Customer value,satisfaction, loyalty,and switching costs: An illustration from a business-to-business service context

Although researchers and managers pay increasing attention to customer value, satisfaction, loyalty, and switching costs, not much is known about their interrelationships. Prior research has examined the relationships within subsets of these constructs, mainly in the business-to-consumer (B2C) environment. The authors extend prior research by developing a conceptual framework linking all of these constructs in a business-to-business (B2B) service setting. On the basis of the cognition-affect-behavior model, the authors hypothesize that customer satisfaction mediates the relationship between customer value and customer loyalty, and that customer satisfaction and loyalty have significant reciprocal effects on each other. Furthermore, the potential interaction effect of satisfaction and switching costs, and the quadratic effect of satisfaction, on loyalty are explored. The authors test the hypotheses on data obtained from a courier service provider in a B2B context. The results support most of the hypotheses and, in particular, confirm the mediating role of customer satisfaction. Shun Yin Lam (asylam@ntu.edu.sg; fax: 65-6791-3697) is an assistant professor of marketing and international business in the Nanyang Business School at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Lam received his Ph.D. from the University of Western Ontario and has research interests in a number of areas including retail marketing, customer loyalty, and customers’ adoption and usage of technology. His work has appeared inMarketing Science, theJournal of Retailing, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, andAdvances in Consumer Research. Venkatesh (Venky) Shankar (vshankar@rhsmith.umd.edu) is Ralph J. Tyser Fellow and an associate professor of marketing in the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. His areas of research are e-business, competitive strategy, international marketing, pricing, new product management, and supply chain management. His research has been published or is forthcoming in theJournal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, theJournal of Marketing, theStrategic Management Journal, theJournal of Retailing, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theJournal of Public Policy and Marketing, andMarketing Letters. he is co-editor of theJournal of Interactive Marketing; associate editor ofManagement Science; and serves on the editorial boards ofMarketing Science, theJournal of Marketing, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theJournal of Retailing, and theJournal of Academy of Marketing Science. He is a three-time winner of the Krowe Award for Outstanding Teaching and teaches Marketing Management, Digital Business Strategy, Competitive Marketing Strategy, and International Marketing (http://www.venkyshankar.com). M. Krishna Erramilli (amkerramilli@ntu.edu.sg) is an associate professor of marketing and international business in the Nanyang Business School at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He has undertaken many studies on marketing strategy issues in service firms, particularly in an international context, and has published his work in journals like theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of International Business Studies, theColumbia Journal of World Business, and theJournal of Business Research. He has presented numerous papers at international conferences. His current research interests center on the international expansion of Asia-based service firms. Bvsan Murthy (abmurthy@ntu.edu.sg) is an associate professor of marketing and international business in the Nanyang Business School at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Prior to turning to the academe a decade ago, he had 20 years of international industry experience. He has published in journals likeThe Cornell H.R.A. Quarterly and theInternational Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management and has also written industry white papers/monographs and chapters in books. His current research interests center on strategic services marketing/management and customer value management.     

Factors influencing the likelihood of customer defection: The role of consumer knowledge

Customer satisfaction is the predominant metric firms use for detecting and managing customers' likelihood to defect. But while satisfaction and defection are related, satisfaction is only a weak predictor of whether a customer will defect. This article suggests that for repurchase decisions that involve an information-based evaluation of alternatives to the incumbent, likelihood of defection will be influenced by “how much” customers know about those alternatives. The relationship between level of knowledge about alternatives and defection is examined in the context of actual health insurance choices. Results suggest that the level of objective and subjective knowledge about alternatives has a direct effect on likelihood of defection—above and beyond satisfaction level. The view of defection forwarded in this article suggests that managers may be able to gain additional control over customer defection through actions aimed at influencing how much customers know (or come to know) about alternative vendors. Anthony J. Capraro (tcapraro@unca.edu), an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, earned his Ph.D. in marketing in 1999 from the University of Texas after having spent 20 years in industry in marketing and marketing management positions. His current research interest focuses on developing and enhancing the value of a firm's customer base. Susan Broniarczyk (Susan.Broniarczyk@bus.utexas.edu), an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin, earned her Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Florida. She serves on the editorial boards of theJournal of Consumer Research and theJournal of Marketing Research and the advisory board for the Association for Consumer Research. Her research, which examines consumer decision making and how consumers' knowledge structures affect their reaction to missing or conflicting product information, appears in theJournal of Consumer Research, theJournal of Marketing Research, andOrganizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. Rajendra K. Srivastava (Rajendra.Srivastava@bus.utexas.edu) is the Jack R. Crosby Regent's Chair in Business and a professor of marketing and management science and information systems (MSIS) in the McCombs School of Business at the University Texas at Austin. He is also the Daniel J. Jordan Research Scholar at Emory University. He earned his doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh. His research, which spans marketing and finance, has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, and theJournal of Banking and Finance. His current research interests focus on the impact of marketing strategy and market-based assets on corporate financial performance, particularly in the context of technology-intensive products and services.     

Customer response capability in a sense-and-respond era: The role of customer knowledge process

An organization’s customer response capability, its comptence in satisfying customer needs through effective and quick responses, is critical for sustained success. In this article, the authors examine how customer knowledge process influences customer response capability. They highlight two dimensions of customer response capability, customer response expertise and customer response speed. It is observed that apart from its direct positive association with customer response expertise and speed, the customer knowledge process also diminishes the positive association between risk propensity and these dimensions of customer response capability. The influence of customer response expertise and speed on performance is also examined. The hypotheses are tested using survey data collected from a sample of retailing firms and the findings triangulated using qualitative data collected through depth interviews with managers. The results highlight the importance of customer knowledge in enhancing customer response capability. Satish Jayachandran is with the Department of Marketing at the University of South Carolina. His research interests are in the area of marketing strategy, specifically market responsiveness of firms and the impact of organizational performance on subsequent managerial and firm behavior. His research has been published in theJournal of Marketing and theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science. He was a recipient of the Harold H. Maynard award for 2001 from theJournal of Marketing. Kelly Hewett is with the Department of Marketing at the University of South Carolina. Her research focuses on the management of relationships between buyers and sellers, as well as between headquarters and foreign subsidiaries in managing the marketing function globally. Her research has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of International Business Studies, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and theJournal of International Marketing, among others. Peter Kaufman is with the Department of Marketing at Illinois State University. His research focuses on buyer-seller relationships, retailing, and distribution issues. He received an Honorable Mention in the Marketing Science Institute’s 2003 Alden G. Clayton Doctoral Dissertation Proposal Competition.     

Re-examining salesperson goal orientations: Personality influencers, customer orientation, and work satisfaction

Several scholars have noted the importance of relationship marketing and the critical role that salesperson knowledge plays in the formation of buyer-seller relationships. However, research on salesperson learning motivations has been relatively scarce compared with research on firm-level learning orientations. One promising stream of research in this area is salesperson goal orientation. Drawing from previous work in control theory, the authors extend previous research in this area by proposing relationships between personality influencers, goal orientations, customer/selling orientation, and overall work satisfaction. Their hypotheses are tested using data obtained from a sample of 190 real estate agents. The results provide support for their hypothesized model. Specifically, learning orientation is shown to positively influence customer orientation, while performance orientation is shown to positively influence selling orientation. Eric G. Harris (eharris@lklnd.usf.edu Ph.D., Oklahoma State University) is an assistant professor of marketing at the University of South Florida. His current research interests include goal orientation, customer orientation, and personality models applied to consumer and employee behavior. He has published articles in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Psychology & Marketing, theJournal of Consumer Marketing, theJournal of Business & Psychology, Services Marketing Quarterly, theJournal of Services Marketing, and theJournal of Marketing Management. John C. Mowen (jcmmkt@okstate.edu) Ph.D., Arizona State University) is Regents Professor and holds the Noble Chair of Marketing Strategy at Oklahoma State University. He has published articles in numerous leading journals, including theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Marketing, Decisions Sciences, theJournal of Applied Psychology, theJournal of Personality and Social Psychology, Psychology and Marketing, and theJournal of Consumer Psychology. He is a past president of the Society for Consumer Psychology. His teaching and consulting interests focus on consumer behavior and motivating the workforce. His research focuses on the factors that motivate and influence the decisions of consumers and employees. Tom J. Brown (tom.brown@okstate.edu; Ph.D., University of Wisconsin) is Ardmore Professor of Business Administration and an associate professor of marketing at Oklahoma State University. His articles have appeared in leading marketing journals, including theJournal of Marketing Research, the Journal of Marketing, theJournal of Consumer Research, and theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science. His current research interests include causes and effects of corporate reputation and the customer orientation of service workers. He is cofounder of the Corporate Identity/Associations Research Group. Teaching interests include marketing research, services marketing, and corporate communications. He is coauthor (with Gilbert A. Churchill Jr.) ofBasic Marketing Research (5th ed.). Consulting interests include marketing research, corporate reputation, and the customer orientation of service workers.     

The theoretical underpinnings of customer asset management: A framework and propositions for future research

Most research in customer asset management has focused on specific aspects of the value of the customer to the company. The purpose of this article is to propose an integrated framework, called CUSAMS (customer asset management of services), that enables service organizations (1) to make a comprehensive assessment of the value of their customer assets and (2) to understand the influence of marketing instruments on them. The foundation of the CUSAMS framework is a careful specification of key customer behaviors that reflect the length, depth, and breadth of the customer-service organization relationship: duration, usage, and cross-buying. This framework is the starting point for a set of propositions regarding how marketing instruments influence customer behavior within the relationship, thereby influencing the value of the customer asset. The framework and propositions provide the impetus for a research agenda that identifies critical issues in customer asset management. Ruth N. Bolton (ruth.bolton@owen.vanderbilt.edu) is a professor of marketing in the Owen Graduate School of Business at Vanderbilt University. Her current research is concerned with high-technology services sold to business-to-business customers. Her most recent work in this area studies how organizations can grow the value of their customer base through customer service and support. Her earlier published research investigates how organizations’ service and pricing strategies influence customer satisfaction and loyalty, as well as company revenues and profits. She has published articles in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Retailing, theJournal of Service Research, Marketing Letters, Marketing Science, and other journals. Katherine N. Lemon (katherine.lemon@bc.edu) is an associate professor in the Wallace E. Carroll School of Management at Boston College. Her current research investigates the antecedents and consequences of customer-firm relationships. In addition, her research examines relevant metrics for measuring and managing the value of customer relationships. Her earlier published research investigates how emotional reactions (such as anticipated regret) inflence customer retention decisions. She has published articles in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Service Research, Marketing Science, theJournal of Product Innovation Management, and other journals. Peter C. Verhoef (verhoef@few.eur.nl) is an assistant professor of marketing in the School of Economics at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. His main research interest is customer asset management. He has also done research on other topics, such as waiting times, private labels, and out-of-stocks. He has been a visiting professor at the Tuck School of Business Dartmouth College in fall 2003. He has published a wide variety of articles in journals such as theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Retailing, Marketing Letters, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and theJournal of Consumer Psychology.     

The evolution of consumer knowledge and sources of information: Hungary in transition

The authors’ research in Hungary during the period of transition to a market economy provides an opportunity to examine the evolving relationships between consumer product knowledge and its antecedents, including advertising, personal search, interpersonal sources, and brand experience. Their findings, based on survey data collected in Budapest in 1992 and 1998, indicate that the market information variables explain more variance in consumer knowledge later rather than earlier in the transition. Advertising is an important predictor of consumer knowledge later but not earlier in the transition, personal search is important at both times, and interpersonal sources are not important in either time period; brand experience is negatively related to knowledge earlier in the transition and positively related later in the transition. This study allows one to begin to understand the boundary conditions associated with studies conducted in developed economies. Managerial implications for firms investing in transitional economies are presented. Robin A. Coulter (robin.coulter@business.uconn.edu) is Ackerman Scholar and an associate professor of marketing in the School of Business at the University of Connecticut. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests include branding, cross-cultural consumer behavior, advertising, and research methods. Her work has appeared in theJournal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Consumer Psychology, theJournal of Applied Psychology, and theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing. Linda L. Price (llprice@email.arizona.edu) is Soldwedel Professor of Marketing in the Eller School of Management at the University of Arizona. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. Her research combines qualitative and quantitative methodologies to examine the active, emotional, imaginative aspects of consumers’ decisions and activities, and the social and cultural context of marketplace behaviors. Her work has appeared in theJournal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, and other leading marketing, management, and social science journals. Lawrence Feick (feick@katz.pitt.edu) is a professor of business administration in the Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh. He received his Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University. His current research focuses on cross-cultural consumer behavior, consumer word-of-mouth, and referrals. His work has appeared in the Journal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, the Journal of Consumer Research, Psychological Bulletin, andPublic Opinion Quarterly. Camelia Micu (camelia.micu@business.uconn.edu) is a marketing doctoral candidate at the University of Connecticut. Her research interests include advertising and product trial and cross-cultural consumer behavior.     

Customer relationship dynamics: Service quality and customer loyalty in the context of varying levels of customer expertise and switching costs

As customer-organization relationships deepen, consumers increase their expertise in the firm’s product line and industry and develop increased switching costs. This study investigates the effects of customer investment expertise and perceived switching costs on the relationships between technical and functional service quality and customer loyalty. Technical service quality is hypothesized to be a more important determinant of customer loyalty than functional service quality as expertise increases. Both technical and functional service quality are hypothesized to have a reduced relationship with customer loyalty as perceived switching costs increase. Three-way interactions between the main effects of service quality, customer expertise, and perceived switching costs yield additional insight into the change in relative importance of technical and functional service quality in customers’ decision to be loyal. Six of eight hypotheses receive support. Implications are discussed for customer relationship management over the relationship life cycle. Simon J. Bell (s.bell@jims.cam.ac.uk; Ph.D., University of Melbourne) is a university lecturer in marketing at the Judge Institute of Management, the business school of the University of Cambridge. His research has appeared in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the Journal of Retailing, theJournal of Business Research, Industrial Marketing Management, andMarketing Theory, among others. His.areas of research interest include organizational learning, sales force management and internal marketing, services and relationship marketing, and corporate social responsibility. Seigyoung Auh (sauh@brocku.ca; Ph.D., University of Michigan) is an assistant professor of marketing at Brock University, Ontario, Canada. His research has been published in theJournal of Economic Psychology, theJournal of Business to Business Marketing, theJournal of Services Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Management, Industrial Marketing Management, and others. His research interests are in application of a resource-based view to marketing strategy, top management team diversity and marketing strategy, customer orientation (customer satisfaction) and loyalty, interface between marketing and entrepreneurship, and services and relationship marketing. Karen Smalley (B.Comm. Hons, University of Melbourne) is an honors graduate in marketing at the University of Melbourne.     

Service failure and recovery: The impact of relationship factors on customer satisfaction

This research investigated how customers' relationships with a service organization affect their reactions to service failure and recovery. Our conceptual model proposed that customer-organizational relationships help to shape customers' attributions and expectations when service failures occur. The empirical results showed that customers with higher expectations of relationship continuity had lower service recovery expectations after a service failure and also attributed that failure to a less stable cause. Both the lower recovery expectations and the lower stability attributions were associated with greater satisfaction with the service performance after the recovery. These effects appeared to be key processes by which relationships buffer service organizations when service failures occur. Ronald L. Hess Jr. (ron. hess@business.wm.edu) (Ph.D., Virginia Tech) is currently an assistant professor of marketing at the College of William & Mary. His research interests include customer responses to service and product failures; organizational complaint handling; and customer assessments of satisfaction, loyalty, and service quality. He has published his research inMarketing Letters and several conference proceedings. Shankar Ganesan (sganesan @bpa.arizona.edu) (Ph.D., University of Florida) is an associate professor of marketing and Lisle and Rosslyn Payne Fellow in Marketing at the Eller College of Business and Public Administration, University of Arizona. His research interests focus on the areas of interorganizational relationships, buyer-seller negotiations, service failure and recovery, new product innovation, and E-marketing. He is the author of several articles that have appeared in leading academic journals, including theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Retailing, theJournal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and theJournal of Applied Psychology. He currently serves on the editorial review board of theJournal of Marketing Research and theJournal of Marketing. Noreen M. Klein (nklein@vt.edu) (Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University) is currently an associate professor of marketing at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Her research interests include consumer decision making and the behavioral aspects of pricing, and her research has been published in the theJournal of Consumer Research, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Making, and theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science.     

Marketing,market growth,and endogenous growth theory: An inquiry into the causes of market growth

Market growth plays a central role in virtually all strategic marketing models developed in the past 30 years. Although marketing scholars seem implicitly to assume that marketing efforts contribute in some way to market growth, market growth per se remains a conceptual black box in marketing. Using new developments in endogenous growth theory, this article explores the link between marketing actions and market growth. In particular, the authors develop a conceptual model arguing that the effect of endogenous actions on market growth is mediated by knowledge creation, matching, and diffusion. Propositions are proposed to guide future research. The authors discuss the implications for marketing strategy at both business discipline and public policy levels. Sundar Bharadwaj (Sundar_Bharadwaj@bus.Emory.edu) is an associate professor of marketing in the Goizueta Business School at Emory University. He received his Ph.D. from Texas A&M University. His research interests focus on marketing strategy, performance, and risk. His research has appeared in theJournal of Marketing, Management Science, and theitJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, among others. Terry Clark (tclark@cba.siu.edu) is a professor and chair in the marketing department at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. He received his Ph.D. from Texas A&M University. His research interests include the intersection of international marketing and marketing strategy. His research has appeared in theJournal of Marketing and theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, among others. Songpol Kulviwat (mktszk@hofstra.edu) is an assistant professor of marketing and international business at Hofstra University. He received his Ph.D. in marketing from Southern Illinois University. His research interests include Internet marketing, hightech marketing, international business (sncross-cultural research), and information technology. Prior to his academic career, he worked in the area of international sales management in Thailand.     

French versus American consumers’ attachment of value to a product in a common consumption context: A cross-national comparison

This article investigates the influence of French and American national culture on consumer perceptions of productrelated value. Employing means-end theory, hypotheses are developed to predict how French versus American national culture influences the content and structure of consumer value hierachies. Hypotheses are tested using data from in-depth laddering interviews with a matched sample of French and American consumers. The findings support the contention that differences exist in the meaning and relative importance of consumer value hierarchy dimensions across the two national cultures. Furthermore, the analysis suggests that consumption consequences are especially culturally sensitive. Jeffrey W. Overby (joverby@cob.fsu.edu) is an assistant professor of marketing and international business in the Department of Marketing at Florida State University. He holds a doctorate from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His research interests focus on customer value determination, service quality, and cross-cultural marketing issues. His work has appeared inInternational Marketing Review and numerous domestic and international conferences, includingProceeding of the 2001 Academy of Marketing Science Annual Conference andProceeding of the Tenth Biennial World Marketing Conference. Sarah Fisher Gardial (sgardial@utk.edu) is an associate professor and associate dean for academic programs in the College of Business Administration at the University of Tennessee. She holds a doctorate from the University of Houston. Her research interests focus on customer value and satisfaction, consumer decision making and information processing, and buyer/seller dyadic relations. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including theJournal of Consumer Research, theJournal of Advertising, Industrial Marketing Management, and theJournal of Macromarketing. Robert B.Woodruff (rwoodruff@utk.edu) is the Proffitt’s, Inc. Professor of Marketing and head of the Department of Marketing and Logistics at the University of Tennessee. His primary interests are in customer value theory, customer satisfaction theory, and market opportunity analyses, all with applications to customer-value-based marketing strategies. His work has appeared in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Consumer Research, and theJournal of Satisfaction, Dissatisfaction & Complaining Behavior. He has received two outstanding reviewer awards from theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science.     

Organizational capabilities in e-commerce: An empirical investigation of e-brokerage service providers

E-commerce not only has tremendous potential for growth but also poses unique challenges for both incumbents and new entrants. By examining drivers of firm performance in e-commerce from a capabilities perspective, the authors conceptualize three firm capabilities that are critical for superior firm performance in e-commerce: information technology capability, strategic flexibility, and trust-building capability. The extent and nature of market orientation is conceptualized as a platform for leveraging e-commerce capabilities. The authors test the effects of e-commerce capabilities on performance (e.g., relative profits, sales, return on investment) using data from 122 e-brokerage service providers. The results indicate that information technology capability and strategic flexibility affect performance given the right market orientation. Amit Saini (asaini2@unl.edu) is an assistant professor of marketing at University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He conducts research in the area of marketing strategy, technology-marketing interface, e-commerce strategy, and customer relationship management. He has presented papers at major conferences, and his research appears in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science and American Marketing Association—Marketing Educator’s Conference Proceedings. His industry experience includes sales management and quantitative market research. Jean L. Johnson (Johnsonjl@wsu.edu) is a professor of marketing at Washington State University. Her research includes partnering capabilities development in, and management of, interfirm relationships and management of international strategic alliances. Her research appears in journals such as theJournal of Marketing, the Journal of International Business Studies, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing. She serves on the editorial boards of theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the Journal of Retailing, theJournal of Business and Industrial Marketing, and reviews for others. She spent several years in the advertising industry and has lived, taught, and conducted research in France and Japan. She has been selected to cochair the 2006 winter American Marketing Association (AMA) conference.     

Brand portfolio, corporate image, and reputation: Managing brand deletions

Brand portfolio management addresses, among other issues, the interrelated questions of what brands to add, retain, or delete. A small number of brands in a firm’s brand portfolio can often have a disproportionately large positive or negative impact on its image and reputation and the responses of stakeholders. Brand deletions can be critical from the standpoint of a firm being able to free up resources to redeploy toward enhancing the competitive standing and financial performance of brands in its portfolio with the greatest potential to positively affect its image and reputation. Against this backdrop, the authors focus on the organizational and environmental drivers of brand deletion propensity, the predisposition of a firm to delete a particular brand from its brand portfolio. The authors propose a conceptual model delineating the drivers of brand deletion propensity and suggest directions for future research, including the related concept of brand deletion intensity. Rajan Varadarajan (varadarajan@tamu.edu) is Distinguished Professor of Marketing and holder of the Ford Chair in Marketing and E-Commerce in the Mays Business School at Texas A&M University. His primary teaching and research interest is in the area of strategy. His research on strategy has been published in theJournal of Marketing, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theAcademy of Management Journal, theStrategic Management Journal, and other journals. Rajan served as editor of theJournal of Marketing from 1993 to 1996 and theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science from 2000 to 2003. He currently serves on the editorial review boards of theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of International Marketing, theJournal of Interactive Marketing and other journals. He is a recipient of a number of honors and awards, including the Academy of Marketing Science Distinguished Marketing Educator Award (2003), the American Marketing Association Mahajan Award for Career Contributions to Marketing Strategy (2003), and the Texas A&M University Distinguished Achievement Award in Research (1994). Mark P. DeFanti (mdefanti@tamu.edu) is a doctoral student in marketing at Texas A&M University. He received his M.B.A. from The University of Texas at Austin and his B.A. from Amherst College. His current research interests include brand portfolio management, corporate name changes, and business-to-business branding. His teaching interests include advertising, brand management, and marketing strategy. Paul S. Busch (p-busch@tamu.edu) is a professor of marketing in the Mays Business School at Texas A&M University. He received his Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University. His research has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, Decision Sciences, theJournal of Business Research, andBusiness Horizons. He serves on the editorial review boards of theJournal of Business-to-Business Marketing, theAsian Journal of Marketing, andMarketing Management. His research interests include buyer-seller relationships, business-to-business branding, and brand portfolio management. His teaching interests include promotional strategy and new product development.     

Consumer evaluations of corporate brand redeployments

There has been little attention paid to the management of corporate brand names as part of the merger and acquisition process. As an initial step towards developing a better understanding of this brand redeployment decision the authors consider the reactions of one important stakeholder group—consumers—to alternative strategies. Specifically, the authors discuss the importance of the corporate branding decision in the M&A process and present a typology of alternative redeployment strategies as well as an exploratory study examining reactions to different postmerger branding strategies. The authors find evidence that the brand equity related to corporate brands is often decreased as a result of M&A activities and that individuals react differently to mergers employing different redeployment strategies. These results emphasize the need for firms to evaluate the corporate branding component of M&A activities as part of the process of managing corporate brands and should generate interest and research in this managerially relevant area. Anupam Jaju (ajaju@gmu.edu) is an assistant professor of marketing at George Mason University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Georgia at Athens. His articles have appeared in leading marketing journals, including theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of International Management, Marketing Theory, andMarketing Education Review. His current research focuses primarily on exploring three interrelated domains of business: the link between corporate and functional (marketing) strategy, the market orientation of corporate strategies, and the market and customer-related consequences of corporate strategy. Christopher Joiner (cjoiner@gmu.edu) is an assistant professor of marketing at George Mason University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. His articles have appeared in leading marketing journals, including theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Consumer Psychology, the Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising, andAdvances in Consumer Research. Srinivas K. Reddy (sreddy@terry.uga.edu) is the Robert O. Arnold Professor of Marketing and the director of the Coca-Cola Center for Marketing Studies at the Terry College of Business, University of Georgia. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. He has taught previously at New York University, Columbia University, and the University of California, Los Angeles, and was a visiting professor at Stanford Business School. His research on brand and marketing strategy and has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, Management Science, Marketing Letters, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and theJournal of Business Research. His current research interests include the financial and marketing impacts of brand failure and understanding the value of creative products such fine art.     

The effect of relational constructs on customer referrals and number of services purchased from a multiservice provider: Does age of relationship matter?

The authors examine the effect of relational constructs (e.g., satisfaction, trust, and affective and calculative commitment) on customer referrals and the number of services purchased, as well as the moderating effect of age of the relationship on these relationships. The research reported, based on data obtained from a large sample of customers of an insurance company, combines archival and survey data. The results provide evidence that supports the moderating effect of relationship age on the relationship between satisfaction, affective and calculative commitment, and the number of services purchased. Peter C. Verhoef is a postdoctoral researcher affiliated with the Department of Marketing and Organization in the School of Economics at Erasmus University, Rotterdam. He is also a member of the Erasmus Research Institute in Management (ERIM). In 2001, he received his Ph.D. in marketing from Erasmus University. In his dissertation, he investigated how companies can affect the lifetime value of customers. His research interests include customer relationship management, waiting times, and private labels. His work has been or will be published in theJournal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Retailing, Decision Support Systems, and various other journals. Philip Hans Franses is a professor of applied econometrics at the Econometric Institute and a professor of marketing research in the Department of Marketing and Organization, both at Erasmus University, Rotterdam. His research interests include applied econometrics, marketing, empirical finance, political science, and environmetrics. He publishes on these topics in various journals. Janny C. Hoekstra is a professor in direct marketing at the University of Groningen. Her research interests include the development of the marketing concept, market orientation, customer lifetime value, direct marketing, and e-commerce. She has published papers in theJournal of Retailing, Industrial Marketing Management, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Direct Marketing, andJournal of Market-Focused Management, among others.     

Customers’ reactions to price increases: Do customer satisfaction and perceived motive fairness matter?

Most of the previous research on price changes has focused on price decreases. This article investigates the effects of price increases at an individual level. The authors argue that customers’ reactions to price increases (i.e., repurchase intentions) are strongly driven by two factors: the magnitude of the price increase and the perceived fairness of the motive for the price increase. In this context, the authors examine the role of customer satisfaction in influencing the impact of these two variables on repurchase intentions after a price increase. Their findings reveal that as satisfaction increases, the negative impact of the magnitude of a price increase is weakened. Furthermore, the results suggest that satisfaction moderates the impact of perceived motive fairness. The authors also find that the level of satisfaction can influence the valence of the perceived motives in response to a price increase. Christian Homburg (homburg@bwl.uni-mannheim.de) is a professor of marketing and chair of the Marketing Department at the University of Mannheim, Germany. He also serves as director of this university’s Institute for Market-Oriented Management. He holds master’s degrees in business administration and mathematics and a Ph.D. in business administration from the University of Karlsruhe, Germany. He also holds a habilitation degree from the University of Mainz, Germany. His research interests include market-oriented management, buyer-seller relationships, and business-to-business marketing. He has published in theJournal of Marketing, the Journal of Marketing Research, Strategic Management Journal, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing. He is also the founder of Professor Homburg & Partners, an internationally operating management consulting firm. Wayne D. Hoyer (wayne.hoyer@bus.utexas.edu) is the the James L. Bayless/William S. Farish Fund Chair for Free Enterprise, the chairman of the Department of Marketing, and the director of the Center for Customer Insight in the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his Ph.D., M.S., and B.A. from Purdue University in the area of consumer psychology. He has published more than 60 articles in various forums including theJournal of Consumer Research, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Marketing, the Journal of Advertising Research, and theJournal of Retailing. His research interests include customer insight and relationship management, consumer information processing and decision making (especially low-involvement decision-making), and advertising effects (most particularly, miscomprehension and the impact of humor). Nicole Koschate (nicole.koschate@bwl.uni-mannheim.de) is an assistant professor of marketing in the School of Business Administration at the University of Mannheim, Germany. She holds a double master’s degree in business administration and psychology and a Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Mannheim, Germany. Her current research areas include pricing, customer insight, dynamic issues in marketing phenomena, and buyerseller relationships. Her research appears in several outlets, including theJournal of Marketing.     

Marketing strategy: An assessment of the state of the field and outlook

This article provides an assessment of the state of the field of marketing strategy research and the outlook. Using institutional theory, the authors develop an organizing framework to serve as a road map for assessing research in marketing strategy. Their assessment of the state of the field based on a review of extant literature suggests that significant strides in conceptual development and empirical research have been achieved in a number of areas. Several recent developments in the business world, including deconglomeration and increased organizational focus on managing and leveraging market-based assets such as brand equity and customer equity, suggest that marketing is likely to play a more important role in charting the strategic direction of the firm. However, the theoretical contributions of the field to the academic dialogue on strategy leave much to be desired. P. Rajan Varadarajan (Ph.D. University of Massachusetts, Amherst) is a professor of marketing and the Jenna and Calvin R. Guest Professor of Business Administration at Texas A&M University. His research interests are in the areas of corporate, business, and marketing strategy; marketing management; and global competitive strategy. His research has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theAcademy of Management Journal, theStrategic Management Journal, Sloan Management Review, California Management Review, Business Horizons, and other journals. He is coauthor of a textbook entitled,Contemporary Perspectives on Strategic Market Planning. He served as editor of theJournal of Marketing from 1993 to 1996. He currently serves on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Marketing Science, as Chairperson of the Marketing Strategy Special Interest Group of the American Marketing Association, on the Editorial Review Boards of theJournal of Marketing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and theJournal of International Marketing, and as an ad hoc reviewer for a number of journals in themarketing and management disciplines. In recognition of his research and publications, in May 1994, he was awarded the Texas A&M University Distinguished Achievement Award for Research, the highest honor the University bestows. Satish Jayachandran is a doctoral candidate in marketing at Texas A&M University. His research interests include competitive behavior of firms and the impact of organizational performance on subsequent managerial and firm behavior. His research is forthcoming in theJournal of Marketing and has been presented at American Marketing Association and Academy of International Business conferences. His professional experience spans sales and channels management in the computer industry and account management in advertising.     

The role of corporate social responsibility in strengthening multiple stakeholder relationships: A field experiment

This research relied on a field experiment involving a real-world instance of corporate philanthropy to shed light on both the scope and limitations of the strategic returns to corporate social responsibility (CSR). In particular, the authors demonstrate that the impact of CSR in the real world is not only less pervasive than has been previously acknowledged but also more multifaceted than has been previously conceptualized. The findings indicated that contingent on CSR awareness, which was rather low, stakeholders did react positively to the focal company not only in the consumption domain but in the employment and investment domains as well. Stakeholder attributions regarding the genuineness of the company’s motives moderated these effects. Sankar Sen (sankar_sen@baruch.cuny.edu) is a professor of marketing at the Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College, City University of New York. He received his Ph.D. in marketing in 1993 from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on consumer decision making. He is interested, more specifically, in consumer reactions to company actions, particularly in the domain of CSR. His research has appeared inCalifornia Management Review, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Economic Theory, and others. C. B. Bhattacharya (cb@bu.edu) received his Ph.D. in marketing from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1993 and his M.B.A. from the Indian Institute of Management in 1984. Prior to joining Boston University, he was on the faculty at the Goizueta Business School, Emory University. His specific expertise is in the areas of customer retention and the roles of CSR and organizational identification in designing marketing strategy. He served on the editorial review board of theJournal of Marketing from 2002 to 2005 and has published in journals such as theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Marketing, Journal of Applied Psychology, andOrganization Science. He speaks frequently at many academic and business forums and won the William Novelli Best Paper Award at the Social Marketing Conference in 1997. Dr. Bhattacharya received the 2001 Broderick Prize for Research Excellence at Boston University and the Emory Williams Distinguished Teaching Award in 1995, the highest teaching award at Emory University. He is also part of the select group of faculty members onBusiness Week’s Outstanding Faculty list. Prior to his Ph.D., he worked for 3 years as a product manager for Reckitt Benkiser PLC. He has consulted for organizations such as the Hitachi Corporation, Procter & Gamble Company, Bell South, The Prudential Bank, Information Resources Inc., Airwick Industries, Silo Inc., and the High Museum of Art. Daniel Korschun (danielk@bu.edu) is a doctoral candidate in marketing at Boston University. His current research interests include brand management, CSR, and interorganizational relationships.     

An analysis of e-business adoption and its impact on business performance

Across industries, firms have adopted e-business initiatives to better manage their internal business processes as well as their interfaces with the environment. In this study, a unified framework that captures the antecedents of e-business adoption, adoption intensity, and performance outcomes is proposed and empirically tested using data collected from senior managers in four technology-intensive industries. Applying a framework that captures the intensity of e-business adoption across four business process domains, the authors find that the antecedents and performance outcomes of e-business adoption are best studied in a process-specific context. They find, for example, that while the communication and internal administration aspects of e-business positively affect performance outcomes, the more high-profile activities related to online order taking and e-procurement do not. The authors' findings provide the foundation for a more rigorous study of e-business. Fang Wu (fangwu@msu.edu) (Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin) is an assistant professor of marketing at the Eli Broad College of Business, Michigan State University. Her current research interests include e-business adoption strategy, knowledge transfer in new product alliances, interfirm learning dynamics, and marketing knowledge management. Vijay Mahajan (vijay.mahajan@bus.utexas.edu) (Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin) is the John P. Harbin Centennial Chair in Business and a professor of marketing at the McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin, and dean of the Indian School of Business at Hyderabad, India. He has written extensively on product diffusion, marketing strategy, and marketing research methodologies. He has written and/or edited eight books. His research appears in journals such as theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Marketing, Marketing Science, Management Science, andHarvard Business Review. He has received the Best Research Paper Award from theJournal of Retailing (1982, 1985), theJournal of Marketing (Maynard Award, 1990), and theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing (Prentice Hall Award, 1995). He also received the American Marketing Association (AMA) Charles Coolidge Parlin Marketing Research Award (1997) and the AMA Marketing Research Special Interest Group Gilbert Churchill Award in 1999, recognizing lifetime achievement in marketing research. Sridhar Balasubramanian (balasubs@bschool.unc.edu) (Ph.D., Yale University) is an assistant professor of marketing at Kenan-Flagler, the University of North Carolina Business School. His research interests cover multiple areas including marketing strategy, channel portfolio management, e-commerce and m-commerce, direct marketing and customer relationship management, game theory and the management of competition, digitization, and strategic compensation. His research has been published or is forthcoming in journals such asMarketing Science, Management Science, Statistica Neerlandica, theInternational Journal of Electronic Commerce, Decision Support Systems, and theJournal of Retailing. He received the John D. C. Little Award for 1998 from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Science (INFORMS) for the best marketing paper inMarketing Science andManagement Science. He has worked as a marketing strategy adviser to start-up companies and served as guest coeditor of the Centennial Issue of theJournal of Retailing.     

The paradox of a marketing planning capability

Strategy scholars have long debated the value of formal planning, and research has offered inconsistent support for planning to enhance firm performance. Given these mixed empirical effects, we draw from the resource-based view of the firm to illustrate a paradox firms may face. In particular, a strong marketing planning capability may not only reduce the incidence of postplan improvisation but also contain inherent process rigidity. Since both of these can also increase performance, results illustrate a performance paradox in marketing planning. Rebecca J. Slotegraaf (rslotegr@indiana.edu) is an assistant professor of marketing in the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. Her research focuses on the nature and effect of organizational resources, marketing capabilities, and deployment actions on competitive advantage. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition to this publication in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, she has also published several articles in theJournal of Marketing Research. Peter R. Dickson (dicksonp@fiu.edu) is the Knight-Ridder Eminent Scholar in Global Marketing at Florida International University. He was previously the Arthur C. Nielsen Jr., Chair of Marketing Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and before that the Crane Professor of Strategic Marketing and a professor of industrial design at the Ohio State University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Florida. Thirty of his articles on buyer and seller behavior have been published in leading marketing journals.     

Digitization of selling activity and sales force performance: An empirical investigation

Firms are creating a digitized selling capability by developing Web sites designed to provide information and conduct transactions with customers, replacing many routine sales force activities. The authors use the motivationability framework to shape a conceptual model that examines the effects of the digitization of selling activity on two salesperson outcomes: salesperson effectiveness and salesperson job-insecurity. Using data from salespeople in 168 firms, they assess the moderating effects of environmental-level motivational factors and firm-level ability factors on the impact of digitization of selling activity on salesperson effectiveness and job insecurity. The results reveal that digitization has the paradoxical effect of improving salesperson effectiveness and heightening job insecurity concerns, and also that managers can improve the technology-enabled multichannel capabilities of the firm by giving priority attention to human capital improvement, sales force control systems, and communication of the digitization strategy. Devon S. Johnson (Ph.D., London Business School, dj@devonjohnson.com) is currently an assistant professor of marketing at Northeastern University, Boston. Previously, he was an assistant rofessor of marketing in the Giozueta Business School at Emory University. His research interests are the role of social capital in relational exchange and technology consumption and implementation. Sundar Bharadwaj (Sundar_Bharadwaj@bus.Emory.edu) is an associate professor of marketing in the Goizueta Business School at Emory University. His general research interests focus on marketing strategy and performance and risk. His research has been published in theJournla of Marketing, Management Science, and theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, among others.