Developing business customer engagement through social media engagement-platforms: An integrative S-D logic/RBV-informed model

While the service-dominant logic-informed nature of customer engagement in social media has been recognized in business-to-consumer contexts, little is known regarding this theoretical interface in business-to-business (B2B) settings. Insight into business customer engagement (BCE), as expressed through social media and/or other B2B engagement-platforms (e.g. trade shows) and its S-D logic-based antecedents and consequences thus remains limited. Based on the observed gap, this paper integrates the theoretical entities of BCE, B2B social media engagement-platforms, and S-D logic and through its analyses, uncovers the related importance of the resource-based view (RBV) in affecting this association. An integrative S-D logic/RBV-informed model is developed, where BCE denotes an industrial customer's investment of operant/operand resources in supplier interactions via particular B2B engagement-platforms, including social media. The model considers business customer actors and resources in driving business customer resource integration, business customer resource integration effectiveness, and business customer resource integration efficiency, which act as BCE antecedents that extend to coincide with BCE. BCE, in turn, triggers business customer cocreation and relationship productivity, which subsequently, contribute to business customer relationship quality and ultimately, supplier performance. A set of research propositions is derived from the model, which serves as a useful guide for further research. Managerial implications focused on B2B social media marketing are discussed, before we conclude with an overview of research limitations and future research directions.     

Digital mediation in business-to-business marketing: A bibliometric analysis

Digital mediation in business-to-business marketing is becoming increasingly important to firms, due to customer needs and evolving technological environments. The extensive research in this area for the past twenty years has created a need to synthesize extant research. This paper examines the literature in the domain, to create a classification scheme for subdomains and to explore future research directions. This study reviews 119 relevant articles published in 29 journals between January 1999 and March 2019, to detail the domain. In addition to providing details on most cited articles and published authors, our analysis classifies the digitally mediated business-to-business marketing literature into four subject clusters—a framework for digitally mediated business-to-business marketing, the digital business-to-business marketplace, value creation through digital marketing, and the use of social media for business-to-business marketing. Four shifts in the literature are described: the emergence of Internet research and business-to-business technology; the evolution of e-commerce; the focus on social media; and the broadening of research. Finally, directions for future research are identified and discussed.     

Market-driving versus market-driven: Divergent roles of market orientation in business relationships

This study focuses on market orientation (MO) and customer intimacy (CI) in business-to-business marketing. These are generally regarded as key success factors in marketing. The authors argue, however, that the relationship between MO and customer relationship has not been properly examined, nor has its dependence on a firm's strategic market posture been understood. A contingency framework is proposed to test the postulated relationships between the key constructs. Our results indicate a strong positive association between MO and CI. Furthermore, this linkage is clearly influenced by the market focus and business logic adopted. In managerial terms, business executives must carefully match the strategic posture of the firm, its MO, and customer relationship management (CRM). Our findings strongly support a contingency modeling approach in studying the factors underlying marketing performance in business markets.     

Customer referencing as business actor engagement behavior – Creating value in and beyond triadic settings

The rising impact of customer engagement is increasingly evident in business markets. This paper studies customer referencing as an important manifestation of engagement behavior in the business-to-business (B2B) context. To extend extant research, which has thus far examined referencing almost exclusively from the seller's viewpoint, we study how referencing affects value creation in business networks. We explore resources contributed and gained though referencing and the resulting value outcomes for the entire reference triad (the seller, the reference customer, and the prospective buyer). Empirically, the paper draws on an extensive field study conducted in knowledge-intensive business service industries. The results explicate how customer referencing affects value creation within and beyond the triad, by i) enhancing or impairing actors' internal processes; ii) strengthening or damaging relationships between the triad actors; and iii) facilitating exchange in their broader business network. The paper contributes to research on customer referencing by explicating its role in value creation on a network level. As one of the first studies on engagement in the B2B context, this paper contributes to the emerging actor engagement research by analyzing how influencing behavior operates in a business network. These insights can help firms to facilitate exchange in complex markets.     

Role of big data and social media analytics for business to business sustainability: A participatory web context

The digital transformation is an accumulation of various digital advancements, such as the transformation of the web phenomenon. The participatory web that allows for active user engagement and gather intelligence has been widely recognised as a value add tool by organisations of all shapes and sizes to improve business productivity and efficiency. However, its ability to facilitate sustainable business-to-business (B2B) activities has lacked focus in the business and management literature to date. This qualitative research is exploratory in nature and fills this gap through findings arising from interviews of managers and by developing taxonomies that highlight the capability of participatory web over passive web to enable different firms to engage in business operations. For this purpose, two important interrelated functions of business i.e. operations and marketing have been mapped against three dimensions of sustainability. Consequently, this research demonstrates the ability of big data and social media analytics within a participatory web environment to enable B2B organisations to become profitable and remain sustainable through strategic operations and marketing related business activities. The research findings will be useful for both academics and managers who are interested in understanding and further developing the business use of participatory web tools to achieve business sustainability. Hence, this may be considered as a distinct way of attaining sustainability.     

Online group buying: Some insights from the business-to-business perspective

Extant marketing research has examined online group buying (OGB) from the consumer behavior perspective. The goal of this article is to broaden understanding of OGB by offering insights into the topic from the business-to-business (B2B) perspective. In doing so, it offers insights to help stimulate greater interest in and scholarly work on better understanding and improving B2B relationships and outcomes in OGB. Three discovery-oriented qualitative studies were conducted and analyzed using content analysis with an interpretive approach and contingency theory as a theoretical lens. The findings reveal that marketing exchanges through OGB offers businesses the opportunity to raise corporate and product brand awareness, gain an immediate pool of large groups of customers, expand the customer base, sell other products, contribute to better cash flow, encourage positive word of mouth, and increase sales during non-peak sales periods. However, marketing exchanges through OGB may also be challenging for businesses in terms of maintaining business profitability, managing costs, withstanding competition, obtaining support from OGB website operators, and managing customer expectations of continued discounts. These findings should help businesses that promote and sell their products through OGB to become better informed of the potential benefits and pitfalls of engaging in OGB, and thus improve their navigation in the OGB marketplace to achieve desired marketing outcomes.     

Is perceived value more than value for money in professional business services?

It is well documented in the literature that customer perceived value plays an important role in understanding behavioral outcomes of business customers. However, most business-to-business research has focused on the functional dimension of perceived value, while consumer research has already advanced to a multidimensional value conceptualization. This study expands the concept of perceived value in the professional business services context to functional, emotional, and social perceived value. Based on signaling theory, we conceptualize and empirically support links between the three dimensions of perceived value and its antecedents (perceived corporate reputation, perceived corporate credibility, and perceived relationship quality) and outcomes (satisfaction and loyalty). The results of a survey involving 228 business clients reveal differences in links between value antecedents and the three perceived value dimensions: while perceived corporate credibility and relationship quality impact all dimensions, perceived corporate reputation impacts only perceived emotional value. Results of our study help in understanding how satisfaction and loyalty are viewed as perceived value outcomes; apart from functional value, emotional and social values play a significant role in the satisfaction and loyalty of professional business services clients.     

Customer segments as moving targets: Integrating customer value dynamism into segment instability logic

Segmentation is a mature concept in marketing strategy that continues to receive significant attention from managers and scholars alike. The key goal in segmentation is identifying and reaching profitable segments with products and services that meet the common needs of these customers. However, a fundamental issue needing rigorous attention is that customers' needs are dynamic and can induce segment instability. The purpose of this paper is to draw focus to segment instability in business-to-business markets by conceptually exploring its theoretical underpinnings and integrating related theory on customer value change to propose an agenda for future research.     

Building competences for new customer value creation: An exploratory study

Recent marketing literature suggests companies to become market driving (proactive business logic, changing the rules of the market) instead of market driven (reactive business logic, customer-led). This transformation implies that companies are able to boost their capacity to create new customer value. Based on survey data of business-to-business markets, we advance a tentative model that links competence development to new customer value creation. Although exploratory in its nature, our study exhibits that companies should build three types of competences: marketing practices for external knowledge absorption, general organizational competences and supply chain/network competences. Using cluster analysis, we are able to further link these competences to the capacity of new value creation. Four clusters are detected with different degrees of expertise in new value creation and each displaying their own profile of competences. Becoming market driving requires an integrated and balanced view on marketing practices.     

Social media-related tensions on business-to-business markets – Evidence from China

Previous research has established the benefits of using social media in support of engagement in business-to-business settings. Yet the study of problems that arise from social media use in business relationships remains limited. Utilizing a dyadic perspective, this study addresses the gap by focusing on tensions in buyer-supplier relationships that arise from social media use. Findings present three dualistic tensions: active engagement anticipated by suppliers versus passive monitoring practices of the buyers; increased transparency through business-to-business social media versus invisibility; as well as tensions between local versus international business-to-business social media engagement practices. The study draws on 52 semi-structured in-depth interviews with senior managers who work in relevant positions at manufacturing firms based in China. By identifying characteristic tensions pertaining to business-to-business social media, this study aims to contribute to research on the ‘dark side’ of business relationships as well as to literature on business-to-business social media engagement.     

The development and diffusion of customer relationship management (CRM) intelligence in business-to-business environments

CRM data is among the most important and comprehensive information available to management in many organizations. This is particularly the case in business-to-business marketing, where the firm's extended working relationship with its customers is frequently crucial for the maintenance of a healthy business. However, in many instances management has treated CRM data as highly specific to its client relationships and has therefore neglected to analyze this information across market segments, customer categories, and customer–firm relationship forms in order to draw meaningful conclusions for driving business decisions.     

Mapping value in business markets: An integrative framework

The value concept is key to understanding purchasing and marketing decisions in business markets. Despite its importance, a lack of clarity surrounding the conceptualization of value in business-to-business markets persists. This paper develops an integrative framework that identifies the various conceptualizations of value and maps the most often cited value papers published in IMM on this framework. The integrative framework makes distinctions between the value beneficiary (i.e., collective and individual value perceptions), the underlying value perspective (i.e., customers' and suppliers' value perceptions), and the reference object of value (i.e., transactional value based on expectations or experiences, and value of relationships). Positioning the IMM citation classics papers on this integrative framework allows us to identify core areas and promising research avenues for this key concept. In particular, we identify a need to further explore individual actors' value perceptions and the usage processes that lead to experienced value in use in business markets.     

Digitization capability and the digitalization of business models in business-to-business firms: Past,present, and future

While the use of data in business-to-business marketing is not a new phenomenon, the digitization and digitalization of business-to-business firms' business models have recently attracted a great deal of attention. With the aim of creating an overview and consolidating this stream of research, the present paper offers a brief historical overview of research on digitization and digitalization in business-to-business markets – concluding that this discussion has a long tradition and, thus, is not a new phenomenon. We develop a definition of digitization capability as a basis for discussing how a firm's digitization capability interacts with its business model to allow for data-enabled growth, i.e. its digitalization, and we highlight promising avenues for future research.     

Servitization in global business-to-business distribution: The central activities of manufacturers

Manufacturers' servitization development is a prevalent trend in the current business world. Companies then aim to increase customer closeness and complement product offerings with services. However, extant literature on distribution and marketing channels literature remains limited in terms of the implications of servitization for global business-to-business distribution. Therefore, this qualitative multiple case study identifies the central activities of servitizing manufacturers in global distribution. The study concludes with the following research propositions: Servitizing manufacturers develop global service portfolios and customize offerings according to local customer characteristics; build global operation models and adjust local service processes; ensure global brand coherency and design the customer experience according to local customer expectations; and create global value propositions and enhance local value co-creation with business customers. The study outlines managerial implications in terms of organizing global distribution. It also discusses new knowledge sharing and capability needs regarding solution sales, service provision and customer relationship management.     

Understanding and managing customer value propositions: Introduction to the special issue

Customer value propositions have experienced a growing interest among marketing scholars and managers in recent years. Despite its frequent mention in the business and academic press, the value proposition concept remains poorly understood and executed. This article introduces the reader to the special issue of Industrial Marketing Management on understanding and managing customer value propositions. The special issue combines five original research articles with four commentaries by though‑leading scholars and practitioners that together shed light on the origins and current use of the value proposition concept and also identify future research directions for improving our conceptual understanding and practical use of this pivotal concept in business markets.     

How business customers judge customer success management

In business-to-business markets, customer success management is gaining growing practical importance. The concept comprises customer-related activities that aim at monitoring, securing and enhancing customer success as well as the implementation of the corresponding organizational structures and processes within the supplier firm. In contrast to existing research, this article takes a customer perspective to customer success management and investigates how business customers judge respective supplier activities; first, to reveal the quality dimensions business customers apply when assessing suppliers' customer success management activities, and second, to investigate how the quality of suppliers' customer success management activities leads to business customers' perceived value. Addressing these questions, this research contributes to literature by exploring customer success management from a customer perspective. The findings elucidate that customers' perceived value in use does not simply develop over time. Rather, through the implementation of customer-related activities of customer success management, suppliers can actively influence customers' value-in-use experiences thus fostering customers' rebuy decisions. From managerial perspective, the findings support suppliers in successfully shape their customer-oriented customer success management activities as well as the necessary internal structures and processes.     

Innovation Process and Outcomes for Large Japanese Firms: Roles of Entrepreneurial Proclivity and Customer Equity

The authors investigate the structural relationships among entrepreneurial proclivity, innovation process characteristics (technological strength, marketing strength, and marketing–R&D integration), and customer equity in achieving business growth and financial return in the Japanese context. Following field interviews and a pilot test, survey data are collected from 207 pairs of marketing and R&D executives from strategic business units (SBUs) of large manufacturing companies in Japan. Based on the partial least squares analysis of data, the authors find nuanced effects of organizations' entrepreneurial proclivity on the critical organizational process, resource, and business performance. The study theorizes and empirically supports the idea that customer equity is a potent intermediary outcome that contributes to both top‐line (growth) and the bottom‐line (ROI) of a business. Specifically, the study shows that: (1) entrepreneurial proclivity directly and positively influences technology strength, marketing strength, and marketing‐R&D integration; (2) entrepreneurial proclivity's effect on business growth and financial return is positive and mediated by customer equity; (3) marketing–R&D integration has a moderating effect on the positive impact of technology strength on customer equity; and (4) customer equity is a strong driver of business growth and financial return. There is a dearth of research on entrepreneurship in Asia; very few empirical studies have been reported from Japan in particular. This study contributes to boundary testing of the theoretical relationships. Although entrepreneurial proclivity appears to be an inspirational concept, its actual adoption remains an important question for many Japanese companies. Those Japanese firms that aspire to be entrepreneurial need to be mindful what innovation processes and resources it takes to fulfill the positive influences of entrepreneurship.     

Customer reference marketing: Conceptualization,measurement and link to selling performance

The use of customer references to facilitate marketing and sales in business markets has received growing interest among practitioners and academics. The importance of references has been highlighted in a wide range of contexts, such as customer relationship management, customer value management, sales, and marketing communications. Yet knowledge about the effective application of references in business remains scant, and studies have not addressed in-depth what constitutes customer reference marketing or studied its relation to firm performance. This study contributes to this important but underdeveloped business marketing topic by 1) conceptualizing customer reference marketing based on theory and an extensive qualitative field study, 2) building a measure for the construct using survey data, and 3) demonstrating its relevance by linking the construct to firms' selling performance with additional collected data. The results broaden and specify the current understanding of how to effectively deploy references in business markets and provide evidence of the hypothesized performance, as well as contingency effects. The established conceptual foundations for the phenomenon provide substantial opportunities for practitioners and theory-testing oriented business marketing research.     

Actor network pictures and networking activities in business networks: An experimental study

In recent years, there has been increasing interest among business-to-business marketing scholars in the processes of managerial cognition. In particular, actors' network pictures, defined as the cognitive representations of managers' business surroundings have attracted much attention. However, there has so far been no empirical research on the impact that network pictures have on managerial behavior. The purpose of this paper is therefore to understand if and how specific pertinent network picture characteristics — namely power, dynamics, broadness, and indirectness — are associated with different behavioral choices, i.e. networking strategies. Based on an experiment with 445 Executive MBA students, all international managers across different industries, we find that managers' choices when managing business relationships, their strategic actions, are affected by the way they perceive their surrounding business network. However, amongst the different theoretical models of networking activities tested, only the power dimension showed significant associations with all four network picture characteristics. This study represents the first to empirically study the connection between cognition and behavior in business-to-business markets, as well as one of the few to apply an experimental design to study a business-to-business marketing related phenomenon. Also, it paves the way for future understanding of the association between network picture characteristics and networking strategies in interaction between actors.     

Preparing industrial suppliers for customer integration

In real world markets and business markets in particular, the idea of customized products and services receives increasing attention. A management tool called customer integration has been developed as an approach to master the challenges originating from customization for a supplier. Customer integration competence is the organizational quality that results from this tool after being implemented. Putting this together, we can hypothesize a causal relation between customer integration competence and market success. In order to confirm this hypothesis, the paper presents a conceptualization of customer integration competence. To accomplish this, references are made to competence models from psychology, success factor research and organizational science. The concept was validated through a survey with 78 industry experts from business markets responding. Customer integration competence measured in this way was then contrasted to a second measure capturing market success. Regression analysis supports our hypothesis strongly. Finally, implications for marketing research as well as marketing practice are presented.