What drives customer Re-engagement? The foundational role of the sales-service interplay in episodic value co-creation

As existing business-to-business value co-creation (VCC) contracts approach their planned expiration, customers evaluate incumbent suppliers when forming their decisions to re-engage or defect. During this late stage of VCC, supplier sales and service personnel perform unique activities to support one another and foster VCC re-engagement. To investigate this sales-service interplay, the authors employ an exploratory inquiry consisting of 115 depth interviews across 63 customer accounts. Interviews were conducted with customers following the decision to re-engage or defect from an incumbent supplier. Findings suggest that sales' efforts to renew the VCC contract depend on tactical insights provided by service. Through their involvement with customers, service holds a tactical perspective that can extract micro-level customer insights. Findings also suggest that service's ability to influence supplier-specific knowledge stores within the customer organization depends on macro-level strategic customer directives that may be shared by sales. Further, service's activation of such knowledge stores moderates the relationship between sales' RFP response and the customer's VCC re-engagement decision. The results have implications for the industrial sales and service fields, since the integration of the sales and service teams is critical for garnering intrafirm knowledge flows that drive recurrent VCC within collaborative customer-supplier relationships.     

Issues in Supply Chain Management: Progress and potential

In a 2000 article in Industrial Marketing Management, “Issues in Supply Chain Management,” Lambert and Cooper presented a framework for Supply Chain Management (SCM) as well as issues related to how it should be implemented and directions for future research. The framework was comprised of eight cross-functional, cross-firm business processes that could be used as a new way to manage relationships with suppliers and customers. It was based on research conducted by a team of academic researchers working with a group of executives from non-competing firms that had been meeting regularly since 1992 with the objective of improving SCM theory and practice. The research has continued for the past 16 years and now covers a total of 25 years. In this paper, we review the progress that has been made in the development and implementation of the proposed SCM framework since 2000 and identify opportunities for further research.     

Co-creating integrated solutions within business networks: The KAM team as knowledge integrator

This study derives from a need that is both practical and theoretical: the need to increase knowledge of how KAM teams might ensure more successful value co-creation with their business customers in the service sector. The KAM teams in this study are formed of members originating from several supplier companies that integrate and apply resources with their customers in a business network. In the co-creation of integrated solutions within such business networks, KAM teams – drawing on organizational learning theory and knowledge management – are considered as knowledge integrators. The purpose of this study is to analyze the KAM teams' absorptive capacity — that is, how knowledge is acquired, assimilated, and applied in the co-creation of integrated solutions. The study employs a qualitative case study approach, based on 30 in-depth interviews in nine supplier companies operating in advertising, marketing and consulting, and in three key customer companies. The study contributes to the KAM literature by providing new conceptual understanding and empirical insight in respect of networked co-creation of integrated solutions and the influence of the KIBS context on the solutions process.     

Sustainable value co-creation in business networks

Even though the Service Dominant Logic (SDL) paradigm has contributed to the conceptualization of “value co-creation”, no academic study has further investigated the role played by sustainability in business-to-business (BtoB) value co-creation.Using case studies, we examine how BtoB companies embrace the concept of sustainability to co-create value. We determine that such a co-creation of value entails a two-stage process: first, suppliers co-create value with their customer's customers or end users by analyzing or co-creating sustainability awareness. Second, by integrating this behavioral knowledge, suppliers co-create with their direct customers, either a sustainable hybrid offering (a service bundled with a product) or an extended sustainable service. Such a service proposition enables suppliers' direct customers to increase performance (sustainability is at the core of value creation) or to integrate sustainability into their supply chain (sustainability is an incremental element of value creation).Our research enriches the SDL paradigm by demonstrating the role of sustainability in reinforcing or extending the service proposition in a value co-creation process that links the supplier and customer networks.     

Technical Professionals in Cross-functional Teams: Their Quality of Work Life

The idea that R&;D professionals typically spend a considerable amount of their time working as members of teams makes sense. After all, plenty of research indicates that the use of cross-functional teams improves the effectiveness of product development efforts. However, the increasing use of cross-functional teams raises an important question for researchers and R&;D practitioners: Does the use of cross-functional teams improve the quality of work life for technical professionals?Rene Cordero, George F. Farris, and Nancy DiTomaso address this question in study of 1,714 R&;D professionals working on projects. They suggest that being a member of a cross-functional team may be more demanding than working as a member of a functional project group. On the other hand, they expect that working on a cross-functional project team may be more rewarding than working in a functional project group. Their study tests these hypotheses by examining the relationships between measures of the extent to which respondents work on cross-functional teams and five measures each of the participants’ job demands and positive job outcomes.The study identifies positive relationships between working on cross-functional teams and the five positive job outcomes studied: job growth, job security, membership in successful teams, earning money, and job satisfaction. The study finds less consistent and weaker relationships between working on cross-functional teams and the five job demands studied. Specifically, the study identifies positive relationships between working on cross-functional teams and the following job demands: effort, job involvement, and considering a lot of difference of opinion. The results of this study do not find a conclusive relationship between cross-functional team membership and time pressure. And contrary to expectations, the study finds a negative relationship between working on cross-functional teams and job stress.Comparing the responses of participants who work on project teams with those who do not, the results of the study indicate that respondents who work on project teams face greater job demands than positive job outcomes. However, working on cross-functional teams seems to increase positive job outcomes more than job demands. In other words, working on cross-functional teams appears to increase the quality of work life for the technical professionals in this study.     

What's in it for me? Capital,value and co-creation practices

Marketing research is increasingly concerned with the practices through which service providers and their customers interact and how these practices influence value co-creation.Applying S-D logic and drawing on practice theory developed in sociology research in past decades, we propose a definition of value in terms of the coexistence of diverse forms of capital and currency variations. We then develop a conceptual model to explain value co-creation in terms of service provider–customer interaction practices (SPCI practices). We employ an extensive, qualitative study in the context of professional service firms. Our findings reveal three general categories of SPCI practices (access to capital, capital exploitation and capital attrition) that affect value co-creation. These insights move forward business-to-business marketing theory and practice, advancing our understanding of how service provider–customer interaction practices can be used to define value propositions and assess the types and amount of value that are co-created.     

Customer value anticipation, customer satisfaction and loyalty: An empirical examination

A service-dominant logic by definition is inherently customer oriented and relational, reflecting deeper and more complex connections between suppliers and customers. The service mindset driving increased collaboration enables suppliers to have deeper insights to what customers' value. Customer value perceptions are dynamic, sometimes in constant flux, necessitating anticipatory capabilities on the part of suppliers. Yet, there is a notable lack of discussion about customer value anticipation and related empirical evidence of whether or not customers care if suppliers anticipate what they value. The authors report on two survey studies that test using structural equation modeling the notion that suppliers good at anticipating what customers will value realize higher customer satisfaction and loyalty. Understanding this relationship is critical for marketing managers wrestling with allocation of limited resources. We find that customer value anticipation is a strong driver of satisfaction and loyalty, with satisfaction acting as a mediator for loyalty.     

The Impact of Cross-Functional Joint Involvement Across Product Development Stages: An Exploratory Study

Cross-functional integration offers numerous, well-documented benefits for new-product development (NPD), but it also can carry significant costs. Joint involvement of R&D, manufacturing, and marketing personnel can increase the quality, the manufacturability, and the marketability of the final product. However, building consensus among these groups, with their differing perspectives and goals, may require time-consuming meetings as well as tremendous finesse from the managers who guide the NPD effort. Those managers require an approach to cross-functional integration that strikes a balance between efficiency and effectiveness. X. Michael Song, R. Jeffrey Thieme, and Jinhong Xie propose that the right mix of cross-functional involvement may differ depending on the stage in the NPD process. They also suggest that blindly promoting the involvement of all functional areas in all stages of the NPD process may actually decrease NPD performance. They test these propositions in a study that examines the relationships between new product performance and cross-functional joint involvement between R&D, manufacturing, and marketing in five major stages of the NPD process: market opportunity analysis, planning, development, pretesting, and launch. Their objective in this study is to identify patterns of effective cross-functional involvement in different NPD stages. The study uses data collected from 236 managers working in the R&D, manufacturing, and marketing departments of 16 Fortune 500 firms. Their findings suggest that new-product success may be more likely when a firm employs function-specific and stage-specific patterns of cross-functional integration than it is when the firm attempts to integrate all functions during all NPD stages. For example, during the market opportunity analysis stage, the findings suggest that joint involvement between R&D and marketing may be productive, but joint involvement between R&D and manufacturing and among all three functions may be counterproductive. The results also indicate that joint involvement among all three functions either does not have a significant effect on new product success or may be counterproductive in all stages of the NPD process. For the firms in this study, the three functions seem to take turns playing the central role in cross-functional activities. During the product planning, development, and testing phases, the role of the focal function, or communication hub, shifts from manufacturing to R&D and then to marketing. (c) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc.     

Value co-creation in knowledge intensive business services: A dyadic perspective on the joint problem solving process

This paper examines the collaborative process of value co-creation in the context of knowledge intensive business services. Through 120 qualitative interviews with suppliers and buyers of knowledge intensive services, the extensive exploratory study analyzes the activities, roles and resources of buyers and suppliers in the reciprocal value co-creation process, and their implications for the resulting value-in-use. The paper draws on the literature on value creation, solutions and professional services marketing, and service-dominant logic. It provides a framework depicting value co-creation that occurs through a dyadic problem solving process, comprising activities such as diagnosing needs, designing and producing solutions, organizing the process and resources, managing value conflicts, and implementing the solution. The framework serves as a managerial tool to determine critical resources and roles for suppliers and customers, facilitate joint activities, and optimize resource utilization. Insights from this research are broadly applicable to the contexts of knowledge intensive and solutions business.     

A bibliometric analysis of extended key account management literature

Key account management (KAM) has played an important role in business, and this study reviews key account management research using bibliometric techniques. This review includes 373 KAM relevant articles published in 68 journals between 1979 and 2016. In our analysis, we extend the discussion on KAM literature by highlighting areas such as the roles of technology and conflict as well as relationship planning and implementation. We discuss the value of co-creation, inter-organizational design elements, and dyad-level performance measures. We examine five distinctive time-periods and find that KAM relevant literature has progressed 1) from selling and relationship-building approaches to key network management, 2) from network innovation to governance, 3) from network-level performance to co-creation of business solutions and values, 4) from product and service performance to incorporating sustainability. Finally, we present the fifth transition based on a network-view of KAM and identify future research aimed at integrating areas such as network-based orientation, applications of organizational theories, organizational innovativeness, network competence for optimal structure and processes, network-based KAM teams, value-sharing mechanisms, co-created value measurement, and value sustenance within networks. We identify areas of future research and expect the adoption and application of key account management concepts to grow across multiple disciplinary fields.     

Are key account relationships different? Empirical results on supplier strategies and customer reactions

In this paper, the authors analyze 91 key account relationships and 206 ordinary supplier-buyer dyads regarding differences in suppliers' relational behaviors and customers' perceptions of relationship quality (satisfaction, trust, and commitment). The results suggest that while - as compared to ordinary relationships - suppliers put significantly more effort in “value-creating behaviors” in key account relationships, they do not modify their “value-claiming behaviors” in those dyads. On the customer side, suppliers' increased value creating activities lead to increased commitment. However, customers are neither more satisfied, nor do they trust their suppliers more when they receive key account status.     

Supplier-customer engagement for collaborative innovation using video conferencing: A study of SMEs

Co-creation of innovation, as transcending perspective of marketing, is of growing interest in recent years. Developing new products through collaboration is recognised as beneficial to suppliers as well as customers. Businesses face challenges as to how to build and develop close and long-lasting collaborative relationships for innovation success. Owners/managers need to know about which platform to use appropriate for different engagement aspects in the relationship development. The advancement in virtual technology may offer new platforms in enabling customer engagement apart from traditional platforms. This study explores how suppliers and customers are engaged in videoconferencing in their engagement processes in collaborative innovation. Based on an empirical study of in-depth interviews with seventeen owners/managers in biotech SMEs (Small and Medium Sized Enterprise), from a supplier's perspective it reveals that the engagement is processual and has two dimensions for the successful collaborative relationships. Videoconferencing is a platform for engagement when distance is a barrier, it's used in both dimensions of the engagement, and to facilitate cognition and support affect which help form and cement trusting relationships. The authors explain the process of videoconferencing engagement by a ladder of engagement model through social networking theory in building and applying social capital.     

Value co-creation in industrial AI: The interactive role of B2B supplier,customer and technology provider

This research explores the interactive role of supplier, customer and technology company in business-to-business (B2B) marketing when they develop and use industrial artificial intelligence (AI). From a value co-creation perspective and following a service-dominant logic, this study aims to identify essential value types that are created collaboratively by B2B professionals (namely suppliers, customers and AI providers), and critical capabilities that contribute to their value co-creation practices. Nineteen in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with three groups of B2B stakeholders in six companies that involved in an industrial AI development and usage project. The data was then analysed using a thematic analysis approach. The results of this research contain a categorisation of four value types and three sets of capabilities, together with the interrelationships between them. This study contributes to the literature of value co-creation, information system and B2B marketing by bridging these three disciplines within the context of industrial AI development and usage.     

Antecedents and Consequences of Goal Incongruity on New Product Development in Five Countries: A Marketing View

This article examines an important challenge to effective cross-functional integration: goal incongruity among marketing, research and development (R&D), and manufacturing in new product development. We examine the effect of this incongruity as perceived by the marketing function on three components of cross-functional integration: the harmony of cross-functional relationships, the quality of cross-functional information, and the level of cross-functional involvement. We also examine how two types of managerially controllable variables affect goal incongruity: (1) factors that motivate functions to develop common goals; and (2) factors that facilitate the formation of such goals. We give special attention to the effect of national culture on the formation of common goals. Data collected from marketing managers in 1,083 firms in five culturally distinct areas—-the United States, Great Britain, Japan, Hong Kong (a special administrative region of China), and mainland China—are used to test the hypothesized relationships. Our results underscore the importance of people-side issues, and of national culture, in cross-functional integration. Perceived goal incongruity among marketing, R&D, and manufacturing impairs all three components of cross-functional integration. In United States and British firms, goal incongruity generally is attributed to motivational factors and in Japan and Hong Kong to facilitative factors. Finally, our results show that the two types of managerially controllable variables interact. For example, joint rewards and job rotation strengthen each other's tendency to reduce goal incongruity in all five samples. This suggests that job rotation promotes the development of joint goals more effectively when it is accompanied by a joint reward system.     

Getting the most out of cross-functional cooperation: Internal structural change as a trigger for customer information use

Using customer information in the decision making of R&D and production is vital for industrial firms to survive and prosper in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Previous studies show that cross-functional cooperation may have both negative and positive effects on information use. The authors hypothesize that internal structural change positively moderates the relationship between cross-functional cooperation and information use. However, structural change also decreases the quality of cross-functional cooperation. Cross-functional knowledge increases both cross-functional cooperation and customer information use. These hypotheses are tested and supported using a data set consisting of 221 manufacturing and R&D managers in large industrial firms. The findings imply that although internal structural change increases the benefits of cooperative, cross-functional relationships in terms of customer information use, managers in volatile organizations should continue to strengthen cooperative relationships by maintaining and improving sales and marketing contact people's knowledge of manufacturing and R&D.     

More is not always better: The impact of relationship functions on customer-perceived relationship value

Customer–supplier relationships have been promoted as a source of value for customers and as a way for suppliers to differentiate. Customer-perceived relationship value (i.e., a customer's overall assessment of the benefits and sacrifices of a given relationship with a supplier) is driven by relationship functions (i.e., the co\ntributions a supplier makes to a customer's value-creation processes). Earlier research categorizes relationship functions into two groups: direct, operation-related functions and indirect, change-related functions. This research finds that indirect functions have less impact than direct functions. Given the widely discussed advantages of supplier involvement in customer innovation, and the importance of information, access to market actors and motivation, this study analyzes why change-related functions have less of an impact than operation-related functions. The empirical results reveal that change-related relationship functions have a non-linear, inverted u-shaped impact on relationship value, and that the degree of customer innovativeness moderates this impact. Thus, while an analysis of all relationship functions is necessary, suppliers wishing to optimize business relationships should pay particular attention to customer innovativeness. The non-linear impact of change-related relationship functions gives rise to several interesting avenues for further research.     

An Examination of Collaboration in High-Technology New Product Development Processes

For more than a decade, researchers have explored the benefits of eliminating organizational boundaries between participants in the new product development (NPD) process. In turn, companies have revamped their NPD processes and organizational structures to deploy cross-functional teams. These efforts toward interfunctional integration have produced a more responsive NPD process, but they don’t represent the endgame in the quest for more effective NPD. What’s next after the interfunctional walls come down?Pointing out that many high-tech firms have already taken such steps as integrating customers and suppliers into the NPD process, Avan Jassawalla and Hemant Sashittal suggest that such firms need to go beyond integration and start thinking in terms of collaboration. Using information from a study of 10 high-tech industrial firms, they identify factors that seem to increase cross-functional collaboration in NPD, and they develop a conceptual framework that relates those factors to the level of cross-functional collaboration achieved in the NPD process.Compared to integration, collaboration is described as a more complex, higher intensity cross-functional linkage. In addition to high levels of integration, their definition of cross-functional collaboration includes the sense of an equal stake in NPD outcomes, the absence of hidden agendas, and a willingness on the part of participants to understand and accept differences while remaining focused on the organization’s common objectives. Collaboration also involves synergy—that is, the NPD outcomes exceed the sum of the capabilities of the individual participants in the NPD process.Their framework suggests that structural mechanisms such as cross-functional teams can provide significant increases in NPD-related interfunctional integration. However, high levels of integration do not necessarily equate to high levels of collaboration. Characteristics of the organization and the participants also affect the level of collaboration. For example, achieving a high level of collaboration depends on participants who contribute an openness to change, a willingness to cooperate, and a high level of trust. Their framework also points to key organizational factors that affect the level of collaboration—for example, the priority that senior management gives to NPD and the level of autonomy afforded to participants in the NPD process.     

Interfacing and customer-facing: Sales and marketing selling centers

Organizations are turning to the collective knowledge of selling teams in order to manage increasingly complex customers and solutions. One specific cross-functional unit that organizations are commonly using when selling to business-to-business customers is a team of sales and marketing personnel. While the interface between sales and marketing has received attention in the literature, which notes the inherent advantages and challenges of incorporating both roles on a team, opportunities remain to examine sales and marketing selling centers (SMSCs): instances where sales and marketing jointly and directly interact on a relatively temporary basis in customer-facing situations. The authors utilize a discovery-oriented, theories-in-use inquiry to better understand customer-facing SMSC processes, facilitators, and outcomes. Based on insights captured from 29 in-depth interviews with informants who each served on SMSCs in both sales and marketing roles, this study extends sales research by providing a dual perspective of those working on SMSCs, thus enhancing the utility of such malleable selling teams.     

Value synergy and value asymmetry in relationship marketing programs

Prior research advocates a positive, linear association between relationship investments and relationship performance. Our study challenges this conventional wisdom and advances the extant literature by investigating the potential curvilinear effects of suppliers' different relationship marketing programs (i.e., social, financial, and structural) on dyadic perceptions of relationship value. From an analysis of 113 buyer-supplier dyads, we found that social programs enhance relationship value synergy, but their effect on relationship value asymmetry between suppliers and buyers follows a U-shaped curve. On the other hand, we observe a positive and increasing returns-to-scale effect of financial programs on relationship value synergy and its inverted U-shaped association with supplier's relationship value asymmetry. Interestingly, structural programs increase relationship value synergy and have a stronger effect on increasing relationship value for the supplier than for the buyer. In addition, we find that structural programs are more effective in creating value in long-term relationships than in short-term relationships; therefore, as the relationship with a buying firm ages, managers should consider investing more in structural programs to develop their relationship. However, in long-term relationships, managers should avoid investing too much in financial programs because financial programs are less effective in increasing creation of relationship value as a relationship ages.     

Interaction capability development of smaller suppliers in relationships with larger customers

The purpose of this paper is to examine the interaction capabilities developed by smaller suppliers in relationships with larger customers. The contribution of the paper is the development and application of an interaction capability framework to evaluate the types of interaction capabilities developed by smaller suppliers that enable them to cope and better manage in relationships with larger customers. The paper reports on eight in-depth case studies comprising forty-eight interviews with smaller UK textile suppliers in relationships with larger customers. The findings identify the features of the smaller suppliers' interaction capability set comprising four elements: human interaction, technological interaction, managerial systems interaction and cultural interaction capability. The paper concludes by evaluating the lessons from the application of the interaction capability framework and highlighting how smaller suppliers can focus on the development of their interaction capability set to gain positioning advantages in their relationships with larger customers and offer superior customer value.