Intelligence generation and superior customer value

It has become conventional wisdom that an organization's ability to continuously generate intelligence about customers' expressed and latent needs, and about how to satisfy those needs, is essential for it to continuously create superior customer value. However, intelligence generation typically has been treated as a generic firm activity. The authors propose that there are four distinct modes of intelligence generation, each of which is part of a welldeveloped intelligence-generation capability. The article reports the results of an exploratory study that supports this proposition. Stanley F. Slater is the vice chancellor for academic affairs and a professor of business administration at the University of Washington, Bothell. His research interests lie primarily in the areas of market-based organizational learning and market strategy implementation. He has published more than 30 articles in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theStrategic Management Journal, and theJournal of Management, among others. He has won “Best Paper” awards from the International Marketing Review and from the Marketing Science Institute. He currently serves on five editorial review boards including those of theJournal of Marketing and theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science. John C. Narver is a professor of marketing in the Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Washington, Seattle. His general research interests lie in the area of strategic marketing. His current research is primarily concerned with the creation and effects of a market orientation in an organization. His work has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theStrategic Management Journal, theAcademy of Management Journal, and theJournal of Market-Focused, Management, among other scholarly journals. He has won the “Best Paper” award from the Marketing Science Institute.     

Alliance competence, resources, and alliance success: Conceptualization, measurement, and initial test

This research examines the effect of an alliance competence on resource-based alliance success. The fundamental thesis guiding this research is that an alliance competence contributes to alliance success, both directly and through the acquisition and creation of resources. Using survey data gathered from 145 alliances, empirical tests of the hypotheses provide support for the posited explanation of alliance success. The findings indicate that an alliance competence is not only antecedent to the resources that are necessary for alliance success but also to alliance success itself. C. Jay Lambe (Ph.D., The Darden School at University of Virginia) is an assistant professor of marketing in the Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Tech. For 10 years prior to entering academe, he was engaged in business-to-business marketing for both Xerox and AT&T. His research interests include business-to-business marketing, relationship marketing, marketing strategy, and sales management. He has publications in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Product Innovation Management, theEuropean Journal of Marketing, theJournal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, theInternational Journal of Management Reviews, theJournal of Business-to-Business Marketing, and theJournal of Relationship Marketing. He also serves as a reviewer for theJournal of Business-to-Business Marketing. Prior to joining the faculty at Virginia Tech, he was one of five Texas Tech University faculty members chosen in 1999 from the entire university for the annual Outstanding Faculty Member Award by the Mortar Board and Omicron Delta Kappa (Texas Tech University student organizations that recognize excellence in teaching). Robert E. Spekman is the Tayloe Murphy Professor of Business Administration at the Darden School at the University of Virginia. He was formerly a professor of marketing and associate director of the Center for Telecommunications at the University of Southern California. He is an internationally recognized authority on business-to-business marketing and strategic alliances. His consulting experiences range from marketing research and competitive analysis, to strategic market planning, supply chain management, channels of distribution design and implementation, and strategic partnering. He has taught in a number of executive programs in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Asia, and Europe. His executive program experience ranges from general marketing strategy, to sales force management, to channels strategy, to creating strategic alliances, to business-to-business marketing strategy, to a number of single-company and senior executive management programs. He has edited and/or written seven books and has authored (coauthored) more than 80 articles and papers. He also serves as a reviewer for a number of marketing and management journals, as well as for the National Science Foundation. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Southern California, he taught in the College of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park. During his tenure at Maryland, he was granted the Most Distinguished Faculty Award by the MBA students on three separate occasions. Shelby D. Hunt is the J. B. Hoskins and P. W. Horn Professor of Marketing at Texas Tech University, Lubbock. A past editor of theJournal of Marketing (1985–87), he is the author ofModern Marketing Theory: Critical Issues in the Philosophy of Marketing Science (South-Western, 1991) andA General Theory of Competition: Resources, Competences, Productivity, Economic Growth (Sage, 2000). He has written numerous articles on competitive theory, macromarketing, ethics, channels of distribution, philosophy of science, and marketing theory. Three of hisJournal of Marketing articles—“The Nature and Scope of Marketing” (1976), “General Theories and Fundamental Explananda of Marketing” (1983), and “The Comparative Advantage Theory of Competition” (1995) (with Robert M. Morgan)—won the Harold H. Maynard Award for the best article on marketing theory. His 1985Journal of Business Research article with Lawrence B. Chonko, “Ethics and Marketing Management,” received the 2000 Elsevier Science Exceptional Quality and High Scholarly Impact award. His 1989 article, ”Reification and Realism in Marketing: in Defense of Reason,” won theJournal of Macromarketing Charles C. Slater Award. For his contributions to theory and science in marketing, he received the 1986 Paul D. Converse Award from the American Marketing Association, the 1987 Outstanding Marketing Educator Award from the Academy of Marketing Science, and the 1992 American Marketing Association/Richard D. Irwin Distinguished Marketing Educator Award.     

The moderating effect of organizational cohesiveness in knowledge use and new product development

This study examined the influence of cohesiveness, an organizational cultural variable, on knowledge use and organizational learning within the context of new product development (NPD). The authors surveyed NPD managers from 323 firms, representing a wide range of product classifications, about their firms’ levels of cohesiveness and NPD efforts. Using structural equation modeling, the authors demonstrated that organizational cohesiveness has a moderating influence on both an organization’s use of its existing knowledge to develop innovative new products and the resulting performance of those products, which emphasizes how influential organizational “mind-set” can be. By considering cohesiveness an influence in new product innovativeness and new product performance, the authors incorporated a cultural variable that has received little attention in the NPD and more general marketing literature. This research reveals that much is left to learn about cohesiveness and that understanding it can advance knowledge use, organizational learning, and innovation. Beverly K. Brockman (bev-brockman@utc.edu) is an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. She holds BBA and MBA degrees from the University of Kentucky and a PhD from the University of Alabama. Her specialty areas include marketing strategy, entrepreneurship, product development, and organizational learning. Dr. Brockman has been an American Marketing Association Doctoral Consortium Fellow, and her work has been published inDecision Sciences, Journal of Services Research, Journal of Consumer Satisfaction, Dissatisfaction, and Complaining Behavior, and others. Robert M. Morgan (rmorgan@cba.ua.edu) (PhD, 1991, Texas Tech University) is Phifer Faculty Fellow and department head, Department of Management and Marketing, in the Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration at the University of Alabama. His interests focus on relationship marketing and marketing strategy, and his research in these areas has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theAcademy of Management Journal, Decision Sciences, and other journals and book chapters. His article “The Commitment-Trust Theory of Relationship Marketing,” coauthored with Shelby D. Hunt and published in 1993 in theJournal of Marketing, was recognized in 2004 by the Institute for Scientific Information as the most cited article in business and economics journals over the previous decade. His article “The Comparative Advantage Theory of Competition,” also coauthored with Shelby D. Hunt and published in 1995 in theJournal of Marketing, received the Sheth Foundation/Journal of Marketing Award in 2004.     

Implementing a customer relationship strategy: The asymmetric impact of poor versus excellent execution

The benefits of developing customer relationships are well established. However, a well-intentioned relationship marketing strategy may fail because of poor implementation. In this study, the authors look at the effects of implementing a customer relationship strategy. Specifically, they examine the implementation of a personal-banker strategy as a means to developing customer relationships in the retail banking industry. The authors show that an “excellent” personal banker can increase overall customer satisfaction and loyalty compared to customers who do not have a personal banker. However, a poorly performing personal banker can result in lower overall customer satisfaction and loyalty than if no personal banker had been available. Moreover, the effects seem to be asymmetric, with the negative effects of a poor relationship strategy exceeding the positive benefits ofan “excellent” strategy. Mark R. Colgate is a senior lecturer in services marketing at the School of Business and Economics, University of Auckland, New Zealand. His research focuses on customer inertia, relationship marketing, and the interface between information technology and marketing. His research has been published in theEuropean Journal of Marketing, theInternational Journal of Service Industry Management, andThe Service Industries Journal and other services journals. Peter J. Danaher is a professor in the Department of Marketing Department at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He has a Ph.D. in statistics from Florida State University and an M.S. in statistics from Purdue. His primary research interests are media exposure distributions, advertising effectiveness, customer satisfaction measurement, forecasting and sample surveys, resulting in many publications in journals such as theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Advertising Research, theJournal of the American Statistical Association, theJournal of Retailing, theJournal of Business and Economic Statistics, and theAmerican Statistician. He has consulted extensively with Telecom, Optus Communications, Unilever, ACNielsen, and other market research companies.     

Export marketing,interfunctional interactions,and performance consequences

Firms with export operations have internal environments that are often geared toward serving the home market. As a result, export marketing and other business functions compete for resources, which thus increases the likelihood of conflict between them. Using survey responses from more than 700 exporting firms, the authors test a model of the antecedents and consequences of two important interaction variables: exporting’s interfunctional connectedness and conflict. The model explains 52 percent and 49 percent of variance in exporting connectedness and conflict, respectively. The authors identify the key drivers of successful interactions as follows: management commitment, organizational training and reward systems, relative functional identification, centralization, and export employee job satisfaction and commitment. The authors also demonstrate that connectedness is most critical for export success when export markets are in a state of turbulence, whereas conflict is most detrimental when the firm’s export environment is stable. John W. Cadogan (j.w.cadogan@lboro.ac.uk), Ph.D., is a professor of marketing in the Business School at Loughborough University, United Kingdom. His primary areas of research interest are international marketing, marketing strategy, and sales management. He has published on these issues in theJournal of International Business Studies, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theJournal of Business Research, Industrial Marketing Management, theEuropean Journal of Marketing, theInternational Marketing Review, theJournal of Marketing Management, theJournal of Strategic Marketing, and other academic journals. He received his degree from the University of Wales (United Kingdom). Sanna Sundqvist (sanna.sundqvist@lut.fi), Ph.D., is a professor in international marketing in the Department of Business Administration at the Lappeenranta University of Technology (Finland). Her research interests deal with the international diffusion of innovations, market orientation (especially in an international context), and consumers’ adoption behavior. She has published in theJournal of Business Research, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theEuropean Journal of Marketing, theCanadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, and theAustralasian Marketing Journal. She received her degree from the Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland. Risto T. Saiminen (risto.salminen@lut.fi), Ph.D., is a professor of industrial engineering and management, especially marketing, in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management at Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland. His primary areas of research interest are customer relationships and networks in business marketing, pedagogy in industrial engineering and management, and international marketing. He has published on these issues in theJournal of Business and Industrial Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Management, theEuropean Journal of Engineering Education, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theEuropean Journal of Marketing, and theAustralasian Marketing Journal. He received his degree from Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland. Kaisu Puumalainen (kaisu.puumalainen@lut.fi), Ph.D., is a professor in technology research in the Department of Business Administration at Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland. Her primary areas of research interest are innovation, international marketing, and small businesses. She has published on these issues in theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theJournal of Business Research, theEuropean Journal of Marketing, R&D Management, theCanadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, theJournal of International Entrepreneurship, theAustralasian Marketing Journal, and theInternational Journal of Production Economics. She received her degree from the Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland.     

Firm-level export performance assessment: Review, evaluation, and development

Export performance is one of the most widely researched but least understood and most contentious areas of international marketing. To some extent, this problem can be ascribed to difficulties in conceptualizing, operationalizing, and measuring the export performance construct, often leading to inconsistent and conflicting results. This study reviews and evaluates more than 100 articles of pertinent empirical studies to assess and critique export performance measurements. Based on gaps identified in this evluation, guidelines for export performance measure development are advanced, suggesting, however, a contingency approach in their application. Several conclusions and implications for export strategy and future research are derived from this analysis. Constantine S. Katsikeas holds the Sir Julian Hodge Chair in Marketing and International Business at Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University. His main research interests lie in the areas of international marketing and purchasing, global strategic alliances, and competitive strategy. He has published widely in these fields and his articles have appeared inJournal of International Business Studies, Journal of International Marketing, (formerly Columbia)Journal of World Business, Journal of Business Research, Industrial Marketing Management, andManagement International Review, among others. Leonidas C. Leonidou is associate professor of marketing at the University of Cyprus. He obtained his Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Bath, and has research interests in international marketing, relationship marketing, strategic marketing, and marketing in emerging economies. He has published extensively in these fields and his articles have appeared in various journals includingJournal of International Business Studies, Journal of Business Research, Journal of International Marketing, andManagement International Review. Neil A. Morgan is assistant professor of marketing in the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His research interests focus on strategic issues concerning marketing resources and capabilities, and marketing planning and implementation processes and their links with business performance. His work has appeared inJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Business Research, Industrial Marketing Management, British Journal of Management, European Journal of Marketing, and other journals.     

Technology infusion in service encounters

Service encounters are critical in all industries, including those that have not been traditionally defined as service industries. The increasing deployment of technology is altering the essence of service encounters formerly anchored in a “low-tech, high-touch” paradigm. This article explores the changing nature of service, with an emphasis on how encounters can be improved through the effective use of technology. The authors examine the ability of technology to effectively (1) customize service offerings, (2) recover from service failure, and (3) spontaneously delight customers. The infusion of technology is examined as an enabler of both employees and customers in efforts to achieve these three goals. Although the infusion of technology can lead to negative outcomes and may not be embraced by all customers, the focus of this article is on the benefits of thoughtfully managed and effectively implemented technology applications. Past research and industry examples are featured and future research directions and managerial implications are highlighted. Mary Jo Bitner is the AT&T Professor of Services Marketing and Management and the research director of the Center for Services Marketing & Management at Arizona State University. Her research focuses on customer evaluations of service, selfservice technologies, and service delivery issues. She has published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Business Research, theJournal of Retailing, and theInternational Journal of Service Industry Management. She is coauthor of the textServices Marketing (McGraw-Hill, 2d ed., 2000). Stephen W. Brown holds the Edward M. Carson Chair of Services Marketing and Management, is Professor of Marketing, and director of the Center for Services Marketing & Management at Arizona State University. His research focuses on services marketing strategy, service delivery, customer loyalty, and service recovery. He has published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Business Research, and theJournal of Retailing. He is the coeditor of theAdvances in Services Marketing and Management series. Matthew L. Meuter is Assistant Professor of Marketing at Villanova University with a Ph.D. in marketing from Arizona State University. His research interests focus on the impact technology has on the marketing function, the changing nature of technologically based service encounters, customer satisfaction with self-service technologies, and customer adoption of technologically based service delivery innovations. His research has been published in the American Marketing Association's (AMA)Educators' Proceedings and has been presented at several national conferences.     

Attitude basis,certainty, and challenge alignment: A case of negative brand publicity

By integrating research from attitude challenge matching and consumer alignment and judgment revision, the authors explore how firms can position brands to insulate them from negative publicity and how consumers evaluate brands in reaction to such publicity. They introduce an important moderator of brand evaluation revision, prior brand attitude certainty, and propose that when negative publicity matches or “aligns” with the basis of a brand attitude, certainty in that attitude interacts with the attitude, determining the affect of the negative publicity on brand evaluations. The results of two experiments suggest that prior brand attitudes held with high certainty tend to “nsulate” brands, even when negative publicity matches or aligns with the bases of brand attitudes, whereas brand attitudes held with low certainty may exacerbate the effects of negative event publicity. The results also show that multiplex positioning (positioning a brand with both performance-and values-based attributes) may insulate brands more effectively from negative publicity. Chris Pullig (chris_pullig@baylor.edu) is an assistant professor of marketing in the Hankamer School of Business at Baylor University. Before beginning his academic career, Professor Pullig worked in the retail industry as the CEO of a chain of specialty clothing stores and also as a consultant with the Small Business Administration. He received his Ph.D. from Louisiana State University and was previously on the faculty at the University of Virginia. His research is in consumer attitudes and decision making, with an emphasis on effective creation and the protection of consumer-based brand equity. His previous work has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Retailing, theJournal of Consumer Psychology, theJournal of Public Policy and Marketing, and others. Richard G. Netemeyer (rgn3p@virginia.edu) is the Ralph A. Beeton Professor of Free Enterprise in the Mclntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia. He received his PhD in business administration from the University of South Carolina in 1986. From 1986 to 2001, he was a member of the Marketing Department in the College of Business at Louisiana State University. In 2001, he joined the faculty at Mclntire. His substantive research interests include’ consumer and organizational behavior topics and public policy and social issues. His methodological research interests focus on survey methods and measurement. His research has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Consumer Research, theJournal of Applied Psychology, theAmerican Journal of Public Health, and others. Abhijit Biswas (a.biswas@wayne.edu) is the Kmart Endowed Chair and Professor of Marketing at the School of Business Administration, Wayne State University. He received his PhD from the University of Houston. His research interest is primarily in the area of pricing and consumer behavior, and he has published numerous research papers in journals such as theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Retailing, theJournal of Consumer Psychology, theJournal of Public Policy and Marketing, theJournal of Advertising, theJournal of Business Research, Psychology and Marketing, Marketing Letters, and other refereed journals and proceedings. He currently serves on the editorial boards of theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science and theJournal of Public Policy and Marketing and is the associate editor for the Business and Marketing Research track of the Journal of Business Research.     

Driving organizational citizenship behaviors and salesperson in-role behavior performance: The role of management control and perceived organizational support

Interest in management control approaches and organizational factors associated with higher levels of salesperson performance is reflected in research streams concerned with behavior-based control strategies and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). This study makes two distinct additions to the literature relating to control, organizational citizenship behaviors and salesperson performance. First, the study distinguishes between salesperson in-role behavior performance and outcome performance to model in-role behavior performance as a mediator between OCB and outcome performance. Second, the work supports sales manager control as an antecedent to OCB. A second model introduces perceived organizational support (POS) as an additional antecedent to salesperson OCB, and more important, as a consequence of sales manager control. This construct has not been included in prior salesperson OCB studies. Results show sales manage control has a stronger impact on OCB through POS, than directly, and POS has a strong impact on salesperson OCB. Nigel F. Piercy (Nigel.Piercy@wbs.ac.uk) is a professor of marketing in the Warwick Business School at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wales and a higher doctorate (D.Litt) from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. His current research interests focus on strategic sales and account management. His work has been published in many journals including theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of International Marketing, and theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science. He is coauthor to David Cravens onStrategic Marketing (8th ed., Irwin/McGraw-Hill, 2006). David W. Cravens (D.Cravens@tcu.edu) holds the Eunice and James L. West Chair of American Enterprise Studies and is a professor of marketing in the M. J. Neeley School of Business at Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas. He has a doctorate in business administration from Indiana University. His areas of specialization include marketing strategy and planning, sales management, and new product planning. His research has been published in a wide range of journals including theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and theInternational Journal of Marketing. Nikala Lane (Nikala.Lane@wbs.ac.uk) is a senior lecturer in marketing in the Warwick Business School at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wales and was previously a senior research associate at Cardiff University. Her research interests are focused on gender and ethics issues in sales and marketing management. Her work has been published widely in the international literature and includes articles in theJournal of Management Studies, theBritish Journal of Management, the Journal of Business Ethics, and theJournal of Personal Selling & Sales Management. Douglas W. Vorhies (dvorhies@bus.olemiss.edu) is an assistant professor of marketing in the School of Business Administration at the University of Mississippi. His primary research interests are in the areas of marketing strategy, marketing resources and capabilities, the links between innovation, strategic market management and performance, and professional selling and sales management. His other work has been published in many journals including theJournal of Marketing, Decision Sciences, theJournal of Product Innovation Management, theEuropean Journal of Marketing, and theJournal of Personal Selling and Sales Management.     

Serving customers and consumers effectively in the twenty-first century: A conceptual framework and overview

In this article, the authors first propose and discuss a conceptual framework pertaining to the theme of this special issue. This framework portrays “markets” as consisting of “customers” and “consumers,” specifies the distinction as well as linkages between the two, and outlines specific components of individual linkages between pairs of entities within markets. Using this framework as a backdrop, the article then provides an overview of the rest of the special issue by discussing how each of the remaining articles relate to the framework and to one another. A. Parasuraman (D.B.A., Indiana University) is a professor and holder of the James W. McLamore Chair in Marketing at the University of Miami. He teaches and does research in services marketing, service-quality measurement, and the role of technology in marketing to and serving customers. He has received many distinguished teaching and research awards, including, most recently, the “Career Contributions to the Services Discipline Award” given by the American Marketing Association's (AMA) SERVSIG. He has written numerous articles in journals such as theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Retailing, andSloan Management Review. He is the author of a marketing research text and coauthor of two books on service quality and services marketing. In addition to being the editor of theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science (JAMS), he serves on the editorial review boards of five other journals. Dhruv Grewal (Ph.D., Virginia Tech) is Interim-Chair and a professor of marketing at the University of Miami. He has published more than 40 articles in journals such as theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Consumer Research, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and theJournal of Retailing. His research interests focus on retailing, pricing, international marketing, and consumer behavior issues. He currently serves on the editorial review boards of theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Retailing, and theJournal of Public Policy & Marketing. He has won awards for both his teaching and research. He has coedited a special issue of theJournal of Public Policy & Marketing and of theJournal of Retailing. He was recently elected to the AMA Academic Council—VP Research and Conferences (1999–2001). He is currently writing a book onMarketing Research (publisher: Houghton Mifflin).     

Interactions between marketing and quality at the SBU level: Influences and outcomes

The management of quality and development of effective cross-functional cooperation have assumed a new strategic importance over the past decade. However, many companies have reported that quality strategies have failed to deliver anticipated performance benefits and that ineffective interfunctional relationships may be to blame. This study explores marketing-quality interfunctional relationships as a potential source of quality strategy implementation failure at the strategic business unit (SBU) level. This study focuses on interdepartmental connectedness, communication and conflict between marketing and quality, and the antecedents and consequences of these dimensions of interfunctional interaction. Using data from a pooled response mail survey, the results suggest that marketing-quality interactions are associated with senior management quality leadership, strategic quality planning process, and control system characteristics. Interfunctional interactions between marketing and quality are found to be only weakly related to relative quality, market performance, and financial performance outcomes. Neil A. Morgan is a university lecturer in marketing and strategy at the Judge Institute of Management Studies, University of Cambridge, England. His research interests focus on strategic issues concerning marketing strategy formulation, marketing implementation processes, and business performance. His work has appeared in theJournal of Business Research, Industrial Marketing Management, British Journal of Management, and other journals. Nigel F. Piercy is Sir Julian Hodge professor of marketing and strategy and chair of Marketing and Strategy at the Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, United Kingdom. His research interests focus on the organizational context of marketing management, market-led strategic change, and the role of process in marketing strategy implementation. His work has appeared in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Advertising, and other journals.     

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.     

Interimistic relational exchange: Conceptualization and propositional development

Research on relational exchange has focused primarily on long-term, or “enduring,” relational exchange. The evolutionary model of relationship development that is the foundation for much of the research on enduring relational exchange lacks applicability for short-term, or “interimitic,” relational exchange. Interimistic relational exchange is defined as a close, collaborative, fast-developing, short-lived exchange relationship in which companies pool their skills and/or resources to address a transient, albeit important, business opportunity and/or threat. Because interimistic exchange relationships must quickly become functional and have a short life, these relationships have less time to fully develop the relational governance mechanisms assumed in the evolutionary model. There-fore, interimistic relational exchange appears to relymore on nonrelational mechanisms than does enduring relational exchange. This article (1) examines how interimistic relational exchange governance differs from that of enduring relational exchange and (2) develops propositions for further research on interimistic relational exchange. C. Jay Lambe received his doctorate from the Darden School at the University of Virginia. He is an assistant professor of marketing at Texas Tech University. Prior to entering academe, he was engaged in business-to-business marketing for both Xerox and AT&T. His research interests include business-to-business marketing, relationship marketing, marketing strategy, and sales management. He has publications in theJournal of Product Innovation Management, theEuropean Journal of Marketing, theJournal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, and theInternational Journal of Management Reviews. In 1999, he was one of five Texas Tech University faculty members chosen by the students for the annual Outstanding Faculty Member Award. Robert E. Spekman is the Tayloe Murphy Professor of Business Administration at the Darden School. He was formerly a professor of marketing and associate director of the Center for Telecommunications at the University of Southern California (USC). He is a recognized authority on business-to-business marketing and strategic alliances. His consulting experiences range from marketing research and competitive analysis to strategic market planning, supply chain management, channels of distribution design and implementation, and strategic partnering. He has taught in a number of executive programs in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Asia, and Europe. He has edited/written seven books and has authored (coauthored) more than 80 articles and papers. He also serves as a reviewer for a number of marketing and management journals as well as for the National Science Foundation. Prior to joining the faculty at USC, he taught in the College of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park. During his tenure at Maryland, he was granted the Most Distinguished Faculty Award by the MBA students on three separate occasions. Shelby D. Hunt is the J. B. Hoskins and P. W. Horn Professor of Marketing at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas. A past editor of theJournal of Marketing (1985–1987) and author ofModern Marketing Theory: Critical Issues in the Philosophy of Marketing Science (South-Western, 1991), he has written numerous articles on competitive theory, macro marketing, ethics, channels of distribution, and marketing theory. Three of hisJournal of Marketing articles, “The Nature and Scope of Marketing” (1976), “General Theories and the Fundamental Explananda of Marketing” (1983), and “The Comparative Advantage Theory of Competition” (1995) won the Harold H. Maynard Award for the “best article on marketing theory”. He received the 1986 Paul D. Converse Award from the American Marketing Association for his “outstanding contributions to theory and science in marketing”. He received the 1987 Outstanding Marketing Educator Award from the Academy of Marketing Science and the 1992 American Marketing Association/Richard D. Irwin Distinguished Marketing Educator Award. His new and provocative book is titledA General Theory of Competition: Resources, Competences, Productivity, Economic Growth (Sage, 2000).     

Categorizing cognitive responses: An empirical investigation of the cognitive intent congruency between independent raters and original subject raters

Cognitive response coding is relevant for researchers who collect cognitive responses from individuals in the form of answers to open-ended questions or as thoughts produced while exposed to advertising messages. Coding of these cognitive responses is normally completed by a panel of two to four independent judges. This article is the first to empirically investigate cognitive intent congruence aspects underlining the data generated through cognitive response coding. The results show that there are definite gaps in the congruence of cognitive intent between the cognitive coding results that respondents, serving as cognitive response coders of their own thoughts, can provide and those cognitive response patterns provided by independent raters. The current study’s results raise a “yellow” caution flag regarding external independent raters’ ability to produce valid cognitive intent coding patterns that cannot be ignored by future researchers. The authors offer interpretation, implications, limitations, and directions for future research. Karin Braunsberger (braunsbe@stpt.usf.edu) (Ph.D., University of Texas at Arlington) is an associate professor of marketing in the College of Business Administration at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. Her research interests are in the areas of research methods, consumer thought processes, and services marketing. Her research has been published in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science (JAMS), theJournal of Business Research, theJournal of Services Marketing, and others. She serves as a member of the editorial review board forJAMS. R. Brian Buckler (bucklerrb@mail.avila.edu) (Ph.D., University of Texas at Arlington) is an associate professor of marketing at Avila University (since 1996). He teaches both undergraduate and MBA Marketing courses. He is serving a second term as president of the American Marketing Association—Kansas City, Regional Chapter and has also served as director and vice president of Membership. His teaching and research interests include marketing strategy, marketing research, and consumer behavior. David J. Ortinau (dortinau@coba.usf.edu) (Ph.D., Louisiana State University) is a professor of marketing in the College of Business Administration at the University of South Florida, Tampa. His research interests are in the areas of consumer satisfaction and value evaluations/models; services marketing and service quality within selected market segments; research methodologies/scale measurement development; marketing education issues; attitudinal, motivation, and value issues within the consumer behavior framework; and marketing interactive technologies. His scholarly contributions have been published in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science (JAMS), theJournal of Retailing, theJournal of Business Research (JBR), theJournal of Health Care Marketing, theJournal of Services Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Education, and others. He is coauthor (with Joseph F. Hair Jr. and Robert P. Bush) ofMarketing Research: Within a Changing Information Environment (3d ed.). He serves as an editorial board member forJAMS andJBR, as well as an ad hoc reviewer for several other journal outlets. His teaching interests focus on marketing research methods and scale measurement, consumer/social behavior, and services marketing.     

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 ethnocentrism offline and online: The mediating role of marketing efforts and personality traits in the United States, South Korea, and India

Consumer ethnocentrism is an important concept that is used to understand international marketing phenomena. In this article, the authors conduct two empirical studies. Using consumer data from the United States, South Korea, and India (three diverse cultural and economic environments), they explore six hypotheses. In Stage 1, the results suggest that across all three countries, consumer ethnocentrism provokes negative attitudes toward both foreign advertisements and foreign products. The authors identify a set of consumer variables (i.e., consumers’ global mind-set) that may mediate consumers’ unfavorable attitudes toward foreign advertisements and products derived by consumer ethnocentrism. In Stage 2, the authors find that consumer ethnocentrism dampens consumers’ online consumption activities on a foreign Web site. Finally, the authors find that marketers’ e-mail communications to foreign consumers mediate consumer ethnocentrism in online environments. Hyokjin Kwak (hkwak@drexel.edu) is an assistant professor of marketing at Drexel University. His research interests include advertising effects, consumer communications, and strategic marketing. He has publications in theJournal of Consumer Psychology, theJournal of Advertising Research, theJournal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising, theJournal of Consumer Marketing, and other marketing journals. Anupam Jaju (ajaju@gmu.edu) is an assistant professor of marketing in the School of Management at George Mason University. His main research interests are in marketing strategy, marketing-technology interface, and international marketing. His work has been published in theJournal of International Management, Marketing Theory, andMarketing Education Review. Trina Larsen Andras (published as Trina Larsen, larsent@ drexel.edu) is a professor and the head of the Marketing Department at Drexel University. Her research has been published in many of the major professional journals in her field, includingHarvard Business Review, theColumbia Journal of World Business, International Marketing Review, Industrial Marketing Management, Management International Review, theJournal of Global Marketing, and theJournal of International Marketing, among others. Her research is focused on international marketing, specifically, cross-cultural behavioral and relationship issues in international marketing management.     

A refinement and validation of the MARKOR scale

In this article, the authors attempt to develop an improved market orientation scale built on Kohli, Jaworski, and Kumar’s market orientation scale (MARKOR). The modified scale is then compared with the MARKOR scale in a validation study. The authors argue that the scale improves operationalization of the market orientation construct, and the results indicate that the psychometric properties of the new scale are superior to those of the MARKOR scale. Implications of the results are discussed, and a future research agenda is offered. Ken Matsuno is assistant professor of marketing at Babson College. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee. His research interests include marketing strategy formulation process and its outcomes and business-to-business marketing issues. His work can be found in theJournal of Marketing, theInternational Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management, and several academic conference proceedings. John T. Mentzer is the Harry J. and Vivienne B. Bruce Excellence Chair of Business Policy in the Department of Marketing, Logistics, and Transportation at the University of Tennessee. He received his Ph.D. from Michigan State. He has published in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Business Logistics International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management, Transportation Journal, Columbia Journal of World Business, Industrial Marketing Management, Research in Marketing, and other journals. Joseph O. Rentz is associate professor of marketing at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Georgia. His research interests include cohort analysis, measurement issues in marketing, generalizability studies, and itnerfunctional effectiveness. He has published articles in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing, andJournal of Marketing Research among others.     

Interactivity in the electronic marketplace: An exposition of the concept and implications for research

It is widely recognized that a better understanding of interactivity and its implications is essential for facilitating research focused on the emerging electronic marketplace. However, deficiencies persist in our understanding of this important concept. Building on research in various fields of study (e.g., information systems, marketing, and computer-mediated communication), this article presents a conceptualization of interactivity from a marketplace perspective that is missing or inadequately articulated in the literature. Specifically, interactivity is conceptualized as a characteristic of computer-mediated communication in the marketplace that increases with the bidirectionality, timeliness, mutual controllability, and responsiveness of communication as perceived by consumers and firms. The article concludes with a research agenda focusing on issues relating to measurement, conceptual refinement, and management of interactivity in the electronic marketplace. Manjit S. Yadav (yadav@tamu.edu) is an associate professor of marketing and Mays Research Fellow, Department of Marketing, Mays Business School, Texas A&M University. He obtained his Ph.D. in marketing from Virginia Tech. His current research focuses primarily on strategic issues related to the Internet and the electronic marketplace. He has published in a number of journals including theJournal of Marketing Research, the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, andSloan Management Review. He is a member of the Editorial Review Board of theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science and theJournal of Interactive Marketing. He is a recipient of the Faculty Distinguished Achievement Award in Teaching (Mays Business School, Texas A&M University). He cochaired the American Marketing Association’s Faculty Consortium on Electronic Commerce held at Texas A&M University. Rajan Varadarajan (varadarajan@tamu.edu) is a 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, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theAcademy of Management Journal, theStrategic Management Journal, and other journals. He 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).     

“Migrating” to new service providers: Toward a unifying framework of consumers’ switching behaviors

This article explores the applicability of a model of migration from the human geography literature as a unifying, theoretical framework for understanding consumers’ service provider switching behaviors. Survey data from approximately 700 consumers are used to examine the usefulness of the push, pull, and moorings (PPM) migration model. The PPM migration model performs better than an alternative model; all three categories of antecedents to switching (migration)—push, pull, and mooring variables—have significant direct, and some moderating, effects on switching intentions. Harvir S. Bansal (Ph.D., Queen’s University, hbansal@wlu.ca) is an associate professor of marketing at Wilfrid Laurier University. His research interests are focused in the area of services marketing with emphasis on customer switching behavior, word-of-mouth processes in services, structural equation modeling, and tourism. His research has been published in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the Journal of Services Marketing, the Journal of Service Research, Tourism Management, theJournal of Quality Management, andPsychology and Marketing. He has also presented at and published articles in the proceedings of various national and international conferences. Shirley F. Taylor (Ph.D., University of British Columbia, staylor@business.queensu.ca) is an associate professor in the School of Business at Queen’s University, where she teaches and conducts research in the area of services marketing. Her research interests include service provider loyalty and switching, customer commitment, and perceptions management of service delays. Her work has been published in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the Journal of Marketing, Psychology & Marketing, theJournal of Service Research, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, and theJournal of Public Policy and Marketing. She currently serves on the editorial boards of theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Business Research and the Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences. Yannik St. James (ystjames@business.queensu.ca) is a doctoral candidate in the School of Business at Queen’s University, where she conducts research at the intersection of consumer behavior and marketing strategy. Her research interests include the role of affect in consumer behavior, brand management, and services marketing. She has presented her work at the Association for Consumer Research Conference, the Academy of Marketing Science Conference, and the Frontiers in Services Conference.