crowded retail environments and consumer behavior.

The ambiguous nature of the word “design” has caused confusion in understanding as various design-related concepts have emerged and attracted attention. Furthermore, the general understanding of design limited to the narrow definition of “Isyou” in Japan, and the instability of the extended design definition in design research has led to misperceptions and discrepancies in understanding of the concept of “design-driven management”. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to present issues of design-driven management research after providing an overview and organizing design concepts that are used ambiguously in the context of management. This paper reviews the expansion of design concepts in previous literature and positions and organizes ambiguous concepts based on the viewpoint that design is output or process. This approach contributes to understanding of the research scope and performance evaluation of design-driven management by clarifying the definition of the design concept.

It has become clear that lead users outside a company can contribute to innovation, but it is difficult for companies to take advantage of these activities because the users are not in the company. On the other hand, lead users inside the firm are employees who are loyal to the products of the company and also have the characteristics of lead users. Prior studies have evaluated the ideas of lead users inside the firm, but none have examined the market performance of products that actually embody these ideas. Based on a case study of an apparel retailer, this study reveals that the co-creation that takes place in the process of commercializing the ideas of lead users inside the firm leads to successful outcomes in the marketplace.

This paper is a case study of YAMAP INC., a fast-growing venture company in Fukuoka focused on fostering mountain climbing community, and its main tool, the smartphone application YAMAP. In particular, the paper focuses on social significance and customer experience of YAMAP. First, the company’s growth trajectory is introduced and its socially responsible business activities and services are described. These include safe mountain enjoyment and contribution to local communities, as well as creation and improvement of customer experience and customer service in line with these principles. The implications and reasons for the company’s growth are discussed from three perspectives: the practical framework, the customer experience framework, and the purpose perspective.