Interaction behaviors in business relationships and heuristics: Issues for management and research agenda

Various empirical studies have evidenced that interaction is a critical process in the development of buyer–seller relationships in business-to-business markets. Research examining the different aspects of interaction processes and the consequences of interaction in business relationships for the development of the businesses involved has tended to black-box the interaction process. Limited attention has been given to how interaction behaviors of individuals arise and the interplay between cognition and behaviors in interaction. At the same time, recent research offers some insights into the use and role of heuristics in contexts analogous to those individual actors face when they interact in business relationships. In this paper we review current research on interaction processes in business relationships as well as on heuristics in the management context and argue that focusing on heuristics used in interaction in business relationships offers valuable insights on how interaction behaviors emerge. In particular, we discuss the notion of heuristics as an “adaptive toolbox,” and how it relates to adaptations in business relationships. We also discuss implications for management and outline a future research agenda.     

Exploiting the B2B knowledge network: New perspectives and core concepts

This editorial introduces the articles in this special issue of Industrial Marketing Management, which presents the best papers from the 23rd Annual IMP Conference, held at Manchester Business School, UK in September 2007. The papers have been selected to represent the interaction, relationship and network perspectives and encompass, value, relationship assets, trust, commitments and the constitution of networks.     

Competition between exchanges: A research agenda

This paper describes open research questions related to the competition and market structure of financial exchanges and argues that only a combination of industrial organization and finance can satisfactorily attack these questions. Two examples are discussed to illustrate how the combination of these two approaches can significantly enrich the analysis: the “network externality puzzle”, which refers to the question of why trading for the same security is often split across trading venues, and the impact of the multi-sided character of financial exchanges on pricing and profitability.     

Media ownership and communications: Enriching the research agenda

This paper examines whether diverse opinions make their way into the communication policy decisions. Specifically, it examines whether academics from distinct disciplines engage one another and whether Federal Communications Commission (FCC) experts rely on a multidisciplinary body of research in making telecommunications-related decisions. After tracing how narrow expertise can lead to shallow policy perspectives, the paper employs a social network analysis of citations to assess the breadth of the media ownership debate. The case of media ownership was considered a worthy choice for analysis because it was so high on the policy agenda. The paper found that the media ownership policy network is extremely hierarchical; it comprises relatively few connected members around which clusters form and the majority of communication takes place. Lacking overlap among subgroups, there is very little interaction across disciplinary boundaries. An analysis of FCC citations demonstrates the impact that the dominant journals have on the FCC decision-making process, with significant implications for FCC decision making in all aspects of telecommunications.     

A framework for the analysis of global, regional and local business networks

In this article we are dealing with the global, regional and local questions of the business. We raise the following question: is there a relation between network management (networking) and the spatial type of the network. We make a cross analysis of networking and spatial types of the network. The paper builds on the model of networking (Ford et al., 2002; Ford et al., 2003; Håkansson et al., 2009), the network paradoxes (Håkansson and Ford, 2002) and the model of 6 Cs (Ritter & Ford, 2006). We emphasize the strategic importance of the interpretation of network pictures. In order to answer the research question we create a theoretical conceptual frame called the Spatial Networking Matrix. We use the method of explorative expert interview in order to introduce some experiences of company leaders and managers concerning networking and spatiality. We conclude that after further development, the Spatial Networking Matrix can help to analyze networking and spatial types of networks at once, deepen the understanding of the real business world and through all of these, be a useful tool for business practice.     

Segmenting a market in the making: Industrial market segmentation as construction

This paper takes an empirical starting point in a claim that Biacore, a pioneering Swedish producer of affinity biosensors, was “in the enviable position of creating its own market” (Abelin, 1997). An in-depth case study traces how Biacore undertook segmentation activities while shaping the market for its new product technology, affinity biosensors. This involved stabilising the modes of exchange with customers, the product and the identity of the company. The efforts of Biacore highlight a constructive dimension of market segmentation that hitherto has received little attention. Rather than a process of describing, deciding and taking action, Biacore engaged in the gradual construction of market segments through an interactive and iterative process involving close collaboration with early users. Simultaneously, the market for the new technology gained shaped. Thus, the paper reports a ‘markets from networks’ story illustrating how the practice of segmenting a market may have consequences for that market.     

Start-ups and networks: Interactive perspectives and a research agenda

This article introduces Industrial Marketing Management's special issue on start-ups and networks. To begin with, we stress the relevance of understanding the context wherein entrepreneurship unfolds – a context filled with social, technical and economic connections to which the start-up needs to relate. We also present and confront three network perspectives which bring different insights to the interplay between start-ups and networks: Social Network (SN) theory, the Industrial Marketing & Purchasing (IMP) view, and Actor-Network Theory (ANT). Next, we introduce the 12 papers of this special issue and place them on a continuum covering a start-up's process of network embedding and including the three periods of establishment, consolidation and stabilization. We conclude with a research agenda suggesting five avenues for further research: (1) tracing start-ups' process of network embedding, (2) mapping the connections between the different networks affecting a start-up, (3) grasping the negative effects of networks on start-ups, (4) making longitudinal case studies on start-ups and networks more comparable via common analytical tools, and (5) investigating how policy influences the complex interplay between start-ups and networks.     

CEO duality,succession-planning and agency theory: research agenda

In response to Harris and Helfat's commentary on our article, ‘One hat too many: Key executive plurality and shareholder wealth,’ we suggest that their arguments are quite plausible, but we believe further empirical tests are needed. These proposed tests are described in our response. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Regulation and transaction costs in telecommunications: A research agenda

Antitrust and regulatory policies influence the vertical and horizontal integration of firms and the characteristics of their contractual arrangements. This paper examines the relevance of transaction cost economics for the analysis of regulatory policy in telecommunications. It explores the impact of changes in national telecommunications regulation on the level of transaction costs. After building a new theoretical framework based upon previous transaction cost contributions, the paper sets out a research agenda concerning the importance of transaction costs for antitrust and regulatory policies.     

Corporate governance and national institutions: A review and emerging research agenda

We present a critique of corporate governance research grounded in agency theory and propose that cross-national comparison of corporate governance should consider how the nature and extent of agency relationships differ across different institutional contexts. Building on prior governance studies grounded in sociology and organizational theory we argue that performance outcomes of boards of directors, ownership concentration, and executive incentives may differ depending on the legal system and institutional characteristics in a specific country. Institutions may also affect the extent of complimentarity/substitution among different firm-level governance practices producing patterned variations in firm-level governance mechanisms. Our discussion suggests that researchers need to develop more holistic, institutionally embedded governance framework to analyze organizational outcomes of various governance practices.     

Sales technology within the salesperson's relationships: A research agenda

The average cost of a sales call has declined approximately 15% over the past decade, while average salesperson compensation has doubled. These statistics illustrate an important benefit of technology: salespeople are more productive. To better understand the impact technology has played on sales and sales management, this paper examines the impact of sales technology from four perspectives: the salesperson, the field sales manager, the sales executive, and the customer. Noting that the needs and evaluations of technology vary, depending upon the functional position and viewpoint, a research agenda is offered that reflects these various perspectives.     

Internationalisation in the telecommunications services industry: Literature review and research agenda

A review of 356 publications addressing internationalisation aspects of the telecommunications services industry (TSI) shows a growing body of contributions, mainly covering research themes like settlement and regulation policy, strategic alliances and incumbents’ reactions to deregulation as well as opening of markets in-depth until recently. Wireline telephony TSI has been the dominant segment in most contributions, while the mobile or broadband Internet segments only featured in more recent work. Segment characteristics like non-uniform barriers to entry, different reasons for alliances and non-uniform levels of internationalisation differentiate these TSI segments pose a number of additional questions concerning telecom firms’ internationalisation strategy and success promising for future research.     

Advertising in streaming video: An integrative literature review and research agenda

Streaming video (SV), such as YouTube, is a new media widely used nowadays. Nevertheless, there is a lack of knowledge about advertising in SV. In view of this, through a search in the rich depository of the Scopus database, this article presents the first integrative literature review about advertising in SV. Searching every article and conference paper related to the topic published until May 04, 2020, 59 studies were found and classified into two main topics: marketing studies (35), mostly focused on evaluating or exploring advertising in SV, and computational studies (24), focusing on the development of systems for the insertion of ads into SV. All knowledge present in these studies was summarized so that readers (both scholars and practitioners) could have easy access to the main contributions and information present in each study. Moreover, future research directions in six main themes are presented through a research agenda.     

Office information systems: An overview and agenda for public policy research

In this overview of office information systems (OIS), the author describes OIS technology, gives a prognosis for increasingly sophisticated levels of application, discusses the forces that drive the OIS industry, and finally identifies issues needing public policy attention. As well as providing a comprehensive review, he conceives several innovative applications for OIS and attempts to structure the broad range of possibilities into useful categories.     

Strategic enablers of service-sales ambidexterity: A preliminary framework and research agenda

In recent years, service-sales ambidexterity was proposed as a new type of ambidexterity. In particular, the emerging literature on service-sales ambidexterity builds on the contextual ambidexterity literature to argue that the two key activities of a salesperson – that is, service activities and sales activities – can be simultaneously maximized through finding and exploiting synergies between these two activities. While research in this area has so far focused on the drivers of service-sales ambidexterity, our knowledge regarding the strategic enablers of this construct is impoverished. In this paper, drawing upon the dynamic capabilities framework, we devise a preliminary framework of the strategic enablers of service-sales ambidexterity. Then, we further extend that framework by identifying key classes of strategic variables that can potentially enable service-sales ambidexterity and by providing illustrative examples. This paper has contributions to and implications for the literature on service-sales ambidexterity and dynamic capabilities.     

Gender and teleworking identities in the risk society: a research agenda

This paper discusses the potential implications of a risk society on identities due to alterations in work practices. The promise of 'flexibility' via at-home telework entails a renegotiation of the home–work boundary. This brings into play the gendered identities and roles attached to these different spheres of life. After deconstructing promises made on behalf of telework, we construct an alternative research agenda engaging with writings on changing work identities in the risk society where traditional sureties are called into question.     

Three decades of research on corporate governance and R&D investments: a systematic review and research agenda

This paper reviews and systematizes the empirical research on the nexus between corporate governance (CG) and investments in research and development (R&D) published in leading business, management, economics and finance journals over the past 30 years. We find that CG is key in shaping R&D investments. Moreover, the effects of both firm- and country-level CG are important for both internal and external R&D investments. Drawing on our review, we welcome future studies to examine the effect of the interplay between various CG mechanisms and different types of R&D investments, and possibly identify mediating variables besides the moderating ones. Moreover, we highlight the need for future interdisciplinary studies, as well as investigations of private companies and across developing countries. Whenever causal interpretations are attempted, both sample selection and endogeneity problems should be addressed, along with testing the CG-R&D investment nexus for nonlinear dynamics. The implications of the study for both theory and practice are also discussed.     

Toward a theory of competitive market signaling: A research agenda

Competitive market signals are conceptualized as announcements or previews of potential actions intended to convey or to gain information from competitors. This paper develops a set of propositions based on research in economics, social psychology, and marketing on the risk/reward trade-off in signaling, the receiver's signal interpretation, and the receiver's reaction alternatives. The overall objective is to develop a research agenda toward a theory of competitive market signaling.