Outside-in marketing: Why,when and how?

We explore the nature and evolution of outside-in marketing. Outside-in is the marketing view of strategy, with inside-out being the traditional view. We show how outside-in and inside-out clash culturally, and trade off strategically, especially in service. Technological advances in communications and information technology have enabled closer relationships with customers, and “big data” for managing those relationships. The marketing function is important for managing outside-in, because market orientation alone is insufficient. Outside-in management is most effective for focusing on customer satisfaction and revenue, since insights about customer needs and wants tend to move bottom-up through the organization. Taken to its logical conclusion, outside-in implies replacing inside-out, product-focused management (e.g., brand managers) with outside-in, customer-focused management (e.g., customer managers). Customer-focused, future-oriented metrics (e.g., customer satisfaction, customer lifetime value, customer equity) increasingly grab attention away from aggregate, short-term metrics (e.g., product sales). Long-term impact from customer-relevant issues such as discrimination plays out over time, and must be researched using longitudinal methods. Eventually, even the meaning of “outside” will change, as computers increasingly become the customer.     

Antecedents of functional integration during new product development: The purchasing–marketing link

In response to different economic and business trends, companies are becoming increasingly dependent on external resources and capabilities as they seek to cater for an ever more complex and challenging demand. Such dependence has led an important group of scholars to draw attention to the inevitable integration of the purchasing and marketing functions. We stress here the need for such integration during new product development, and seek the mechanisms that may promote purchasing–marketing integration. Accordingly, this study describes two essential components underlying the concept of purchasing–marketing integration, and tests the effect of different integration mechanisms gathered from the literature on these two components. The model is tested on a sample of 141 Spanish industrial companies. Our results show that each one of these integration mechanisms varies in its effectiveness in promoting each key component of purchasing–marketing integration. Taking these asymmetric effects into account is crucial for selecting the appropriate purchasing and marketing integration devices within companies.     

Determinants of technological innovation success and failure: Does marketing innovation matter?

Innovation is attracting increasing attention from public authorities, enterprises, and academics. Although emerging evidence has indicated that marketing innovation should be regarded as critical as technological innovations for enhancing companies' competitiveness, few studies have considered this topic.This study aims to address this gap by examining the role of marketing innovation in the relationship between technological innovation and innovation success and failure. This study analyses the 2010–2012 Community Innovation Survey sample of German enterprises by using a double hurdle model and a probit model with sample selection. The results show that when enterprises undertake a technological innovation, introducing a marketing innovation is observed not to play a significant role regarding innovation success and failure. Notably, when the four types of marketing innovations are disentangled in the analysis, new findings emerge. Innovation in product packaging and design is positively related to innovation success. Innovation in product promotion is negatively related to innovation success and positively related to probability of innovation failure. Academics are called to study the role of marketing innovation, regarding innovation success and failure, by devoting their attention to the level of each marketing innovation. Enterprises should then carefully consider which marketing innovation should be introduced.     

The praxis of studying interorganizational practices in B2B marketing and purchasing – A critical literature review

Practice has developed into a key concept in management research, including B2B marketing and purchasing studies. However, the adoption of the term in B2B marketing and purchasing is characterized by some difficulties. Research on B2B practices is growing, but seems marked by fragmentation, inconsistency, and lack of precision among others. Without conceptual consistency and integrity, B2B practice studies are at risk of becoming derailed, compromising the developments of future theory and practice within B2B. In this critical review paper, we therefore seek to create an overview of B2B practice research as perceived through a practice lens. Based on a review of 116 identified practice papers from key B2B journals, we map the topic areas where the practice concept has been applied for investigations, and we also investigate how well the applied practice conceptualization in these papers align with a recognized practice theory conceptualization. We find that the majority of B2B studies align poorly with the three elements of practice: managerial action, habitual behavior, and action-structure duality. Since many of the alignment issues in the review are caused by methodological problems, we propose a series of methodological tools that can provide a more accurate understanding of B2B practices in future research.     

New-age technologies-driven social innovation: What,how, where,and why?

Social innovation (SI) offers a sustainable solution to prevalent social issues/problems and is typically developed and deployed by a varied set of people from the society adopting a top-down and/or bottom-up approach. The disruption of new-age technologies (NATs) is immensely impacting the space of SIs, providing a resource-efficient solution, and bringing multiple outcome benefits. In this study, we discuss the SIs driven by new-age technologies and attempt to address a few critical questions around such SIs to better understand the construct, such as – What is SI? How are NATs playing a role in providing an innovative offering for the social good? Where does it take place in society? How can SI be deployed in society to reach out to the populace? and, Why SI is required for society? By employing the triangulation approach, we provide a comprehensive framework recognizing the different contexts under which SI takes place in society, explaining the possible outcomes and suggesting the boundary conditions. We then provide the generalized propositions on the proposed relationship in the SI framework. Further, this study identifies directions for future research and provides implications for firms, policymakers, and social entrepreneurs.     

Why am I ostracized and how would I react? — A review of workplace ostracism research

Ostracism is an important issue in the workplace and studies on this issue are diverse and large. This paper comprehensively reviews the literature related to workplace ostracism in five aspects. First, in discussing why ostracism occurs, it outlines that individuals are ostracized due to their dispositions, ability and skills, behavioral features, and perpetrators’ ostracism motives. Second, in investigating the consequences of ostracism, it outlines that victims would respond with affective and attitudinal, physical, and behavioral tendencies, and these reactions can be either positive or negative. Third, in describing specific mechanisms for ostracism to take effect, it summarizes that threat-to-needs as well as affective and cognitive responses play important roles. Fourth, regarding the mixed findings of ostracism’s impact, it points out that extant inconsistencies lie in individual differences, temporal effects, and situational cues. Last, in recommending future research areas, it suggests several promising directions, particularly the role of culture in shaping victims’ responses to ostracism. We hope this article will be a good foundation for management researchers in Asia Pacific regions to conduct indigenous studies of workplace ostracism relevant to their own contexts.     

Is the theory of trust and commitment in marketing relationships incomplete?

Trust and commitment are central to the relational mediators model of relationship marketing. Extant research suggests that trust enhances commitment, as a trusted partner is so highly valued that a channel member will invest in the relationship and put forth efforts to maintain that relationship. This study re-examines the causality between trust and commitment by comparing alternative models across three datasets (including the seminal Morgan and Hunt 1994 data). The results indicate that while trust enhances commitment, commitment can also erode trust. Several viable, theoretically-driven explanations for this negative effect are discussed, and propositions are developed for future research.     

Risk,standard deviation,and expected value: when should an individual start social security?

In choosing when to start collecting Social Security, the differences in expected net present values (NPVs) are small—but the corresponding standard deviations are not. Starting earlier is less risky. The case analyzed is single individuals in the U.S. system, but the methodology can be applied to couples and to the systems of other nations. Considering risk and return together places Social Security in the same risk/return framework as other capital investments. Behavioral, situational, and qualitative factors that often dominate decisions on when to start are linked with quantitative approaches to longevity risk and mortality risk.     

Social media in B2B sales: Why and when does salesperson social media usage affect salesperson performance?

The importance of social media usage by B2B salespeople has been well documented in the sales literature. In particular, a B2B salesperson's use of social media to prospect for customers and adapt their sales approach have primarily been shown to explain sales performance. However, an increasing body of literature in the sales domain has called for B2B salespeople to be ambidextrous by engaging in service activities aimed at helping their customers. We argue that by giving B2B salespeople an opportunity to communicate directly with their customers, social media is used by salespeople to proactively service their customers and hence can play a critical role in driving sales performance. Drawing from the Task-Technology Fit theory, we develop and test a conceptual model in which B2B salesperson social media usage affects salesperson performance indirectly through value-oriented prospecting and proactive servicing. Additionally peer social media usage was a key moderator in the relationship between B2B salesperson social media usage on the one hand and value-oriented prospecting and proactive servicing on the other hand. We test the model with data from 171 B2B salespeople and find that salesperson social media usage relates positively with proactive servicing and value-oriented prospecting. While we did not find support for the relationship between social media usage and adaptive selling, we did find support for the impact of all three sales activities salesperson performance. In addition, results show that peer social media usage has positive moderating effects on the B2B salesperson social media usage and value-oriented prospecting/proactive servicing relationships.     

Organizational capabilities and business performance: When and how does the dark side of managerial ties matter?

Though the dark side of business-to-business relationships exists at both the firm and personal level, recent research evidence suggests that the theoretical conceptualization and empirical investigation concerning the latter is still under development. Building upon theoretical perspectives of organizational capability, organizational networking and social capital theories, this study investigates the boundary conditions of personalized business-to-business relationships (managerial ties) on business performance. Specifically formulated hypotheses are tested using the perceptions of senior executives in 137 Taiwanese firms operating in a variety of industrial sectors. Our study extends extant literature by revealing that the dark side of managerial ties is evident in the perceived management capability-political ties-performance and technology capability-business ties-performance interplays. More importantly our survey results are corroborated by evidence from interview results with twelve senior executives. Such findings collectively demonstrate the dark side of political ties (governmental interference in employment, blockage of information flow as well as conflicts of interest), and business ties (reciprocal obligations, time consuming factors and maintenance costs).     

Demand,Information, and Competition: Why Do Food Prices Fall at Seasonal Demand Peaks?

Prices for seasonal food products fall at demand peaks. Price declines are not driven by falling agricultural input prices; indeed, farm to retail margins narrow sharply. I use electronic scanner data from a sample of US supermarkets to show that seasonal price declines are closely linked to market concentration, and are much larger in markets with several rivals than where a single brand dominates. Seasonal demand increases reduce the effective costs of informative advertising, and increased informative advertising by retailers and manufacturers in turn may allow for increased market information and greater price sensitivity on the part of buyers.     

Lone wolf or social monkey? The role of marketing outsourcing in the development of second-order marketing competences

Marketing outsourcing has been increasing for decades due to its well-known benefits, even though the development of dynamic marketing capabilities can be severely damaged as a result. This study focuses on the conditions under which marketing outsourcing favors organizational learning. We found that the relationship between marketing outsourcing and second-order marketing competences resembles an inverted U curve. The first-order marketing competences and absorptive capacity positively moderate this relationship both individually and jointly, by shifting the U-curve to the right. Thus, any firm has an optimum level of beneficial outsourcing that depends on how skilled it is in the outsourced marketing function and its ability to assimilate and apply new knowledge. Our findings provide learning-related criteria for the outsourcing decision. Firms that will consider them can develop a knowledge-based competitive advantage while still enjoying the benefits of outsourcing. Against the common wisdom, we show that the development of new marketing capabilities is an equally challenging task for marketing functions with both low and high knowledge intensity.     

Re-charging the costs of R&D: when is it appropriate?

A scheme of recharging the costs of individual R&D projects to internal ‘customers’ in a company is described and its possible advantages discussed. A particular case, recharging in a nationalized industry, is examined and it is concluded that most of the advantages would be difficult to realize; other measures, more suited to individual circumstances, are likely to improve the effectiveness of such corporate R&D. The discussion is generalized to consider which methods of R&D funding are appropriate to different contexts.     

Rice marketing systems in the Philippines and Thailand: Do large numbers of competitive traders ensure good performance?

Rice marketing margins are substantially greater in the Philippines than in Thailand despite many similarities between the two systems and despite the fact that Philippine rice marketing has a competitive structure. We found that rice marketing costs in the Philippines are higher than in Thailand mainly due to higher interest rates in the financial system. Other fundamental factors that also result in higher costs include endowments of water and land, rice price and trade policy, road quality and lack of non-farm job growth. However, the greater costs can only account for about a fourth of the difference in gross margins, implying much higher returns to management in the Philippines despite similar levels of risk and no evidence of collusion. The “excess profits” in the Philippine marketing system suggest there is much to learn about how developing country commodity markets with competitive structures function in actual practice.     

The deployment and penetration of high-speed fiber networks and services: Why are EU member states lagging behind?

One of the most controversial regulatory issues in Europe (and elsewhere) is whether the emerging next-generation access (NGA) infrastructure should be subjected to cost-based access regulation or whether at least a temporary removal of ex ante obligations (“regulatory holidays”) should be granted. Likewise, the role of NGA-specific state aid policies is increasingly capturing the attention of policy makers and the academic literature.     

What types of profitability reports do marketing managers receive?

Marketers have been subjected to considerable criticism for not understanding the financial impact of their decisions. Although profitability reports using contribution analysis have been advocated as a tool that will help marketers make strategic decisions about their firms' product offerings and the allocation of scarce corporate resources, this research found that the profitability reports used in major corporations varied significantly from company to company and from the format advocated in the literature. This paper identifies the shortcomings of corporate reporting methods and recommends ways to improve the current situation.     

Rejoinder to “Endogeneity bias in marketing research: Problem,causes and remedies”

There are a few significant errors in Zaefarian, Kadile, Henneberg, and Leischnig's (2017) (henceforth ZKHL) discussion of remedies to address endogeneity issues in their recent survey article in Industrial Marketing Management. Most notably, they incorrectly describe 2-stage least squares (2SLS) estimation procedure. We provide the correct methodology here, along with sample data and code, and compare estimations using ZHKL's suggested methodology with proper 2SLS and ordinary least squares. We show that the method they suggest will actually result in greater bias in coefficient estimates while proper 2SLS addresses the endogeneity problem. Also, they incorrectly describe 3-stage least squares (3SLS), both in terms of implementation procedure and appropriate setting. We address both of these issues by describing when 3SLS would be used and the benefits of using 3SLS versus other methods to estimate simultaneous equations models. We discuss further issues with their paper and provide R code and simulated data.     

Who Do Firms Lay Off and Why?

I develop and test a structural–historical account of corporate reductions in force (RIF) to assess whether this widespread process was redistributive or efficient. I argue that changes in the context of restructuring in recent decades, coupled with substantial changes in organizational compensation systems, lead to temporal variation in the likelihood of “broken‐contract” RIF, in which firms terminate highly paid managers, and “trimming the fat” RIF, in which firms terminate low‐performing managers. Analyses of personnel records from a Fortune 500 manufacturing firm indicate that low performance leads to increased risk of separation in each of the two RIF undertaken by the firm, with the effect becoming stronger over time in part because of changes in the firm’s performance management system. By contrast, high wages were a more important factor explaining departure during the firm’s RIF in the 1980s—when competitive pressures to default on bonded contracts were strong—than during its RIF in the 1990s.