This study explores how big data can be used to enable customers to express unrecognised needs. By acquiring this information, managers can gain opportunities to develop customer-centred products. Big data can be defined as multimedia-rich and interactive low-cost information resulting from mass communication. It offers customers a better understanding of new products and provides new, simplified modes of large-scale interaction between customers and firms. Although previous studies have pointed out that firms can better understand customers’ preferences and needs by leveraging different types of available data, the situation is evolving, with increasing application of big data analytics for product development, operations and supply chain management. In order to utilise the customer information available from big data to a larger extent, managers need to identify how to establish a customer-involving environment that encourages customers to share their ideas with managers, contribute their know-how, fiddle around with new products, and express their actual preferences. We investigate a new product development project at an electronics company, STE, and describe how big data is used to connect to, interact with and involve customers in new product development in practice. Our findings reveal that big data can offer customer involvement so as to provide valuable input for developing new products. In this paper, we introduce a customer involvement approach as a new means of coming up with customer-centred new product development.

Purpose: Despite touting the value of green practices, many firms struggle to respond appropriately to the diverse environmental issues. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the external and internal pressures interplay to influence top management championship, which, in turn, fosters the company’s green culture and the adoption of green practices. It thus helps to explain Chinese firms’ diversity with respect to the adoption of green practices.Design/methodology/approach: A conceptual model is developed that summarizes the interplay of external and internal pressures, top management championship, green culture and the adoption of green practices. Data from 148 Chinese manufacturing firms were collected and a structural equation model was used for statistical analysis.Findings: Government policy that provides incentives to adopt green practices and overseas customers’ green demand has significant positive influences on top management championship, while resources pressure has a significant negative effect. Government command and control policy, domestic customers’ green demand and organizational inertia do not impact top management championship. Furthermore, top management championship is positively correlated to both green culture and green practices, and green culture contributes to implementing green practices.Practical implications: The findings help us understand which external and internal factors inspire or force top management to adopt green practices, and how they do so. Moreover, managers must also be aware of the bridging role of green culture. The findings will be valuable to policy makers in forming and enforcing “stick” or “carrot” environmental policies.Originality/value: Leveraging a multi-theoretic approach, the authors’ research builds on insights from the institutional theory, natural resource-based view (NRBV) and upper echelons perspective, so as to increase the authors’ understanding on how firms adopt green practices to respond to environmental sustainability pressures. The institutional theory and the NRBV are leveraged in this study to recognize that firms perceive not only external institutional pressure for environmental management but also the internal pressure from resource constraints and capability to change. Upper echelons perspective is integrated into this study to explain the leadership role that top management serves in the management of the organization’s response to dynamic changes in the institutional environment and cultivate green culture within organization.

Live streaming has significantly transformed the landscape of both offline and online retail operations. This article explores the optimal timing and circumstances under which a firm with a specific product should launch a live streaming channel, and if so, whether it should use third-party streaming, self-run streaming, or a combination of both. We demonstrate that no single channel structure is universally superior to the others: the firm's optimal channel strategy depends on the third-party streamer's popularity and bargaining power, the investment and broadcasting effort cost for the live streaming channel, consumer's channel preference and extra cost for watching live streaming, cross-channel spillover, as well as the price sensitivity of a product. In general, live streaming is most beneficial for firms selling products that aren't highly price sensitive, where traditional pricing tool is less important for attracting consumers. Start-ups should collaborate with either highly popular streamers or those with a small but dedicated following, avoiding those with intermediate popularity. In contrast, established firms should partner with streamers who have a moderate level of popularity. An established firm considering leveraging two or more channels concurrently should additionally take into consideration the cross-channel spillover, channel encroachment cost, and channel competition. Our research reveals that, contrary to expectation, price in live streaming channels may not always be lower than those in traditional channels. Furthermore, highly popular streamers do not always demand higher revenue-sharing ratios and slotting fees. This research sheds light on the key decisions for firms considering live streaming commerce: whether to adopt it, when to integrate it into their strategy, and how to effectively implement it.