Collaborative buyer-supplier relationships and downstream information in marketing channels

Research on buyer-supplier relationships has emphasized the importance of collaboration and business networks. We aim to study the effects of downstream information on the collaborative buyer-supplier relationship. Downstream information refers to the information a firm obtains from marketing channels, be they wholesalers, distributors or retailers. The approach allows firms to concentrate their efforts on the most relevant sources of information and not on the whole network. Survey data was gathered from the Dutch potted plant and flower industry to test this hypothesis. Our findings demonstrate that collaborative relationships are contingent on downstream information from both the buying perspective (wholesalers) and from the supplying perspective (producers).     

A sensemaking perspective on network pictures

This paper examines the concept of network pictures through the lens of the organizational sensemaking perspective. Essentially it develops the concept of network pictures by suggesting we think of them as exercises in sensemaking. It does so by providing an introduction to organizational sensemaking before establishing a degree of commensurability between network pictures and sensemaking. It suggests that what we may then see more clearly is that the concept of network pictures needlessly gets involved in reification when talking of ‘the’ network picture whereas a more dynamic approach leads to ideas of network picturing in which the complete discrediting or collapse of extant sensemaking and network pictures provides a research opportunity that could be jointly explored by both perspectives. The paper concludes that paradoxically ‘finding’ this new sense or new network picture appropriate to radically changed times is facilitated by a process that involves first ‘becoming lost’.     

Social and organizational capital: Building the context for innovation

In the light of the key role intellectual capital has for firms' innovation capability, this paper analyzes the influence of two of their dimensions, organizational capital and social capital, on firms' product innovation, and the moderating role of radicalness. Unlike previous studies, the unit of analysis will not be the firm, but the R&D department. Thus, our research, conducted with a sample of Spanish industrial companies, provides a new insight with interesting results. First, our findings show that social capital favours firms' product innovation, especially under radical innovations. Second, organizational capital has an indirect effect on product innovation through positive influence on social capital. This implies that firms can stimulate communication and interaction among people, and therefore innovative activity, by means of explicit and codified knowledge (organizational capital).     

The impact of management commitment alignment on salespersons' adoption of sales force automation technologies: An empirical investigation

Marketing and information systems scholars have explored several factors that affect sales force automation (SFA) technology adoption. In this study, we introduce a new antecedent to the SFA adoption model, management commitment alignment (MCA). We show that alignment between top management and immediate supervisors' commitment to the SFA technology is an important factor in influencing SFA adoption. Results show that while commitment from both leadership levels (perfect alignment) is the most conducive to SFA adoption, misaligned commitment conditions have differential effects on adoption. Specifically, even when supervisors are committed to sales technology, lack of top management commitment can hurt SFA adoption. Managerial implications of the findings and directions for future research are discussed.     

An exploratory study into brand alignment in B2B relationships

B2B relationships are characterized by strategic partnerships between firms and the suppliers of goods and services integral to their offerings. Failure to choose the right partner could jeopardize the survival of both partners. While a number of studies suggest that partnering firms need to be aligned operationally, few studies look at whether there should be alignment between the brands of firms and their suppliers. Therefore, we build on existing studies on sexual selection to develop a theory of whether similarity in brand attributes affects the success of B2B relationships. We propose that firms wishing to portray particular brand images to their customers choose suppliers whose images mirror their own. To develop our proposition, we investigate the brand personality alignment between well-known firms and their suppliers in four industries. The findings of our analysis have significant implications for scholars and managers interested in the nature and success of B2B partnerships.     

Value-based network mobilization: A case study of modern environmental networkers

This article addresses current environmental issues by taking a network perspective to examine the initiatives to solve them. Previous investigations of network dynamics and mobilization concern the business context, but we broaden the analysis to the societal networks wherein business is embedded. Our aim is to investigate the early emergence of collective action around a common issue. We analyze the network mobilizers, who promote the issue and its solutions, and the mobilization mechanisms that they employ. We have conducted a case study that examines three initiatives to save the Baltic Sea, all involving business, governmental, and civil society actors. This rich case material leads us to formulate a conceptual model of value-based network mobilization. The mobilizing actors, values, and relationship sediments emerge as important factors in creating issue networks. Our key contribution is to show how the environmental issues bring new types of actors to networks and change the rules of the game. We propose that ‘modern environmental networkers’ should become more important in the future, and that business firms need to develop their skills in playing the new games with these new actors.     

The impact of relative residence times on the distribution of heavy drinkers in highly distinct environments

Alcohol consumption is a function of social dynamics, environmental contexts, individuals' preferences and family history. Empirical surveys have focused primarily on identification of risk factors for high-level drinking but have done little to clarify the underlying mechanisms at work. Also, there have been few attempts to apply nonlinear dynamics to the study of these mechanisms and processes at the population level. A simple framework where drinking is modeled as a socially contagious process in low- and high-risk connected environments is introduced. Individuals are classified as light, moderate (assumed mobile), and heavy drinkers. Moderate drinkers provide the link between both environments, that is, they are assumed to be the only individuals drinking in both settings. The focus here is on the effect of moderate drinkers, measured by the proportion of their time spent in “low-” versus “high-” risk drinking environments, on the distribution of drinkers.A simple model within our contact framework predicts that if the relative residence times of moderate drinkers are distributed randomly between low- and high-risk environments then the proportion of heavy drinkers is likely to be higher than expected. However, the full story even in a highly simplified setting is not so simple because “strong” local social mixing tends to increase high-risk drinking on its own. High levels of social interaction between light and moderate drinkers in low-risk environments can diminish the importance of the distribution of relative drinking times on the prevalence of heavy drinking.     

Integrating expected coverage and local reliability for emergency medical services location problems

Daskin's MEXCLP model [Daskin M. A maximum expected covering location model: formulation, properties, and heuristic solution. Transportation Science 1983;17:48-70] was one of the first efforts to capture the stochastic nature of emergency medical services (EMS) location problems within a mixed-integer formulation. With their subsequent introduction of MALP, ReVelle and Hogan [The maximum availability location problem. Transportation Science 1989;23:192-200] offered two key advances, local vehicle busyness estimates and the α-reliability objective. While these constructs have influenced many subsequent EMS location models, they have been subjected to relatively little empirical analysis. To address this, we introduce the LR-MEXCLP, a hybrid model combining the local busyness estimates of MALP with the maximum coverage objective of MEXCLP. We then solve a series of problems with all three models and employ simulation to estimate aggregate service levels. We find that LR-MEXCLP leads to modest but consistent service gains over both MALP and MEXCLP. These results support the merits of local busyness estimates, but they also suggest that the α-reliability objective may be inappropriate when seeking to maximize aggregate system response capabilities. More generally, our research underscores the utility of (a) linking modeling assumptions and goals with real-world application contexts, and (b) employing simulation or other techniques to validate theoretical results.     

Building internal business scenarios based on real data from a performance measurement system

This paper presents a new methodology to build internal business scenarios from the data gathered by some key performance indicators (KPIs) defined within a performance measurement system. The application of the principal components analysis technique leads to the identification of latent relationships between KPIs that underlies some important business aspects. Further, this methodology allows to represent not only the temporal evolution of the organisation as a function of these business aspects but also the definition and determination of internal business scenarios, being therefore the source of meaningful managerial information. At the end of the paper, results of a practical application are presented and discussed, as well as their importance for the organisation from a decision making point of view.     

Profiling mobile TV adopters in college student populations of Korea

By profiling demographic characteristics, perceived general adoption attributes, perceived value-based adoption attributes, motivational needs, mass media use, and content interest, this exploratory study examines the nature of four categories of mobile TV adopters — current, potential, continuous non-, and discontinuous user groups. Despite the limited sample size (N = 214), there are some meaningful findings. First of all, the non-adoption rate of mobile TV of the continuous non-, and discontinuous user groups is higher than the adoption rate of the current and potential user groups. Less than half of the respondents (N = 34) who had used TV on a mobile device were unwilling to use it again in the next twelve months, and almost half of those (N = 102) did not have the intention of using it within the coming year. The results suggest that the discontinuous group seems to have been dissatisfied with the actual mobile TV use when compared with their expectations and evaluations, while the potential user group is more likely to have high expectations and positive evaluations before the adoption and use of mobile TV. All user groups were unwilling to pay the fee, despite the current and potential user groups perceiving the exceptional values. No differences were found in the personality trait of innovativeness and mass media use behaviors among the four groups.