Chinese firms’ sustainable development—The role of future orientation,environmental commitment,and employee training

In this research, we study the issues of corporate sustainable development in China. Based on relevant research, we propose a theoretical model showing the relationship among business environmental commitment, cultural value, employee training, and firm performance of sustainable development. It is argued that a cultural value (i.e., organizational future orientation) should be a key antecedent predicting business environmental commitment. On the other hand, a firm’s sustainable performance, such as performance in environmental protection, should be a major consequence of its business environmental commitment. Moreover, the relationship between business environmental commitment and sustainable performance can be moderated positively by the level of employee training. Other conditions being equal, the better the employee training is, the stronger the relationship between business environmental commitment and sustainable development performance. Testing the relevant hypotheses in China, we find evidence supporting our model proposed in this paper. We conclude with a discussion on the implications of our findings for academic researchers and practitioners.     

Academic brands and their impact on scientific endeavour: The case of business market research and researchers

This paper examines the significance of the rapid development of so-called “academic brands” in Marketing for the process of academic research and for the work and the careers of researchers: It focuses on the specific case of business market research and researchers. The paper starts by exploring the ideas behind the development of Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) and its impact on the academic community: CCT appears as an emblematic case of branding of an academic community. The paper then discusses the rapid emergence of the Service-Dominant Logic (SDL) as a case of branding which has a direct impact on business market research. The paper then relates the emergence of these two “brands” to developments in business market research and more specifically to the development of IMP as a brand. Finally, the paper draws some conclusions about the role of academic branding and its impact on scientific endeavour with emphasis on the future of business marketing research and researchers.     

Prolific authors and institutions in leading international business journals

The science and practice of international business is advanced through scholarly contribution to the leading international business journals. Increased competition among academic institutions has led to increased emphasis on publication in the leading international business journals. Yet, little is known as to the answers to questions such as: (1) Who are the most prolific authors in the leading international business journals? and (2) Which educational institutions appear poised to lead international business scholarship? To examine these questions, the study examines scholarly work in international business over the past eleven years in six leading international business journals (i.e., Journal of International Business Studies, Management International Review, Journal of World Business, International Marketing Review, Journal of International Marketing, and International Business Review). Addressing these two research questions provides us with a more complete understanding of the authors and institutions most likely to influence the field of international business.     

A NICE agenda for IMP research

The IMP (Industrial Marketing and Purchasing) Group has engaged in a number of interesting developments in the past few years. Particularly adventurous have been the agendas of ‘pictures’ and sense-making and of time. In this paper we argue that borrowing and combining contemporary foci within social science on narratives, identity, culture and epoché temporality (for which we use the acronym N.I.C.E) allows the construction of an approach that can integrate these IMP agendas into a new research direction for the group that will keep it at the leading edge of marketing research. The purpose of our paper is to introduce and integrate discursive and temporal elements into the understanding and research of business networks to develop a more dynamic and hermeneutic approach. Our purpose is to provide a contribution to the field in exploring how identities are formed within business networks through narrative episodes in interconnecting relationships over time. We bring together all of the elements of a NICE agenda in an attempt to provide an integrative, ‘multi-lens’ theory of business networks focussed within the IMP research tradition. In doing so, we construct meaning as itself networked; sense-making involves relating presently narrated episodes to symbolic and material aspects of other narrative network episodes and events through emplotment and storying.     

Total quality management as competitive advantage: A review and empirical study

Total Quality Management (TQM) has become, according to one source, ‘as pervasive a part of business thinking as quarterly financial results,’ and yet TQM's role as a strategic resource remains virtually unexamined in strategic management research. Drawing on the resource approach and other theoretical perspectives, this article examines TQM as a potential source of sustainable competitive advantage, reviews existing empirical evidence, and reports findings from a new empirical study of TQM's performance consequences. The findings suggest that most features generally associated with TQM—such as quality training, process improvement, and benchmarking—do not generally produce advantage, but that certain tacit, behavioral, imperfectly imitable features—such as open culture, employee empowerment, and executive commitment—can produce advantage. The author concludes that these tacit resources, and not TQM tools and techniques, drive TQM success, and that organizations that acquire them can outperform competitors with or without the accompanying TQM ideology.     

Re-appraising interaction and process for industrial network research: The future plunging mirror hall metaphor

Constructivist and realist research is undertaken in the business relationship and network approach of the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing Group. These two divergent research perspectives seek a different form of contextual understanding vs. general knowledge. They are not incommensurable as one can gain insights from the other. But a researcher must know and understand both perspectives and sometimes be able to see when a writer is playing almost a middle ground to make a specific point. To provide a broader understanding of the ontological distinctions and their ramifications for researching and translating meanings concerning business networks we introduce the temporal mirror hall metaphor. We propose that: (i) researchers should avoid reading and understanding only a single research perspective, (ii) research is a social temporal process embedded in a research community, (iii) understanding different researcher perspectives is necessary for a constructivist scholar working in a world of realist education, and (iv) realist researchers need constructivist research to change and develop systematized theories. The paper extends specific advice to constructivist researchers undertaking longitudinal studies of interaction in business networks. Realist researchers will find intriguing the comparisons and refractions, as well as illusions, in the temporalities of the mirror hall.     

IMP thinking and IMM: Co-creating value for business marketing

We have extensive knowledge about the thematic development of the business-to-business marketing research. Much less is known, however, how major research contributions are created and disseminated, in brief, how the academic value is constructed between human and institutional actors. We address this issue by examining the relationship between IMM (Industrial Marketing Management journal) and the IMP (Industrial Marketing and Purchasing) research community in the creation of B2B marketing theory from the early 1990s to present. We argue that the relationship between the IMP community and IMM, led by Peter LaPlaca over the past 23 years, offers an exceptional living laboratory for studying academic value creation in the B2B domain. Based on documents and citation data from the late 1980s to 2016 we will show how the parties created new academic knowledge and value for each other through intensive interaction and collaborative activities. In conclusion, we discuss the forms of coordination between IMM and IMP and provide an outlook for the future of this unique relationship.     

International research teams as analysts of industrial business networks

This paper analyzes case studies in the context of industrial business networks, and in particular from the IMP (Industrial Marketing and Purchasing Group) perspective. Two features have been prominent in this research tradition: collaboration in international research teams and interest in business between international customers and their suppliers. Still, researchers seldom discuss the challenges with the international aspects of the research team (as the subject of study) or of the business relations (as the object of study). This paper shows the complications of analyzing international business relations, namely, relations that cross national boundaries, and investigates how an international research team can tackle the challenges of international business network studies. The key contributions are, firstly, to indicate the lack of attention on the methodological requirements and opportunities that the international features create for the analysis of business networks and, secondly, to investigate how collaboration in an international research team may advance the analysis of both international industrial marketing relations and broader business networks.     

Transitioning and co-evolving to upgrade value offerings: A competence-based marketing view

This article shows how subcontractors in the steel and metalworking industry can effectively upgrade their customer value offerings. The study intends to identify internal and external drivers for successful transitions. It builds on the IMP's (Industrial Marketing and Purchasing Group) research tradition by looking into value creation and competence-based marketing within business networks. Using qualitative methods, the research identifies ‘ideal’ value-added market positions and relates these to specific competence configurations. It also reveals the need to manage co-evolution with other network partners in order to make a successful transition from basic to value-added offerings. The paper contributes to business marketing science by looking explicitly into the mechanisms of internal alignment when upgrading value offerings (a pre-condition often overlooked in extant literature) and by extending the concept of co-evolution.     

Business model fashion and the academic spinout firm

Studies indicate that most European new, technology–based firms (NTBFs) have been founded by relatively senior, highly–educated personnel coming from existing companies. These founders already have strong, industry and market links. A relatively small proportion have spun out of university or other public research facilities. However, this latter group has attracted particular attention from several interested groups, including governments and the scientific establishment. For governments, this has appeared to offer a means whereby public policy could have a direct and significant impact on economic development. Hence substantial public resources are increasingly being committed to support these developments in most industrialised countries. The founders of HEI spinouts are often academics aiming to commercialise nascent technologies and they face challenges which are less likely to arise for the founder with an industry background. The emerging technologies often commercialised in academic spinouts may have many potential applications. At the outset founders must make critical strategic choices of applications to develop, if they are to attract the substantial resources often needed for the risky development process. Some of these choices need an understanding of changing fashions in business models and investors' current preferences for particular industries. It is a difficult challenge for academic founders with little prior market knowledge and linkages, and no previous experience of professional investors and their requirements, to select the applications and business models which will support successful venture creation. This paper explores a number of key issues which surround these decisions and their relation to the changing business environment. It is concluded that the acceptability of novel technologies and products is mediated by systemic interactions which are ill–understood by industry and government.     

IMP and service-dominant logic: Divergence, convergence and development

This article arose directly from discussions at the 2nd Otago Forum on Service-Dominant (S-D) logic held at the University of Otago in December 2008. It builds on the papers presented and discussions at the forum, on previous papers within the S-D logic field and relates these to the research of the IMP (Industrial Marketing and Purchasing) Group. The article focuses on two important conceptual issues that appear to need further development by both S-D logic and IMP researchers: Firstly, the identity and characteristics of the business actor in an interacted business landscape and second, the nature of value and its creation and delivery. The article also seeks to use some IMP ideas on business interaction in an attempt to refine and clarify the central S-D logic concept of ‘service’ between companies. Finally, the article attempts throughout to draw tentative conclusions about the implications of this conceptual analysis for practitioners.     

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.     

When Product Development Performance Makes a Difference: A Statistical Analysis in the Electronics Industry

Throughout the pages of JPIM and other publications, researchers and practitioners devote considerable effort to identifying the dimensions of new-product development (NPD) performance that relate most closely to business success. Although we may hope to unveil a set of universal truths about the relationship between NPD performance and business success, the relevant NPD performance measures appear to depend on the industry in which a firm competes. In fact, Christian Terwiesch, Christoph Loch, and Martin Niederkofler suggest that the overall relevance of NPD performance to business success depends on the firm's competitive market environment. In a study of 86 business units operating in 12 different electronics industries worldwide, they develop a market contingency framework for understanding the impact of NPD performance on a firm's profitability. Their study uses data from the “Excellence in Electronics” project, a joint research effort by Stanford University, the University of Augsburg, and McKinsey & Co. They describe market context in terms of three dimensions: market share, market growth, and external stability—that is, the average product life cycle duration in the market. Looking at all 86 business units in the study, they find that industry membership accounts for 23% of the variance in profits, with 18 percent of the variance determined by industry profitability and 5% by the three dimensions of market context. For the firms in the study, development performance has the most significant effect in slow-growth markets and in markets with long product life cycles. In these stable industries, low development intensity, product line freshness, and technical product performance increase profitability. The results indicate that NPD performance plays a much more important role for explaining the profitability of dominant firms than that of the low-market-share firms in the study. NPD performance explains 30% of the profitability variance among the high-market-share business units in the study, but none of the variance for the low-market-share business units. Although the profitability of the smaller firms in the study is driven primarily by the industry environment, these firms can compete on the basis of superior technical performance.     

Relationships and networks as examined in Industrial Marketing Management

The importance of the study of relationships and networks within business-to-business marketing is clear from the numerous articles written over the years that aim to give us greater insight into these two concepts. This paper reviews six of these articles. What sets these six apart from others is that they are the most highly cited articles on relationships and networks published in Industrial Marketing Management between 1995 and 2004. We examine each of these articles in terms of their scholarly impact and identify what researchers have learnt from these highly cited papers. Our conclusions show some interesting similarities that we feel has led to these articles being so highly cited. We conclude that the key to citation success is the identification of new research avenues. In addition, the chances of writing excellent papers seems to be improved when collaborating with others, rather than writing alone. By introducing new ideas these authors have not only been successful in their own work, but have given others the platforms to build on, thereby generating much more research in this area.     

PERSPECTIVE: Empirical Generalization and the Role of Culture in New Product Development*

Empirical generalization continues to be a challenge in most applied fields that favor publication of original results. The purpose of this study was to report on a new product development exercise in one, controlled cultural setting, which replicates and extends Ettlie (2002) . Results from four recent graduate business classes in Portugal show that the background of students—technical versus other or mixed—is a nearly perfect predictor of the average or central estimates the class makes tendency (median) of new product success in the exercise. Country matters little. These results have now persisted over nearly seven years, and implications are discussed concerning theory, practice, and future research.     

Issues in Supply Chain Management: Progress and potential

In a 2000 article in Industrial Marketing Management, “Issues in Supply Chain Management,” Lambert and Cooper presented a framework for Supply Chain Management (SCM) as well as issues related to how it should be implemented and directions for future research. The framework was comprised of eight cross-functional, cross-firm business processes that could be used as a new way to manage relationships with suppliers and customers. It was based on research conducted by a team of academic researchers working with a group of executives from non-competing firms that had been meeting regularly since 1992 with the objective of improving SCM theory and practice. The research has continued for the past 16 years and now covers a total of 25 years. In this paper, we review the progress that has been made in the development and implementation of the proposed SCM framework since 2000 and identify opportunities for further research.     

Value Creation and Value Capture Alignment in Business Model Innovation: A Process View on Outcome-Based Business Models

Industrial manufacturers are innovating their business models by shifting from selling products to selling outcome-based services, where the provider (manufacturer) guarantees to deliver the performance outcomes of the products and services. This form of business model innovation requires a profound yet little understood shift in how value is created, delivered, and captured. To address this research gap, our study examines two successful and four unsuccessful cases of this shift. We find that effectiveness in business model innovation hinges on the three process phases that unfold in collaboration with the customers: value proposition definition, value provision design, and value-in-use delivery. We also find that that success is determined by the alignment of specific value creation and value capture activities in each phase: identifying value creation opportunities—agreeing on value distribution in value proposition definition, designing the value offering—deciding on the profit formula in the value provision design, and finally refining value creation processes—regulating incentive structures in the value-in-use delivery. Our process model contributes to the literature and practice on business model innovation by providing a thorough understanding of how alignment of value creation and value capture processes is ensured, whilst paying special attention to their interdependence and the interactions between provider and customer.     

Marketing's contribution to the implementation of business strategy: an empirical analysis

This paper describes a study that assesses the performance implications of matching marketing strategy to business strategy. In order to conduct this study we first reviewed the literature on marketing strategy to identify its key dimensions. We then conducted a survey of 1000 senior marketing executives about the strategic marketing practices adopted in their respective firms or business units, and developed scales to describe 11 strategic marketing activities. We next performed a K‐means cluster analysis using these scales to develop a taxonomy of marketing strategy types consisting of: Aggressive Marketers, Mass Marketers, Marketing Minimizers, and Value Marketers. We then observed that superior performance at the firm or SBU level was achieved when specific marketing strategy types were matched with appropriate Miles and Snow (1978) business strategy types. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

When Research Meets Development: Antecedents and Implications of Transfer Speed

This paper focuses on the organization of new product development in large, R&D‐intensive firms. In these firms, research and development activities are often separated. Research is conducted in dedicated research projects at specialized research labs. Once research results are achieved by research projects, they are transferred to business units for further development and commercialization. We investigate the speed whereby research projects transfer their first research results to business units (hereafter: transfer speed). In particular, we analyze the antecedents and performance implications of transfer speed. Based on data of 503 research projects from a European R&D intensive manufacturing firm, our results suggest that a fast transfer speed (as measured by the time it takes for a research project to develop and transfer its first research result to business units) is associated with a better research performance (as measured by the total number of transfers the research project generates). Moreover, we find that different types of external R&D partners—science‐based and market‐based partners—play distinct roles in speeding up project first research transfers. While market‐based partnerships (i.e., customers and suppliers) generally contribute to a faster transfer of first research results, science‐based partnerships (i.e., universities and research institutions) only speed up first research transfers of technologically very complex projects. Our results also show that early patent filings by research projects accelerate first research transfers.     

Does a long‐term orientation create value? Evidence from a regression discontinuity

Research summary : In this paper, we theorize and empirically investigate how a long‐term orientation impacts firm value. To study this relationship, we exploit exogenous changes in executives' long‐term incentives. Specifically, we examine shareholder proposals on long‐term executive compensation that pass or fail by a small margin of votes. The passage of such “close call” proposals is akin to a random assignment of long‐term incentives and hence provides a clean causal estimate. We find that the adoption of such proposals leads to (1) an increase in firm value and operating performance—suggesting that a long‐term orientation is beneficial to companies—and (2) an increase in firms' investments in long‐term strategies such as innovation and stakeholder relationships. Overall, our results are consistent with a “time‐based” agency conflict between shareholders and managers. Managerial summary : This paper shows that corporate short‐termism is hampering business success. We show clear, causal evidence that imposing long‐term incentives on executives—in the form of long‐term executive compensation—improves business performance. Long‐term executive compensation includes restricted stocks, restricted stock options, and long‐term incentive plans. Firms that adopted shareholder resolutions on long‐term compensation experienced a significant increase in their stock price. This stock price increase foreshadowed an increase in operating profits that materialized after two years. We unpack the reasons for these improvements in performance, and find that firms that adopted these shareholder resolutions made more investments in R&D and stakeholder engagement, especially pertaining to employees and the natural environment. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.