Basking in reflected glory: Using customer reference relationships to build reputation in industrial markets

Corporate reputation is an important intangible asset that enables firms to establish customer relationships. Customer relationships, specifically customer reference relationships, can in turn be utilized to build supplier reputation in industrial markets. The aim of this conceptual article is to analyze the combination of these two concepts. It lays the foundation for further investigations into the effectiveness of reference customer relationships in enhancing supplier reputation. By developing propositions on the determinants impacting effectiveness of reputation transfer between customer and supplier firm, implications for practice and research in business marketing and corporate reputation management are derived.     

Brand innovation and social media: Knowledge acquisition from social media,market orientation,and the moderating role of social media strategic capability

The study examines the relationships between knowledge acquisition from social media, two forms of market orientation (proactive and reactive), social media strategic capability, and brand innovation strategy in the context of China's online technology industry. Analysis of 357 online technology ventures, created during the past 6 years, suggests that brand innovation is affected by both knowledge acquisition from social media and market orientation. Social media strategic capability positively affects brand innovation and acts as a moderator between knowledge acquisition, market orientation, and brand innovation. It further enhances both types of market orientations in achieving brand innovation, suggesting that on social media, customer's needs, both expressed and latent (or unexpressed), can be identified more comprehensively than that of the traditional setting. Hence, the context of social media provides a different set of rules for competition and strategic behavior, in which online technology ventures should note. Implications are useful to improve the current understanding of social media brand innovation strategy, here in China's dynamic social media scene.     

From collaborative community to competitive market: the quest to build a crowdsourcing platform for social innovation

Crowdsourcing presents new opportunities to generate social innovation. However, many crowdsourcing social innovation initiatives struggle with turning their promising projects into sustaining platforms. We studied how to design crowdsourcing platforms for social innovation by building and examining a platform called travel2change. We illustrate a framework of crowdsourcing platform building blocks based on the evolution of our case study from a collaborative community to a competitive market. Thriving platforms have a clear purpose, they facilitate value‐creating interactions for well‐understood actors and build a valid business model. The insights reveal design principles to guide organizations that seek to leverage crowdsourcing for social impact.     

以人为本建设区队打造煤矿和谐环境

区队是煤矿的基本生产单位,煤矿建设和谐矿区首先应从区队人手。近年来,郑州煤电股份公司超化煤矿面对复杂多变的内外形势,始终贯彻以人为本理念,坚持以科学发展观为指导,围绕区队“人”字做文章,调动了方方面面的积极性,为企业发展奠定了坚实的基础,整个矿区呈现出了职工生活温馨和谐、安全生产稳步发展的好局面。一、深入区队了解人从实际出发谋划工作,按实际需要开展工作,以实际效果检验工     

B2B SME management of antecedents to the application of social media

This paper elucidates how business-to-business (B2B) small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can manage antecedents to the application of social media for potential contributions to their business. This in-depth qualitative research study was conducted at four plastic-producing SMEs from October 2013 to October 2014, with follow-up interviews in October 2015.The findings reveal two important antecedents to the application of social media that overcome the gap between acknowledging the usefulness of social media and its actual limited application in practical B2B contexts. First, open collaborative business model innovation is needed to apply social media in local business processes. Second, central and distributed leadership must be integrated to create ownership and responsibility across the SME organisation and beyond to customers and partners. These findings differ from the social media application stages and the gaps between them identified in the previous literature. The developed model makes a contribution to the B2B SME field and to academia by recognising the importance of integrating critical antecedents before social media application can enhance business in B2B SMEs. This understanding is beneficial for the B2B SMEs and for society.     

How to build great research groups

Business school leaders would like to attract and keep the top research talent in order to stay competitive, attract high-potential students, and recruit the most promising young faculty. To accomplish these objectives, a successful research environment for its business academic researchers needs to be established, so that they can produce a sustainable research stream. We examine important antecedents including business school research strategy, leadership, governance, and policy, and from these we develop a set of conditions that are related to long-term success of research programs in academic business institution. As detailed illustrations, we elaborate the experiences of two active research institutions—the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) Group and the Contemporary Marketing Practices (CMP) Group — and discuss how each of these groups has implemented the conditions for success. We conclude with general observations on the environmental conditions most conducive to sustainable business school research, and present implications regarding the role of the journal editor as a gatekeeper.     

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.     

Advancing social media driven sales research: Establishing conceptual foundations for B-to-B social selling

Business markets are facing major changes due to an increasing digitalization trend and consequent changes in buying behaviors. Practitioners and academics alike have started to emphasize social selling as a novel way to tackle these emerging opportunities and challenges at the sales force level. Since research in this area remains embryonic and fragmented, we adopt a discovery-oriented research approach and conceptualize social selling and its key facets based on a systematic literature review and a field study involving thought leading social selling professionals. The findings indicate a need to extend the research focus from social media usage into a concept which comprehends social selling as a broader application of digital marketing principles at the individual salesperson level. Social selling leverages social and digital channels for understanding, connecting with, and engaging influencers, prospects and existing customers at relevant customer purchasing journey touchpoints for building valuable business relationships. We relate the construct to other close selling approaches and explicate its organizational strategy components as well as performance outcomes. The findings advance current understanding of the role of sales in contemporary business markets and have implications for sales and marketing theory and practice.     

The use of social media in sales: Individual and organizational antecedents,and the role of customer engagement in social media

There is recognition that social media can benefit personal selling and sales management, especially in the B2B context. This research draws on interactional psychology theory to propose and test a model of usage of social media in sales, analyzing individual, organizational, and customer-related factors. We find that organizational competence and commitment with social media are key determinants of social media usage in sales, as well as individual commitment. Customer engagement with social media also predicts social media usage in sales, both directly and (mostly) through the individual and organizational factors analyzed, especially organizational competence and commitment. Finally, we find evidence of synergistic effects between individual competence and commitment, which is not found at the organizational level. We conduct multiple regression analysis of data obtained by surveying 220 sales executives in the United States.     

Paradoxical implications of personal social media use for work

New information and communication technologies can have paradoxical implications: they may be liberating and constraining at the same time. This field study examines the direct implications of personal social media use for work on employees’ autonomy and work pressure, and the indirect effects on exhaustion and work engagement. A total of 364 employees of three large multinationals responded to a web‐based survey. Results demonstrate the presence of a paradox, as social media for work is associated positively with both autonomy and work pressure. SNS use has indirect effects on exhaustion and engagement through autonomy, and on exhaustion through work pressure, but not on engagement through work pressure. Furthermore, one's responsiveness to colleagues’ communication decreases the relation between use and autonomy, although not between use and work pressure. Overall, employees seem more likely to be burdened by the use of social media for work than benefit from it, but managing one's responsiveness can help.     

Governance within social media websites: Ruling new frontiers

Governance within social media websites can be evaluated in terms of conformity to or transgression of external legal requirements, social mores, and economic incentives. By examining social media websites as frontiers and heterotopias in which rule is indeterminate, this paper explores the way rule is established and changed. The authors illustrate this approach using the case of changing governance within Formspring.     

Determinants of social media adoption by B2B organizations

This study contributes to the current dearth of knowledge on the potential of social media as a marketing tool in industrial settings, by focusing on factors that determine social media adoption by B2B organizations. A conceptual model, which draws on the technology acceptance model and resource-based theory, is developed and tested using quantitative data from B2B organizations in the UK. Findings suggest that perceived usefulness of social media within B2B organizational contexts is determined by image, perceived ease of use and perceived barriers. Additionally, the results show that adoption of social media is significantly affected by organizational innovativeness and perceived usefulness. The moderating role of organizational innovativeness is also tested but no support is found. The findings of the study are further validated via nine qualitative interviews with B2B senior managers, yielding additional interesting and in-depth insights into the drivers of social media adoption by B2B organizations.     

美国年度十大最愚蠢礼物出炉

美国纽约的Stupid．com网站近日公布了第二届年度“十大最愚蠢节日礼物”排行榜。该网站宣称发现愚蠢的礼物是一门艺术。评选出的“08年度十大愚蠢礼物”如下：1尖叫（发泄）鸡，堪称“世界上最惹人厌的玩具”、“发”财圣诞树饰、迷你“吉他英雄”、“厕所高尔夫”、芥末味口香糖球、男士内衣修补包、奥巴马“Yes，We Can”开瓶器、“怎样打领带”牌领带、新年狗屎日历、钢管舞闹钟。     

中国男装如何打造品牌魅力

我国市场国际化进程的加快，人们发现，当代表国家服装产业实力的中国男装业开始加大向品牌经营转化力度时，国内男装的中高档市场，早已是外来品牌的天下。     

Enacting the internet and social media on the public sector's frontline

Recognising their growing role in public services, this article draws on the notion of ‘enactment’ to argue that the internet and social media (I&SM) need to be understood in particular institutional, organisational and social contexts. Focusing on street‐level bureaucrats who deliver frontline services, we explore efforts to integrate I&SM into youth work with clients who are thought to be ‘digitally savvy’ but also in need of protection from the ‘online world’. As clients can be vulnerable and trust is a key relational component, organisation–practitioner–client boundaries are complex and under continuous renegotiation. However, the layering of new virtual channels of interaction adds extra complexity. This change necessitates the development of innovative routines, practices and protocols, but these are being developed in a wider social context where the norms of using social media have not caught up with practice and the use of these tools is still often surrounded by moral panic.     

Perspectives on social media ant its use by key account managers

Social media has recently received increased attention from practitioners and academics. Although social media helps build relationships, no academic study to date has investigated the use of social media by key account managers, although building and developing relationships with key customers are at the core of these managers' expertise. This research contributes to building the first level of understanding of how key account managers use social media and the major issues. To address this topic, we perform a qualitative research study using the grounded theory methodology. We present a model of key account managers' use of social media derived from our empirical data and relate it to a key customer engagement model.     

Towards unions 2.0: rethinking the audience of social media engagement

This paper aims to examine how trade union members perceive opportunities for online engagement and what the differences are between traditional and online audiences. The empirical work is based on a survey of members of a Greek union in the banking sector. The findings outline the characteristics of an audience that is likely to support information sharing and networking activities on the web. For this audience, traditional levels of loyalty and union participation were not strongly related with perceptions about the union's online presence. Instead, Internet skills and experiences had a dominant effect. The implications of this study suggest that trade unions have to actively seek knowledge about the characteristics of their new audience and adapt communications strategies accordingly.     

Governance and social media in African countries: An empirical investigation

This study assesses linkages between social media and governance dynamics in 49 African countries for the year 2012. The empirical evidence is based on ordinary least squares and quantile regressions. Ten bundled and unbundled governance dynamics are used, notably: (i) political governance (entailing “voice & accountability” and political stability/no violence); (ii) economic governance (involving regulation quality and government effectiveness); (iii) institutional governance (comprising the rule of law and corruption-control) and (iv) general governance (entailing political, economic and institutional governance). Social media is measured with Facebook penetration. The findings show that Facebook penetration is positively associated with governance dynamics and these positive nexuses differ in terms of significance and magnitude of significance throughout the conditional distribution of the governance dynamics.     

Sharing is the name of the game: Exploring the role of social media communication practices on B2B customer relationships in the life sciences industry

The inclusion of social media as a communication channel in a vendor's B2B digital marketing strategy is growing in importance. Understanding the effect of such practices upon customer relationships is crucial for firms as they increasingly engage in this way. This paper presents and tests a model that explores the effect of vendor social media communication practices upon trust and loyalty in B2B customer relationships. A study using quantitative data from 196 business customers of a United States life sciences firm is reported. The model indicates that trust and loyalty are influenced by a) the social media shared beliefs between the vendor and the customer; b) the nature of the vendor's social media communication with the customer; and c) the extent to which the vendor's social media communication practices enable effective customer-to-customer communication. Trust is found to have a mediating role between these indicators and loyalty. Managerial implications are discussed.     

如何建设本质安全型矿井

本质安全是煤矿安全管理的崭新理念,属安全管理高层次的文化范畴。其基本特征是人的安全可靠性、物的安全可靠性、系统的安全可靠性和制度规范、管理科学。笔者结合多年来煤矿工作的经验,对如何按照本质安全的标准和要求抓好安全管理进行了如下思考。一、必须提升思想境界,深刻认识安全工作的重大意义安全工作是煤矿的头等大事,是矿井生存发展的保障和基石,是