Interacting effects of uncertainties and institutional forces on information sharing in marketing channels

Marketing channel members in China face difficulties created by market uncertainty and opportunistic costs resulting from behavioral uncertainty, both of which undermine channel performance. In this article, we argue that channel members can use information sharing to maintain channel performance under uncertain circumstances. With empirical data from China, we develop and test a theoretical framework which explores the effects of market uncertainty and contractual commitment on information sharing and supplier operational performance. Moreover, we also find that regulatory protection moderates the relationship between market uncertainty and information sharing. Normative and cognitive protection moderates the relationship between contractual commitment and information sharing. Indeed, information sharing serves as a mediator between uncertainties and supplier operational performance. Consequently, Chinese channel managers are advised to increase the use of more information sharing to counter market and behavioral uncertainties in marketing channels.     

Business relationships on different waves: Paradigm shift and marketing orientation revisited

Relationships with customers, also referred to as inter-organizational relationships, are a growing theme in marketing. The increased interest in these concepts has triggered views that a paradigm shift from mass marketing toward relationship marketing has taken place over the last 20 years and that only a relationship orientation secures firms' success. In this paper, we promote the idea that relationships exist along different orientations and paradigms. We identify five different orientations and the logic of a buyer-supplier relationship in each of these waves. Furthermore, we argue for a dyadic view of orientation, i.e., the supplier orientation must match the buyer orientation in order to allow smooth interactions.     

Integrating information technology and marketing: An examination of the drivers and outcomes of e-Marketing capability

This research examines the performance implications of integrating information technology with marketing capabilities and other firm-level resources. Specifically, this study introduces and empirically tests a model that conceptualizes e-Marketing as the integration of complementary technology, business and human resources that, when combined, positively influence firm performance. The results from a survey of 522 Belgian firms highlight the importance of how market and technology orientation leads to e-Marketing capability and that this capability is shown to positively influence firm performance by improving customer retention and satisfaction. The results suggest that researchers and practitioners should pay special attention to the complementary resources that are needed to successfully implement IT-enabled marketing initiatives and that an emphasis on the technology alone may not be sufficient.     

A framework for offshoring marketing processes in business-to-business marketing relationships

Outsourcing has been a prominent aspect of business strategies in the last three decades. Outsourcing of manufacturing processes is now complemented with outsourcing of various marketing process as well. More importantly, outsourcing to foreign locations — offshoring — has increased for marketing processes in recent years. In this context, the present paper develops a model that identifies the types of marketing interactions and processes that can be offshored in business-to-business markets. We suggest that the decision to offshore marketing processes and interactions depend upon the interaction process that is preferred and the importance of interaction process itself. Marketing interactions that are not critically important and/or those that can be performed through technology can be easily offshored. However, other marketing processes need to be examined in depth before being offshored. Implications for research and practice in the area of offshoring, as well as in the broader area of outsourcing, are also highlighted.     

Buyer attentiveness in buyer-supplier relationships

How do a manufacturing firm's (supplier) relationship marketing activities lead to more profitable business-to-business (B2B) customers? This research proposes that a supplier's relationship activities develop a buyer's attentiveness toward the supplier, which, in turn, leads to profitable buyer purchasing behaviors. Findings from 119 buyer organizations support this contention, and, additionally, buyer attentiveness was found to have a stronger positive influence on favorable buyer behavior than does either buyer dependence or relationship length. This study contributes to our understanding of long-term buyer-supplier relationships in B2B markets.     

Realigning industrial marketing channels

Dramatic changes are occurring in industrial patterns of distribution. This article provides a structure for analyzing realignments in industrial marketing channels. Specifically, the analysis centers on the channel efficiency and effectiveness dimensions that were generated by a shift from industrial distributors to a public warehouse.     

Determinants of economic and social satisfaction in manufacturer-distributor relationships

The aim of this work is to examine the dimensions of satisfaction in manufacturer-distributor relationships as well as identifying the antecedents of both the economic and the non-economic dimensions of satisfaction. A literature review about satisfaction in marketing channels is followed by quantitative research into how this interchange process is perceived by food product distributors in their relationships with manufacturers. The results provide strong support for the impact of communication, trust and commitment on satisfaction, as well as the interrelationships among the economic and the non-economic dimensions of satisfaction. Theoretical and managerial implications are extracted from these findings.     

Exclusive territories and performance dimensions in industrial distribution channels

There are two main approaches to studying vertical restraints in distribution channels: the anti-competitive and the efficiency approach. This article sets out to analyze the effects of exclusive territories agreements on performance levels in the distribution channel by proposing a number of hypotheses based upon these two approaches and by testing them with paired data from a sample of 116 manufacturer-dealer relationships from the Spanish industrial market. Results show that manufacturers and dealers perceive higher role performance levels in their partners in relationships characterized by exclusive territories. In a similar way, both manufacturers and dealers obtain higher levels of business performance in exclusive territories relationships, but we found no support for a direct effect of this vertical restraint on business performance. Instead, this effect is completely mediated by the higher levels of role performance associated with the exclusive territories agreement. Thus, empirical findings suggest that the economic outcomes achieved in ET relationships are due not to the presence of monopoly rents, but rather to the better role performance of the participants.     

An institutional analysis of supply chain innovations in global marketing channels

The adoption of sophisticated supply chain innovations by trading partners in global channels of distribution is often limited by the institutional context of the international transaction. In particular, the regulatory, normative, and cultural-cognitive elements of institutional environments around the world can enhance or inhibit the ability of trading partners to craft the contractual, ownership, and social elements of institutional arrangements required by an innovation. Because supply chain innovations often require costly, new investments and activity sets, firms may be reluctant to participate in an innovation unless a new institutional arrangement can be crafted to provide adequate safeguards and guarantees. A conceptual model is developed to explain the role of institutions in the successful deployment of supply chain innovations in global marketing channels.     

Managing the marketing budget in a cost-constrained environment

Marketing costs have been rising rapidly while both manufacturing and general management costs have been declining. As a result, those concerned with realigning corporate assets to maximize shareholder returns are requiring that marketers start proving their worth or be gradually starved of resources. Reflecting such pressures, marketing managers are being asked to provide more convincing evidence that planned marketing strategies will indeed yield more value for the company and its shareholders. Likewise, those charged with planning the marketing budget are being asked to more thoroughly justify requested budget increases. Whole new financial measures are needed for evaluating the relative productivity of specifically proposed marketing budget expenditures vis-à-vis shareholder value. The paper reviews several procedures that can help address these challenges and presents a detailed example of the application of one of the approaches.     

Distinguishing supplier reputation from trust in buyer-supplier relationships

We argue that a firm's reputation (i.e., central, enduring, and distinctive corporate associations held by individuals outside of an organization), although under-researched relative to trust, is more important than trust in impacting buyer-supplier relationships. Our conceptualization draws on theories and extant research related to transaction cost economics, information economics, and interfirm trust. The constructs of trust and reputation are distinguished and their relative impacts on relationship commitment and willingness to invest in the future of the relationship are examined. Suggestive empirical evidence is provided from a survey of industrial buyers, and implications and specific directions for future research are discussed.     

Diagnosing and treating operational and implementation barriers in synoptic marketing planning

Strategic marketing planning is now widely adopted by business-to-business organizations. While marketing planning principles are well established, practitioners attempting to implement the process often find their progress impeded by a variety of barriers. These barriers are explored through a review of published evidence and case study analysis of several organizations. This analysis exposes three levels of barriers to effective business-to-business marketing planning, relating to (i) organizational infrastructure, (ii) the planning process and (iii) implementation. These barriers reflect the synoptic nature of planning in many organizations. The findings lead to the development of a practitioner-oriented diagnostic and treatment tool which guides managers through the marketing planning process. Although this diagnostic deals specifically with issues which are relevant to the marketing planner, its wider implications for strategic planning are also explored.     

Return on marketing investments in B2B customer relationships: A decision-making and optimization approach

The basic notion of relationship marketing entails that firms should strive for mutually beneficial customer relationships. By combining relationship marketing theory and operations research methods, this paper aims to develop and demonstrate a managerial decision-making model that business market managers can use to optimize and evaluate marketing investments in both a customer-oriented and economically feasible manner. The intended contributions of our work are as follows. First, we add to the return on marketing literature by providing a first decision-making approach that explicitly assesses the optimization of marketing investments in terms of profitability, effort, and resource allocation. Second, we show how the risk of marketing investments can be assessed using sensitivity analysis. By means of an empirical study the versatility of our decision-making approach is demonstrated by assessing various critical decision making issues for business marketing managers in detail.     

The impact of cultural differences in U.S. business-to-business export marketing channel strategic alliances

Given slower growth and fierce competition in the domestic market, combined with increasing opportunities in many overseas markets, more and more U.S. companies are going international. While many doing so may initially use a direct exporting approach that relies on foreign channel members to distribute the product in the host country, over time, strategic alliances among distribution partners may form based on trust, commitment, and cooperation. For these alliances to succeed, the partners' perceptions of these variables need to be congruent so that expectations on each side of the dyad are reasonably similar. However, what happens when the cultural backgrounds of each channel partner are substantially different? This study empirically examines whether cultural differences do affect trust, commitment, and cooperation in international marketing channel alliances between U.S. exporters and their foreign distribution partners. Based on the survey responses from 149 U.S. exporters with marketing alliances abroad, cultural differences do affect trust, commitment, and cooperation. The greater the cultural differences between channel partners, the lower the levels of trust, commitment, and cooperation. Managerial implications are discussed, and study limitations are identified.     

Factors influencing the relative importance of marketing strategy creativity and marketing strategy implementation effectiveness

It seems logical that performance is maximized when a business produces a creative marketing strategy and achieves marketing strategy implementation effectiveness. However, cultural tensions and resource competition may make it difficult, or impossible, to achieve both. Contingency theory suggests that market and/or firm level influences may exist that make one or the other more important. Thus, it is important for researchers to investigate those conditions so that we can provide managers with guidance regarding where to allocate their resources. The study reported in this article assesses the impact that environmental conditions and business unit strategy have on the relative importance of marketing strategy creativity and marketing strategy implementation effectiveness. We discuss implications for managers and scholars.     

Market and supplier characteristics driving distributor relationship quality in international marketing channels of industrial products

Although we are beginning to comprehend the fundamental importance of relationship quality in interorganizational exchange, a relatively small, but growing, body of literature that has not kept pace with the tremendous growth in global channel transactions has been devoted to the development of cross-border relationship quality. This study addresses this gap in the literature by investigating the extent to which certain market and exporter characteristics affect the development of relationship quality in the context of importing distributors trading with exporting manufacturers of industrial products. Relationship quality is viewed as a higher-order construct composed of trust, commitment, and satisfaction. Findings reveal that psychic distance is related negatively to relationship quality, while transaction-specific investments and role performance are associated positively with relationship quality. No link is found between environmental uncertainty and relationship quality. Managerial implications of the findings are considered and limitations along with future research directions discussed.     

Strategic business marketing developments in the New Europe: Retrospect and prospect

The unification of Europe is causing considerable effects on industrial marketing strategy. Roughly ten years ago the Industrial Marketing Management journal published a study on the expected consequences of the European Union (EU) single market. In the current study, we investigate the actual results of the single market formation on industrial marketing in the EU and compare them to the expectations noted by industrial marketers a decade earlier. We find that the effects differ markedly from those anticipated and that they have important implications for business marketing practice in the EU.     

Perceptual difference of dependence and its impact on conflict in marketing channels in China: An empirical study with two-sided data

Although many firms have adopted the relational exchange or relationship marketing philosophy for developing long-term inter-firm relationships in marketing channels, the issues pertaining to channel conflict still deserve further investigation. The purpose of this paper is to examine the possible impact of perceptual difference of dependence between members in channel dyads on perceived channel conflict. By analyzing paired data collected from both sides of supplier-retailer dyads in China, we test two hypotheses about perceptual difference of dependence and its impact on conflict. We found that there was considerable perceptual difference of dependence between both sides of the dyads, and that the perceptual difference of dependence asymmetry between the two was positively associated with channel conflict perceived by the supplier side. Both researchers and practitioners should be aware of such differences when confronted with channel conflict issues, especially in international channel settings.     

Frameworks of strategic marketing information needs

This article presents a normative approach for developing an industrial marketing information system. The purpose is to provide encouragement that an understandable logic does exist behind user-designed systems.