Servbrand Framework: A Business-To-Business Services Brand Equity Framework

ABSTRACT

Purpose: The research reported on here set out to develop a tailored branding model for business to business (B-to-B) services by applying the brand resonance pyramid to a selected B-to-B services context.

The brand resonance pyramid was developed based on research that was predominantly consumer product or individual brand oriented, though one of the objectives when the model was developed was that “the model had to be versatile and applicable to all possible kinds of brands and industry settings. As more diverse applications of branding continued to emerge for products, services, organizations, people, places, and so forth, the model needed to have far-ranging relevance”. The brand resonance pyramid therefore had to be applicable to any context, including B-to-B services contexts. However, consumer goods branding strategies are not directly transferable to B-to-B or services markets and there are documented differences between the B-to-B and business-to-consumer (B2C) markets and products and services contexts. There is also doubt regarding the validity of the contention that the brand resonance pyramid should be applicable to the B-to-B sector.

Methodology: Using an interpretivist qualitative research approach and an exploratory research strategy, the Servbrand framework was developed empirically by applying the brand resonance pyramid to a selected B-to-B services context. Fourteen useful in-depth interviews were obtained from appropriate and information rich participants that represented more than 14 of the 89 organization that were included in the selection frame. Some of the participants were responsible for the relevant decisions of more than one organization.

Findings: The results from the study reported on here (summarized as Figure 5) prompted the inclusion of a people dimension and elevated the importance of relationships in an amended B-to-B services brand equity framework. The people brand-building block includes the dimensions of attitude and demeanor, personality and values, personableness, product knowledge and client knowledge. Relationships, as the ultimate aim of the framework, concern both interpersonal relationships and partnerships.

The article presents a conceptual framework to guide effective brand building strategies in a selected B-to-B services context. Researchers can use the framework to test its applicability in other contexts, which will contribute to the amendment of a significant brand equity management framework.

The Servbrand framework can assist marketing practitioners to improve the effectiveness of strategic brand management for B-to-B services.

Contribution: The empirical research contributes to three areas of brand equity research, namely: 1) the offering type – by investigating service offerings rather than product offerings; 2) the brand level – by investigating organization-level brands rather than product-level brands; and 3) context – by investigating a B-to-B context rather than a B2C context. A revised brand resonance pyramid is proposed and called the Servbrand framework.     

A supply chain management framework for services

While services represent the largest sector of the global economy, 86.8% in the United States, most supply chain management (SCM) research is focused on product flows. Executives in manufacturing firms have benefited from frameworks created to implement SCM processes, but this is not the case for their counterparts in service companies. The two most cited SCM frameworks for services have methodological and conceptual deficiencies. Drawing upon the service-dominant logic of marketing and using an empirical research approach, we developed supply chain structure maps for nine service firms. Our findings indicate that the supply chain structure maps of service companies are comparable to those in the product-based literature, which supports the service-dominant logic. Then, we identified the six key processes that constitute a framework to manage service supply chains. The customer relationship management and the supplier relationship management processes form the critical links in the supply chain, and the other four processes are coordinated through this linkage. The SCM framework for services provides direction for executives in service firms who need to increase cross-functional integration within their firms and with other members of the supply chain. For academics, 12 avenues for future research are identified.     

Organizational culture,innovation, and performance: A test of Schein's model

Innovation is the key to organizational survival and therefore the study of processes that support innovation should be of interest to researchers and practitioners alike. Schein's multi-layered model of organizational culture offers a useful framework for thinking about processes that foster innovation. A defining characteristic of the model is the subtle but important distinctions between the varied “layers” of organizational culture (i.e., values and norms, artifacts and behaviors). The basic assumption of this study is that Schein's model offers a tractable explanation of cultural processes that support organizational innovation, especially in service firms. Despite the intuitive appeal and practical value of Schein's conceptual framework, empirical research in relation to the model is limited. This paper develops a rationale for an empirical model based on Schein's conceptual model; the study reports a test of an empirical model. Data collected from approximately 100 principals of law firms provides a suitable empirical context for a test of the model. The findings generally support the hypothesized relationships. A key result is how layers of organizational culture, particularly norms, artifacts, and innovative behaviors, partially mediate the effects of values that support innovation on measures of firm performance. The findings have implications for theory and practice, especially in relation to building an organizational culture within professional service firms that fosters innovative behavior.     

Moral Climate in Business Firms: A Conceptual Framework for Analysis and Change

This paper introduces a new conceptual framework for studying moral climate in business firms, offering an alternative to other theoretical models currently in the literature. The framework integrates recent advances in organizational climate theory into a new conceptualization of the moral climate construct that explains how moral climates evolve in organizations and suggests moral climate change.     

The demand for and the supply of distribution services: A basis for the analysis of customer satisfaction in retailing

This paper brings together two bodies of literature. One of them is a literature on the special role of the consumer in retailing. The other one is the literature on customer satisfaction. This joining of literatures is accomplished by identifying distribution services as outputs of retail firms and fixed inputs into the production functions of consumers and relaxing the standard assumption that the demand for these services is always equal to the supply of these services. The result is a new conceptual framework for the analysis of customer satisfaction in retailing. This framework extends the basic ideas on customer satisfaction developed for manufacturing in a homogeneous single product setting to the heterogeneous multi-product setting relevant for many retailers. The paper illustrates one approach to the implementation of this framework with data for a set of supermarkets in Pamplona, Spain, that measure distribution services by asking consumers questions explicitly identifying these services. The five main categories of distribution services identified by the conceptual framework and measured in the data are economically important and statistically robust determinants of customer satisfaction with supermarkets. These results are obtained controlling for other variables typical of the customer satisfaction literature and measuring customer satisfaction in a manner consistent with that literature. The results are robust to corrections for sample selection and alternative estimation methods. Perhaps our most interesting novel result is that the effect of the determinants of customer satisfaction on future purchase intentions in the supermarket case is different when measured directly in a one stage process than when measured indirectly in a two stage process through the attributes/satisfaction/ purchase intentions chain.

Assessing and managing the university technology business incubator: An integrative framework

This article provides a conceptual framework for assessing and managing the university technology business incubator (UTBI) as a tool for new venture creation. It is widely believed that UTBIs contribute to the nurturing of new technology-based firms (NTBFs). However, they have escaped systematic review in the United States due to a lack of historical data. To fill this gap, a new UTBI performance assessment framework is proposed, which is drawn from a combined survey of the existing body of knowledge in the areas of business incubation, the university's involvement in technology and business development support, and the commonly accepted approaches to organizational assessment that provide the necessary building blocks for the integrative framework. The proposed model is comprised of three performance dimensions: (1) program sustainability and growth; (2) tenant firm's survival and growth; and (3) contributions to the sponsoring university's mission. Further, the scope and effectiveness of the facility management policies, and the provision of services are assessed. The application of this framework is illustrated using four representative UTBI cases selected from a field of 30 five-year or older U.S.-based facilities and their 29 tenant firms out of the 84 firms contacted for the survey (35%). A comparative review of these four cases reveals that the framework provides a flexible methodology to assess the performance of UTBIs. The article concludes with a set of elements identified for evaluating UTBIs under the aforementioned three performance dimensions providing measurement indicators. This framework seeks to provide conceptual clarity for those responsible for assessing UTBI performance, directing their operations, or endeavoring to create them.     

Creating a Sustainable Supply Chain Network by Adopting Relationship Management Strategies

ABSTRACT

Purpose: This paper develops a conceptual framework to analyze the impact of a supply chain network (SCN) structure on relationship management strategies (RMS) that focal firms apply to manage sustainability issues within the SCN.

Design/methodology/approach: This paper is based on a comprehensive review and analysis of the industrial marketing and purchasing (IMP), sustainable supply chain management (SSCM), and SCN literature.

Findings: The conceptual framework expands the network perspective in the SSCM context by considering the important role of the SCN structure in the firm’s decision-making process. Four factors (dependency, distance, power, and transparency) were found that are useful in conceptualizing the SCN structure. The conceptual framework also categorizes various sustainability practices into four RMS (noncompliance, transactional, dictatorial, and collaborative), which are needed to make an SCN more sustainable. In addition, 16 propositions are developed based on how firms may identify the most effective RMS to implement appropriate sustainability practices through examining their SCN structure.

Research limitations/implications: The conceptual framework, developed as a result of a comprehensive review of the literature, led to the development of 16 propositions, which can assist in furthering a research agenda on RMS to diffuse various sustainability practices within SCN structures.

Originality/value: The relationship between SCN structure and RMS in the sustainability context remains an under-researched but emerging area of interest. This paper leverages existing research to develop a conceptual framework suitable for empirical testing.     

Value chain integration of base of the pyramid consumers: An empirical study of drivers and performance outcomes

The seminal works on Base of the Pyramid (BOP) markets encourage companies to explore untapped low-income markets and to alleviate poverty by providing affordable products and services. The transition to second generation BOP strategies has centred on the integration of local consumers across value chain activities. This integration presents challenges both for firms and for low-income consumers due to the nature of informal BOP markets, severe institutional voids and lack of local knowledge of firms. In this context, little is known about the motivational drivers of firms to integrate BOP consumers in value creation activities and the impact on different performance dimensions, namely economic, social and ecological. This study adopts the perspective of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and investigates drivers and performance outcomes of BOP consumer integration. For this purpose, we develop a theoretical framework and test it empirically by employing a unique dataset of 142 enterprises which provide basic products and services to low-income markets. Our findings provide empirical support for the claim that BOP consumer integration enhances economic, social and ecological performance. MSMEs in our sample engage consumers mainly due to a strong intrinsic motivation to drive social impact rather than a pragmatic motivation to overcome information asymmetries. While studies of multinationals entering BOP markets almost exclusively report the need for cross-sector partner collaboration, our findings suggest that this may not be the case for MSMEs.     

From E-Channel to Channel Mix and Channel Integration

Based on longitudinal research, this paper elucidates the evolution of the e-channel. The results show that that the e-channel is still of limited importance in many areas, when measured by market share. However, the new channel is an important source of information boosting both consumer power and capability. Another important result is that firms, as well as consumers, still perceive the e-channel as promising. One reason is that today's time-pressed consumers are increasingly in need of affordable services to make their everyday life easier, which puts pressure on firms for developing an e-channel capable to perform cost efficient services. An additional result is that the e-channel and the physical channel do, in fact, complement each other rather than only compete. Therefore, to utilise the potential of the e-channel, a service provider strategy of channel mix and channel integration is suggested.     

Political connections and entrepreneurial investment: Evidence from China's transition economy

Recent literature in entrepreneurship suggests that market and legal institutions matter for entrepreneurial investment. Yet, prior studies have focused on the role of formal institutions. Building on new institutional theory and political connections literature, this study aims to evaluate the role of political connections in entrepreneurial reinvestment in less developed and transition economies. The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, it aims to demonstrate systematically how political connections affect entrepreneurial reinvestment. Second, it applies this relationship to a subsample group, i.e., Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), in order to empirically test whether political connections are more beneficial for large firms or SMEs. Third, it demonstrates that political connections substitute for, rather than complement, formal market and legal institutions. The empirical test uses a nationally representative sample of entrepreneurial firms from China's transition economy.     

Cross-border marketing ecosystem orchestration: A conceptualization of its determinants and boundary conditions

The authors propose that the current trends and developments in the international marketplace call for a new theoretical concept-based approach to inform and guide cross-border marketing strategy. Specifically, the authors label this approach marketing ecosystem orchestration (MEO). The marketing ecosystem is defined as connected, interdependent, and co-evolving sets of actors, activities, and institutions enabling the marketing of an offering that has value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. MEO is a new strategic approach for an internationalizing firm to achieve sustained value creation, value appropriation, and growth in a host market. Orchestration involves developing and/or coordinating the ecosystem’s interdependent – but independent actors, resources, information, processes, and services to create, co-create, and appropriate value from firms’ market-based assets. The authors theorize three components of MEO – the orchestration of supply chains and fulfillment networks, marketing communications, and transactions and payments sub-ecosystems – and develop a conceptual framework and propositions influencing the determinants of MEO adoption by the focal firm. This paper concludes with managerial implications and offers several new directions for international marketing research.     

R&;D Subsidy and Self-Financed R&;D: The Case of Japanese High-Technology Start-Ups

This paper examines whether public R&D subsidies constitute a substitute or complement for private-financed R&D. The empirical analysis is based on a panel data of 223 Japanese high-technology start-ups. Our evidence is consistent with the complement hypothesis, i.e., that publicly-funded R&D does promote private R&D. The complement effects are stronger for more mature firms. This is because such firms, in the growth phase, might have greater demands for R&D funds.     

Constructing conceptual models for knowledge capture and delivery systems

Appropriate conceptualization of the nature of entities and relationships in a problem domain is a key prerequisite to the successful design of computerized decision aids for business, especially those developed for more than one idiosyncratic user. The need for a reliable conceptual model is particularly acute in the design of decision support systems that must function in problem‐solving situations with no existing theoretical framework or where theory and practice differ considerably.

This paper presents an interative procedure for developing a reliable conceptual model by testing the “fit”; of successive revisions of the model against a collection of “think‐aloud”; verbal problem‐solving protocols of people with experience in the domain. The model is revised each time until it is verifiably and consistently accurate. Such a procedure, it is argued, is more objective and reliable than intuition or traditional knowledge engineering and requires considerably less experimental data collection and analysis than more elaborate empirical model development procedures.

The feasibility of this procedure is illustrated by using it to construct a conceptual model for a computer‐based system that seeks to capture knowledge used during project planning and deliver it for use during project control.     

Trade Credit,Bank Credit,and Flight to Quality: Evidence from French SMEs

This paper investigates the impact of the global financial crisis on the allocation of credit to small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). Using samples of French SMEs from four industries, we found support for the prediction of the flight‐to‐quality hypothesis that in bad times, credit flows away from smaller constrained firms to larger, higher grade firms. We also examined the relation between bank credit and trade credit in terms of two hypotheses: the substitution hypothesis and the complementary hypothesis. The results of fixed effects panel regressions showed that trade credit for small firms during periods of tight money acts generally as complement rather than substitute to bank credit, thus providing empirical support for the redistribution view of trade credit.     

Opportunism in Buyer–Supplier Relations: New Insights from Quantitative Synthesis

After more than two decades of empirical research examining opportunism, a wide divergence of empirical findings regarding opportunism's antecedents remains. The need for more theoretically practicable and managerially actionable insight into the identity, nature, and scope of the antecedents to opportunism is clear. As such, a meta-analysis of the opportunism literature was conducted to (a) investigate the role of six antecedents (dependence, formalization, centralization, control, uncertainty, and relational norms), (b) resolve the disparate relationships' magnitudes and directions, and (c) identify moderators that might explain the disparate effect sizes. Findings suggest extant research findings are affected by socially desirable response bias; the particular operationalization of constructs, for example, whether measured opportunism is actual or perceived or whether the study omitted key antecedents; and whether the sample included firms offering products or services. Theoretical and managerial implications are developed and discussed.     

e-SELFQUAL: A scale for measuring online self-service quality

The measurement of online self-service quality has become increasingly crucial as firms deliver an expanding array of services through their Web sites. Substantial research examines online services using salient scales primarily developed for personnel-orchestrated, face-to-face services; several recently developed scales that target online services focus on important information and/or system characteristics but do not consider e-retailers' fundamental roles holistically. The reported research synthesizes relevant previous research and proposes a conceptual framework to examine the quality of online self-services in e-retailing. The proposed framework then guides a scale development effort that includes a series of pilot and validation studies. The resulting scale, e-SELFQUAL, provides a means for examining the relationships between online service quality and customer satisfaction, as well as loyalty in e-retailing. This study has several important implications for research and business practice.     

Gazelles as job creators: a survey and interpretation of the evidence

It is often claimed that small and young firms account for a disproportionately large share of net employment growth. We conduct a meta-analysis of the empirical evidence regarding whether net employment growth rather is generated by a few rapidly growing firms—so-called Gazelles—that are not necessarily small and young. Gazelles are found to be outstanding job creators. They create all or a large share of new net jobs. On average, Gazelles are younger and smaller than other firms, but it is young age more than small size that is associated with rapid growth. Gazelles exist in all industries. They seem not to be overrepresented in high-technology industries, but there is some evidence that they are overrepresented in services.     

Measurement of innovation activities in the knowledge-intensive services industry: a trademark approach

Innovation measurement in the knowledge-intensive services (KIS) industry is very complex, due to a lack of adequate innovation indicators. A rather new empirical approach involves the analysis of trademarks for the measurement. This paper aims to explore the use and relevance of trademarks for service firms. Data from the German section of the ‘Community Innovation Survey’ are used, and a survey with 278 participating firms is conducted. The results of the two independent empirical studies demonstrate that a trademark can be used as an innovation indicator, at least for knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) and product innovations. The results also illustrate which firm-inside and environmental features explain the use of trademarks as an intellectual property protection measure.     

Defying Distance? Cross‐Border Acquisitions by Emerging‐Economy Firms

We argue that emerging‐economy firms’ international location choices are driven by the pursuit of dynamic efficiency rather than the immediate minimization of transaction and learning costs, and hence the relationship between country distance and the number of cross‐border acquisitions will be less negative for these firms relative to advanced‐economy firms. We then test the hypothesis with respect to four measures of country distance—geographic, economic, cultural, and institutional—and find support for the hypothesis. Our study provides empirical support for claims in the literature about differences in the international expansion behavior of emerging‐economy firms with respect to location. In addition, our study makes a theoretical contribution by showing that the theoretical perspective of dynamic efficiency can explain the difference in the location choices for cross‐border acquisitions by emerging‐economy firms relative to those by advanced‐economy firms. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc..     

Bridging what we know: The effect of cognitive distance on knowledge-intensive business services produced offshore

The rise of offshoring of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS), causing a physical separation between clients and service providers in co-created services, is a major trend in practice but challenges existing theories. International business literature has addressed many types of distance that may affect (service) offshoring, such as cultural or geographic distance. However, limited emphasis has been placed on the implications of differing cognitions of individuals that produce a cognitive distance (CD). We address this gap and ask how increased CD through offshoring affects KIBS production processes. This conceptual paper focuses on how CD interacts with the modularity of different process stages in service production and what effect CD has on repeated production processes. In order to do so we first predict what stages of KIBS production processes can be offshored and what implications offshoring has on these services. We contribute to literature by deepening the understanding of CD and providing a process perspective on KIBS offshoring that looks at modularity within services, rather than firms as bundles of modular production, and on the impact repeated production processes have on service characteristics.