Perceived trust in contractual channel dyads: an exploratory investigation of Finnish food retailers

Distributor firms have found long-term contracting an effective means of gaining competitive advantage. To realize these benefits, the alliance should involve trusting others. However, contracts can also be one-sided rather than reciprocal, favouring the larger business partner. Should trust develop naturally where there are formal contracts defining the terms of the relationship? And what inducements should a supplier take to gain retailers' trust? The trade-off is further complicated when the retailers operate in a small market with few suppliers and high barriers to entry. This study focuses on these questions. We use original field data from Finnish food retailers who have signed a written agreement with their focal wholesaler. We find that maintaining autonomy increases trust in the relationship. We also find that regular communication in the dyad and balance between perceived rewards and contributions are associated with higher levels of trust. In turn, intrachannel competition strongly reduces retailers' trust in the dyad.     

Organizational Innovation Capability: A Driver for Competitive Superiority in Marketing Channels

This paper investigates the interplay between innovation and competitive superiority in the context of channel management by adopting a capabilities view. The relevance for channel marketing and management scholars is that we developed an environment-strategy-value contingency model to address the focal phenomenon. Our empirical results clearly support the key argument that managerial and technological innovations play an essential role in understanding of how competitive superiority is achieved in constantly evolving marketing channels. As such, our contingency factors involved have a significant intermediate role in each of the research contexts examined, indicating that the innovation capability has a channel specific profile.     

‘Znakomstva I Svyazi’ (Acquaintances and connections) – Blat,the Soviet Union,and mundane entrepreneurship

The discussion regarding entrepreneurship and society has often presupposed that this society by necessity will be one that embraces the market economy as a guiding principle. This paper questions this assumption by discussing a command economy, namely the Soviet Union, as a fundamentally entrepreneurial society. By introducing the case of the blat, ‘Russia’s economy of favours’, the paper illustrates how mundane individual economies can be a part of entrepreneurship, and how flexible opportunity networks can support the rigidity of a command economy. Continuing from this, the exclusion of such irregular economies is discussed from an ideological rather than an analytic standpoint. The paper further presents some inferences that can be drawn from the case of the blat and which problematizes common assumptions in entrepreneurship studies.     

Consumer workers as immaterial labour in the converging media markets: three value‐creation practices

This paper takes a practice‐based approach to consumer studies and focuses on the strategic and productive roles that consumers play as immaterial labour or consumer workers in the converging media markets. Based on a case study of a print media organization and its customers, the aim is to discuss the collaborative practices through which value is created in the market. By means of a textual analysis of online and interview data, three value‐creation practices are abstracted and illustrated: constructing a sense of belonging and collective identity, mutual helping and peer support, and building pride and self‐respect. Overall, the paper suggests that in global media environments, consumer‐customers are playing increasingly significant strategic roles in the practices and processes through which value is co‐created in the market. It is therefore concluded that the idea of consumers, and media audiences in particular, as recipients of communication and targets of marketing activities needs to be problematized and the dynamic strategic roles that consumers currently play in the market need to be acknowledged and actively incorporated into the business praxis of media corporations.     

Managing competitive software component supplier relationships

This study addresses purchasing challenges faced by companies buying commercial software components. The purpose is to find out how we can understand the purchasing challenges in software component business. First we develop pre-understanding based on knowledge on competitive supplier relationships and competitive bidding. This is elaborated empirically through a qualitative case study. We contribute to prior literature by concluding that the nature of software component supplier relationships is influenced by the object and costs of exchange. We also argue that, in markets like software component business, it is essential to pay attention to the development of the whole supply market.     

Suppliers' roles in category management: A study of supplier–retailer relationships in Finland and Sweden

The purpose of this paper is to analyze suppliers' roles in category management (CM) in the context of Finnish and Swedish supplier–retailer relationships. Using data from a survey of a sample of Finnish and Swedish suppliers, the study shows that the concept of CM is well known among both Finnish and Swedish suppliers, and that most of them have experience of CM as a key operational business process. The study also shows that, in general, larger suppliers in both Finland and Sweden have a relatively strong role in CM collaboration, whereas smaller suppliers (especially in Finland) are more likely to have a lesser role in CM collaboration. Suppliers with a strong role in CM collaboration are generally more capable of influencing individual CM tactics than suppliers with an equal role to competitors or those with no role (both in Finland and in Sweden). The study also finds that the effects of CM are perceived more positively among suppliers who have influence in decision-making regarding CM collaboration than among those who have no role in such decision-making. However, the opinions of suppliers who have no role in CM collaboration are neutral, rather than being especially negative. Qualitative studies, including face-to-face discussions with managers representing manufacturers who are more or less excluded from CM collaboration, might provide a more thorough understanding of CM from their perspective.     

Channel Collaboration,Market Orientation and Performance Advantages: Discovering Developed and Emerging Markets

Abstract

Channel collaboration has occupied an increasingly prominent role in contemporary business strategy, and has been considered a key driver for providing value for the partnering firms involved. Drawing on the resource based theory of the firm, the present study aims to explore the effects of collaborative capability and market orientation on firms' performance advantages in the context of marketing channels. We also investigate whether the firms in developed and emerging markets significantly differ in their capability profiles. The data consists of 545 responses to a survey of small, medium-sized and large companies representing the grocery goods sector (manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers) in nine countries. In line with the theory, channel collaboration enhances positional and performance advantages of firms, and this collaboration is shaped by the type of economy adopted.     

The intermediator role in value co-creation within a triadic business service relationship

This study aims to enhance the knowledge of the roles played in value co-creation adopted by parties to triadic service business relationships. We approach the research issue through theoretical considerations and explore it empirically with a qualitative case study of triadic service relationships in the property maintenance business.     

Reversed servitization paths: a case analysis of two manufacturers

The literature on service business in manufacturing companies posits that manufacturers “servitize” by increasing the proportion of services offered. This study presents two paths that are contrary to such forward-unidirectional servitization, indicating “reversed servitization.” In the first case, a capital goods manufacturer lost visibility to its installed base due to evolving product technology. We use the case of photocopier manufacturer Xerox to support our findings; a regulation change forced Xerox to move from a service-based toward a product-based business model. We thus propose that influencing environmental factors need to be researched and that the literature of organizational ecology may serve as a complementary perspective.     

Consumer trust in animal farming practices – exploring the high trust of Finnish consumers

Trust in animal farming is a complex phenomenon and it is expressed in heterogeneous ways in different cultural contexts. Nordic countries are typically known as high‐trust societies in terms of food issues. Based on group interviews among Finnish consumers, this paper explores how citizen–consumers express trust and distrust regarding animal farming practices and whether it is possible to identify different forms of trust among different consumer groups. The foundations of emotional trust in animal farming have been weakening due to urbanization and the structural change in agriculture. Ordinary shoppers responded to this situation by transferring responsibility for farm animal welfare to public authorities, relying on habitual policy‐generated trust in animal farming. In contrast, gastronomes and organic consumers actively cultivated their emotional trust in livestock production by creating new kinds of contacts to farming. Gastronomes, organic consumers and vegetarians especially acknowledged the complexity of the claims made in farm animal welfare politics. As trust in food has arguably become a subject of active negotiation in Finland, the foundations for the habit‐based policy‐generated trust may be partly weakening, creating more space for the politicizing of food issues and the developing of alternative sources for regaining trust in food production.