Intraorganizational determinants of key account management effectiveness

While there is a significant amount of research on determinants of selling effectiveness for individual salespeople, there is a surprising lack of study offactors that affect selling effectiveness in team-selling situations. The authors focus on the context of key account management (KAM) and develop a conceptual model offactors that affect KAM effectiveness. They test hypotheses with data from 385 firms using structural equation modeling and find that firms should seek to build esprit de corps among those involved in KAM, should proactively initiate activities with key accounts and do these activities more intensively, should ensure that key account managers have access to key resources within the marketing and sales organization, and should involve top managers of the firm. John P. Workman Jr. is an associate professor of marketing at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. He conducts research on the organization and role of marketing within the firm, on new product development in high-tech firms, and on the interpretive process of learning about the market. His research uses concepts from organization theory, strategy, and sociology to examine the interactions between marketing and other groups in the firm. He has a B.S. from North Carolina State University, an MBA from the University of Virginia and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He formerly was on the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Christian Homburg is a professor of business administration and marketing and chair of the marketing department at the University of Mannheim in Germany. He received his Ph.D. and master's degrees from the University of Karlsruhe and earned his habilitation at the University of Mainz. His research interests include organizational issues in marketing, customer orientation, industrial marketing, and relationship marketing. He has consulted and delivered executive education programs for more than 100 companies, including, for example, Daimler-Benz, Siemens, Deutsche Bank, Hoechst, RWE, Thyssen, Krupp-Hoesch, and Sodexho. Ove Jensen is a partner and managing director at Prof. Homburg & Partners, a strategy consulting firm (www.homburgund-partner.de). He has studied in Germany, France, and the United States. He holds a master's degree from the WHU Koblenz (Otto Beisheim Graduate School of Management) and received his Ph.D. from the University of Mannheim, both in Germany. His research interests encompass key account management, marketing organization, sales management, incentive systems, and pricing issues. He has conducted many consulting projects, market research studies, and management seminars in Germany, the United States, France, and Japan. Among his clients are Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, Bayer, BASF, Lafarge, and Saint-Gobain.     

Customers’ reactions to price increases: Do customer satisfaction and perceived motive fairness matter?

Most of the previous research on price changes has focused on price decreases. This article investigates the effects of price increases at an individual level. The authors argue that customers’ reactions to price increases (i.e., repurchase intentions) are strongly driven by two factors: the magnitude of the price increase and the perceived fairness of the motive for the price increase. In this context, the authors examine the role of customer satisfaction in influencing the impact of these two variables on repurchase intentions after a price increase. Their findings reveal that as satisfaction increases, the negative impact of the magnitude of a price increase is weakened. Furthermore, the results suggest that satisfaction moderates the impact of perceived motive fairness. The authors also find that the level of satisfaction can influence the valence of the perceived motives in response to a price increase. Christian Homburg (homburg@bwl.uni-mannheim.de) is a professor of marketing and chair of the Marketing Department at the University of Mannheim, Germany. He also serves as director of this university’s Institute for Market-Oriented Management. He holds master’s degrees in business administration and mathematics and a Ph.D. in business administration from the University of Karlsruhe, Germany. He also holds a habilitation degree from the University of Mainz, Germany. His research interests include market-oriented management, buyer-seller relationships, and business-to-business marketing. He has published in theJournal of Marketing, the Journal of Marketing Research, Strategic Management Journal, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing. He is also the founder of Professor Homburg & Partners, an internationally operating management consulting firm. Wayne D. Hoyer (wayne.hoyer@bus.utexas.edu) is the the James L. Bayless/William S. Farish Fund Chair for Free Enterprise, the chairman of the Department of Marketing, and the director of the Center for Customer Insight in the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his Ph.D., M.S., and B.A. from Purdue University in the area of consumer psychology. He has published more than 60 articles in various forums including theJournal of Consumer Research, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Marketing, the Journal of Advertising Research, and theJournal of Retailing. His research interests include customer insight and relationship management, consumer information processing and decision making (especially low-involvement decision-making), and advertising effects (most particularly, miscomprehension and the impact of humor). Nicole Koschate (nicole.koschate@bwl.uni-mannheim.de) is an assistant professor of marketing in the School of Business Administration at the University of Mannheim, Germany. She holds a double master’s degree in business administration and psychology and a Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Mannheim, Germany. Her current research areas include pricing, customer insight, dynamic issues in marketing phenomena, and buyerseller relationships. Her research appears in several outlets, including theJournal of Marketing.     

Reducing marketing’s conflict with other functions: The differential effects of integrating mechanisms

To operate effectively, marketing must work in harmony with other functional departments in a firm. This study focuses on marketing’s interactions with three functions that play a key role in the achievement of marketing goals—finance, manufacturing, and R&D. The authors combine insights from previous studies and interviews with practicing managers to identify six integrating mechanisms proposed to mitigate manifest interfunctional conflict (behavior that frustrates marketing initiatives). In addition, they investigate the role of internal volatility (turbulence within an organization) in shaping manifest conflict. Based on a large-scale, multi-informant empirical study, the authors identify the more effective of these six integrating mechanisms. Furthermore, they argue and demonstrate these mechanisms are differentially effective across the marketing-finance, marketing-manufacturing, and marketing-R&D interfaces. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. Elliot Maltz received his MBA from the University of California at Davis and his Ph.D in marketing from the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to coming to the Atkinson School, he taught at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. Dr. Maltz’s research focuses on how market information can be effectively transmitted from marketing to other functions within a firm (e.g., R&D, manufacturing) or across firms (e.g., in distribution channels, strategic alliances) to facilitate new product development or marketing initiatives designed to respond to changes in market conditions. His research has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Business Research, and theJournal of Product Innovation Management and Long Range Planning Ajay K. Kohli is the Isaac Stiles Hopkins Professor of Marketing at the Goizueta Business School at Emory University. His undergraduate degree is in electrical engineering, and his master’s and Ph.D. degrees are in business administration. He has also taught at the Harvard Business School, the University of Texas at Austin, Koblenz School of Corporate Management in Germany, and at the Norwegian School of Management, Norway. His published work focuses on market orientation, sales management, and B2B Marketing. He has received several research and teaching awards including the Jagdish N. Sheth Award for the best article published in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science in 1997, the Alpha Kappa Psi award for best practice-oriented article published in theJournal of Marketing (1990), and the Jack Taylor award for excellence in teaching at the University of Texas at Austin.     

The paradox of a marketing planning capability

Strategy scholars have long debated the value of formal planning, and research has offered inconsistent support for planning to enhance firm performance. Given these mixed empirical effects, we draw from the resource-based view of the firm to illustrate a paradox firms may face. In particular, a strong marketing planning capability may not only reduce the incidence of postplan improvisation but also contain inherent process rigidity. Since both of these can also increase performance, results illustrate a performance paradox in marketing planning. Rebecca J. Slotegraaf (rslotegr@indiana.edu) is an assistant professor of marketing in the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. Her research focuses on the nature and effect of organizational resources, marketing capabilities, and deployment actions on competitive advantage. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition to this publication in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, she has also published several articles in theJournal of Marketing Research. Peter R. Dickson (dicksonp@fiu.edu) is the Knight-Ridder Eminent Scholar in Global Marketing at Florida International University. He was previously the Arthur C. Nielsen Jr., Chair of Marketing Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and before that the Crane Professor of Strategic Marketing and a professor of industrial design at the Ohio State University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Florida. Thirty of his articles on buyer and seller behavior have been published in leading marketing journals.     

The effects of downsizing on organizational buying behavior: An empirical investigation

To survive in today’s highly competitive markets, many firms are initiating fundamental changes in organizational form and practice. These restructuring efforts are having significant effects on the organization and management of work within customer firms. However, these important changes have been largely ignored in the extant marketing literature. The research presented in this article first describes a general theory of the effects of organizational downsizing. Then, it examines the potential effects of downsizing on buying center structure and purchase participant characteristics. Findings support several of the hypotheses related to the proposed effects of organizational downsizing on the outcome variables of interest. Jeffrey E. Lewin (Ph.D., Georgia State University) is an assistant professor and Chair, Department of Marketing at Western Carolina University. His research interests include business-to-business marketing, relationship marketing, personal selling and sales management, and organizational buying behavior. His work has been published in theJournal of Business Research, theJournal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Advances in Business Marketing and Purchasing, and other publications. He serves on the editorial review boards of theJournal of Business Research and theJournal of Business & Industrial Marketing and is a reviewer for theJournal of Business-to-Business Marketing, theJournal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, andIndustrial Marketing Management.     

Setting the stage for creative new products: Investigating the idea fruition process

This article attempts to understand the idea fruition process, or the fuzzy front-end set of activities that an organization may informally engage in before it adopts a formal process for developing a new product. The authors propose that the idea fruition process consists of three sub-processes: idea creation, idea concretization, and idea commitment. They also propose and test the individual and organizational factors that influence the idea’s degrees of creativity, concretization, and commitment to further the understanding of the phenomenon and, thus, boost the creation and harnessing of worthwhile ideas in organizations. Astra Zeneca Janice Griffiths-Hemans (jaiuce.griffith-hermans@astrazeneca.com) holds a Ph.D. in business administration (marketing strategy and new product development) and a master’s in market research from the University of Georgia, an MBA in marketing from the University of Miami, and a bachelor of science degree in pure and applied chemistry from the University of the West Indies, Jamaica. Janice is currently a Senior Manager of Consumer Insights with Astra Zeneca, Wilmington, Delaware. Rajiv Grover (rgrover@terry.uga.edu) is the head of the department and holder of the Terry Chair of Marketing at the Terry College of Business, the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. He has received several honors for his research and teaching efforts—the O’Dell award for the Best Paper in theJournal of Marketing Research and the Hugh O. Nourse Outstanding MBA Teacher Award. He has authored the bookTheory and Simulation of Market-Focused Management, published by Dry den Press. He is currently editingThe Handbook of Marketing Research: Do’s and Don’ts, which will be published by Sage Publications. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1983.     

Decision-making time in organizational buying behavior: An investigation of its antecedents

This study reports an empirical investigation focusing on the length of time firms take in making major purchase decisions (DMT) and examines antecedents such as buyclass, firm size, decision-making unit (DMU) size, information sources, and size of the consideration set. Data were provided by a national sample of organizations involved in the purchase of telecommunications systems. Findings suggest that firm size, buyclass, DMU size, information sources, and size of consideration set all significantly affect DMT. Antecedent relationships among the independent variables were also largely as expected. This study provides a starting point for a fertile area of research with important implications for organizational buyers and sellers as well as researchers. She holds a B.S. in Marketing and an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley and a Ph.D. in Marketing from Northwestern University. Her research interests are in the areas of technology diffusion and management as well as consumer behavior, advertising, and macromarketing. She has published in theJournal of Consumer Research, Public Opinion Quarterly, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Macromarketing, European Journal of Marketing, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Telematics and Informatics, andJournal of Economic Psychology. She is a member of the Editorial Policy Board of the Journal of Macromarketing and President of the International Society for Marketing and Development. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska. Dr. Johnson’s research interests focus on interorganizational relationships in marketing contexts, such as distribution channels or business-to-business marketing with emphasis on cross-culture interorganizational marketing relationships. Dr. Johnson’s research has appeared in theJournal of Marketing, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Business Research, andCurrent Issues and Research in Advertising, among other journals and conference proceedings. She has also presented her work at a variety of domestic and international conferences. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. His research interests are in the areas of pricing, consumer behavior, and marketing research. He is coauthor ofConsumer Behavior: Concepts and Applications, currently in its fourth edition, and his research has been published inDecision Sciences, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Business Research, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Macromarketing, Journal of Retailing, Journalism Quarterly, and other leading journals and publications of professional societies. He holds degrees in engineering and management from India and a Ph.D. in marketing from Northwestern University. Dr. Dholakia’s research deals with technology, innovation, market processes, globalization, and consumer culture. Dr. Dholakia has published over 70 papers in professional journals and proceedings in management, marketing, and technology. Among his books areEssentials of New Product Management (coauthored, Prentice-Hall, 1987).     

Using a customer-Level marketing strategy to enhance firm performance: A review of theoretical and empirical evidence

It is becoming increasingly apparent from the literature that marketers need to consider customer-level information when they generate a marketing strategy for the firm. In this article, the authors develop a customer-focused framework that uses a marketing strategy with an overall objective of maximized financial performance. This strategy is driven by seven customer-level marketing tactics and shows how actual customer data can be used to generate an actionable marketing strategy leading to optimal levels of profitability, customer equity, and shareholder value. In addition, the authors discuss a successful implementation of this strategy for several business-to-business and business-to-consumer firms and offer insights as to how to customize an implementation strategy for any firm, along with presenting potential challenges a firm may encounter during the implementation process. Several suggestions for future research are offered to explore and harness this newly available evidence. V. Kumar (VK) (vk@business.uconn.edu) is the ING Chair Professor of Marketing and the executive director of the ING Center for Financial Services at the University of Connecticut. He spends his time by transferring his knowledge (however little it may be) to his two daughters about customer lifetime value, diffusion models, forecasting sales and market share, retailing, and marketing strategy. J. Andrew Petersen (apetersen@business.uconn.edu) is a doctoral candidate in marketing at the University of Connecticut. His research interests include customer lifetime value, word-of-mouth effects, and customer-level marketing strategy. His research has been published inMarketing Research Magazine and theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science.     

Managing and measuring relational equity in the network economy

The Internet is emerging as a powerful connecting force, allowing firms to serve customers, collaborate with partners and suppliers, and empower employees more effectively than ever before. In the network economy, relationships with key stakeholders are becoming valuable assets of the firm, but few firms manage relationships effectively. The authors propose that firms need to take a more holistic approach to understanding where their relational equity resides and how it should be managed and measured. They also propose that relational equity is not limited to relationships with customers but also includes relationships with partners, suppliers, and employees. Effective management of relational equity requires firms to think in an integrative manner along several dimensions: strategy, process, technology, organization design, and metrics. The authors develop conceptual frameworks for each of these dimensions. Taken together, these frameworks offer a conceptual foundation for research and managerial practice on managing relational equity. Seurat Company Mohanbir Sawhney is the McCormick Tribune Professor of Technology and the director of the Center for Research Technology and Innovation at the Kellogg School of Management, North-western University. He is the coauthor (with Jeff Zabin) ofThe Seven Steps to Nirvana: Strategic Insights Into eBusiness Transformation (2001). His research has been published in leading journals such asCalifornia Management Review, Harvard Business Review, Interactive Marketing, Management Science, Marketing Science, and theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science. He also writes for leading trade publications, including theFinancial Times, CIO Magazine, andBusiness 2.0. He has created three new M.B.A. courses at Kellogg, as well as a popular executive course, and has won several awards for teaching. He is a fellow of the World Economic Forum, a fellow at DiamondCluster International, and a charter member if The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE). He advises and speaks to Global 2000 firms worldwide and serves on the advisory boards of several technology startup companies. He holds a Ph.D. in marketing from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Jeff Zabin is a vice president at Seurat Company, a technology firm that specializes in Internet-based marketing resource management services. He is the coauthor (with Mohanbir Sawhney) ofThe Seven Steps to Nirvana: Strategic Insights Into eBusiness Transformation (2001). He has written about marketing in the network economy for several trade magazines, includingComputerworld, and he is a frequent speaker on the topic, with recent audiences including the Strategic Management Association, the Society for Information Management, and the Marketing Science Institute. Prior to joining Seurat, he was a research fellow with DiamondCluster International and a business analyst at a boutique consultancy called Digital Knowledge Assets. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin and a returned Peace Corps volunteer, he began his career in educational publishing at Houghton Mifflin. He has helped launch several Internet ventures and currently serves on the advisory board of PreviewPort, Inc.     

Marketing strategy: An assessment of the state of the field and outlook

This article provides an assessment of the state of the field of marketing strategy research and the outlook. Using institutional theory, the authors develop an organizing framework to serve as a road map for assessing research in marketing strategy. Their assessment of the state of the field based on a review of extant literature suggests that significant strides in conceptual development and empirical research have been achieved in a number of areas. Several recent developments in the business world, including deconglomeration and increased organizational focus on managing and leveraging market-based assets such as brand equity and customer equity, suggest that marketing is likely to play a more important role in charting the strategic direction of the firm. However, the theoretical contributions of the field to the academic dialogue on strategy leave much to be desired. P. Rajan Varadarajan (Ph.D. University of Massachusetts, Amherst) is a professor of marketing and the Jenna and Calvin R. Guest Professor of Business Administration at Texas A&M University. His research interests are in the areas of corporate, business, and marketing strategy; marketing management; and global competitive strategy. His research has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theAcademy of Management Journal, theStrategic Management Journal, Sloan Management Review, California Management Review, Business Horizons, and other journals. He is coauthor of a textbook entitled,Contemporary Perspectives on Strategic Market Planning. He served as editor of theJournal of Marketing from 1993 to 1996. He currently serves on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Marketing Science, as Chairperson of the Marketing Strategy Special Interest Group of the American Marketing Association, on the Editorial Review Boards of theJournal of Marketing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and theJournal of International Marketing, and as an ad hoc reviewer for a number of journals in themarketing and management disciplines. In recognition of his research and publications, in May 1994, he was awarded the Texas A&M University Distinguished Achievement Award for Research, the highest honor the University bestows. Satish Jayachandran is a doctoral candidate in marketing at Texas A&M University. His research interests include competitive behavior of firms and the impact of organizational performance on subsequent managerial and firm behavior. His research is forthcoming in theJournal of Marketing and has been presented at American Marketing Association and Academy of International Business conferences. His professional experience spans sales and channels management in the computer industry and account management in advertising.     

The influence of complementarity, compatibility, and relationship capital on alliance performance

Value creation through alliances requires the simultaneous pursuit of partners with similar characteristics on certain dimensions and different characteristics on other dimensions. Partnering firms need to have different resource and capability profiles yet share similarities in their social institutions. In this article, the authors empirically examine the impact of partner characteristics on the performance of alliances. In particular, they test hypotheses related to both direct impact of partner characteristics on alliance performance and indirect effects through relational capital aspects of the alliance. Empirical results based on a sample of alliances in the global construction contracting industry suggest that complementarity in partner resources and compatibility in cultural and operational norms have different direct and indirect effects on alliance performance. Accordingly, organizational routines aimed at partner selection need to be complemented by relationship management routines to maximize the potential benefits from an alliance. MB Sarkar (Ph.D., Michigan State University) is an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Central Florida. His current research includes strategic alliances, innovation and entrepreneurship, knowledge management, and electronic markets. His research has been published in theStrategic Management Journal, theJournal of International Business Studies, and theJournal of Business Research, among others. Raj Echambadi (Ph.D., University of Houston) is an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Central Florida. His current research interests include investigation of territorial loyalty issues, management of innovations, and estimation issues pertaining to structural equation modeling and Partial Least Squares. His research has been published in theStrategic Management Journal, Multivariate Behavioral Research, and theJournal of Product Innovation Management. S. Tamer Cavusgil (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin) is University Distinguished Faculty and serves as the John William Byington Endowed Chair in global marketing at Michigan State University (MSU). He is also the executive director of MSU's Center for International Business Education and Research, a national resource center. His teaching, research, and administrative activities have focused on international business and marketing. His research has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, and theJournal of International Business Studies, among others. His specific interests include the internationalization of the firm, global marketing strategy, and internationalization of business education. He was the founding editor of theJournal of International Marketing, now published by the American Marketing Association. Preet S. Aulakh (Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin) is an associate professor of strategy and international business at the Fox School of Business and Management, Temple University. His research focuses on international technology licensing, cross-border joint ventures and strategic alliances and strategies of firms from developing economies. His research has been published in theAcademy of Management Journal, theJournal of Marketing, and theJournal of International Business Studies.     

The role of emotional exhaustion in sales force attitude and behavior relationships

Emotional exhaustion is a potentially important construct in examining sales force behavior and attitude relationships. A conceptual model and hypotheses are developed to study the antecedents and consequences of the emotional exhaustion construct. The hypotheses are tested using LISREL 7 to analyze data from a sample of field salespeople from a large international services organization. The empirical results offer strong support for relationships involving role ambiguity and conflict antecedents and organizational commitment, job satisfaction, performance, and intention-to-leave consequences of emotional exhaustion. Emin Babakus (Ph.D. University of Alabama, 1985) is a professor of marketing and associate dean for faculty at the Fogelman College of Business & Economics, University of Memphis. His research interests are in the areas of measurement, sales management, services, and international marketing. His research has been published in a number of journals, including theJournal of Marketing Research, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Retailing, andJournal of Advertising Research. David W. Cravens holds the West Chair of American Enterprise Studies at Texas Christian University. He is a former editor of theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science and serves on the editorial boards of several journals. He is the author ofStrategic Marketing (Irwin/McGraw-Hill). Mark Johnston is a professor of marketing at the Roy E. Crummer Graduate School of Business, Rollins College. He earned his Ph.D. in marketing in 1986 from Texas A&M University. Prior to receiving his doctorate, he worked in industry as a sales representative for a leading distributor of photographic equipment. Dr. Johnston's research interests focus on sales force management issues that include analyzing the affect of role stress on salesperson attitudes and behavior, reducing unwanted turnover, and improving performance. In addition, he conducts research on a wide range of other topics, including international marketing management, ethics, and promotional strategy. His research has been published in a number of professional journals such as theJournal of Marketing Research, Journal of Applied Psychology, International Journal of Management, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Business Research, and theJournal of Personal Selling and Sales Management. William C. Moncrief is a professor of marketing at Texas Christian University and former chair of the Marketing Department. He has published extensively in the sales and sales management areas. He is coauthor ofSales Management (Addison-Wesley).     

Improving customer-focused marketing capabilities and firm financial performance via marketing exploration and exploitation

Evidence within the marketing literature has shown that marketing capabilities are important drivers of firm performance. However, very little is known about how firms improve their marketing capabilities via the embedding of new market knowledge. Organizational learning theory provides us with a theoretical lens through which we can examine how existing customer-focused marketing capabilities may be improved and new customer-focused marketing capabilities may be created via marketing exploitation and exploration capabilities. In addition, this study investigates whether ambidexterity in marketing exploration and exploitation exists and finds that firms cannot do both at high levels without risking a negative impact on customer-focused marketing capabilities. This study also presents findings demonstrating how improving the two customer-focused marketing capabilities in our study, brand management and customer relationship management, impacts objective financial performance.     

Market valuation models of the effect of advertising and promotional spending: A review and meta-analysis

A narrative review is presented, within the organizing framework of a meta-analysis, of econometric models reported in the business literature that estimate the effect of advertising and promotional spending on the market value of the firm. Results from published market valuation models are aggregated, and various model specifications are appraised. In brief the meta-analysis finds support for a positive relationship between levels of advertising and promotional spending and the market value of the firm. That is, marketing activities (represented here by observed advertising and promotions spending) are generally expected to deliver future cashflows and produce increases in shareholder wealth. The review seeks to enhance understanding among the community of marketing scholars of the properties of market valuation models published in the literature and serves as a springboard for ongoing investigation of a crucial question for marketing theory and practice. Margy P. Conchar (concharm@mail.ecu.edu) (Ph.D., University of Georgia) is an assistant professor at East Carolina University. Her research focuses on consumer behavior and advertising. Her work in consumer behavior concentrates on risk, motives, and optimal consumption experience. Her research in advertising focuses on the interface between advertising and finance, accounting, or economics. She has previously published in the proceedings of the Academy of Marketing Science, the Association for Consumer Research, the American Marketing Association of Educators, and the Society for Marketing Advances. Melvin R. Crask (mcrask@terry.uga.edu) (DBA, University of Indiana) is an associate professor of marketing at the University of Georgia (UGA). He is currently serving as director of the MBA program at UGA. His teaching interests are in the areas of marketing research and marketing strategy. He has published more than three dozen articles and papers dealing with marketing research methods and with strategic issues in marketing. He is also the coauthor of two books, one on marketing strategy and one on marketing research. George M. Zinkhan (gzinkhan@terry.uga.edu) (Ph.D., University of Michigan) is the Coca-Cola Company Chair of Marketing at the University of Georgia. His major research interests include advertising, communication, and e-commerce.     

Identity, identification, and relationship through social alliances

The authors studied social alliances, a type of corporate societal marketing initiative. Their research finds that social alliances are an important means whereby employees identify more closely with their organizations while gaining a greater sense of being whole, integrated persons. Furthermore, this integration allows both organizations and their members to align their commercial identities with their moral and social identities. As organizational members struggled to resolve conflicts within their own identities, they were aided by social alliances, which in turn led them to identify more with their organizations. Unlike previous research, the findings suggest that the kind of connections referred to by the informants went well beyond the cold, rational associations described in previous research to emotional attachments that appear to be critical to organizational identification. The results also suggest that participation in social alliances may result in multiple forms of identification: intra- and interorganiza-tion identification. Ida E. Berger (bergeri@ryerson.ca) is the associate director of faculty affairs and a professor of marketing in the School of Business Management at Ryerson University. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. Her articles have appeared in leading marketing journals, including theJournal of Consumer Research, Public Policy and Marketing, theJournal of Consumer Psychology, andCalifornia Management Review. Her current research interests include social alliances, voluntary and nonprofit sector studies, diversity, and the value of sports in social inclusion. Her teaching interests include marketing theory, consumer behavior, and marketing communications. Peggy H. Cunningham (pcunningham@business.queensu.ca) is the Marie Shantz Teaching Associate Professor of Marketing, School of Business, in the Queen’s University. She completed her Ph.D. at Texas A&M University. Dr. Cunningham’s research interests revolve around two related themes: marketing ethics and marketing partnerships (international strategic alliances, partnerships between for-profit and not-for-profit organizations, relationships between firms and their customers). These areas of study are linked by their focus on the concepts of trust, integrity, and commitment. She is the coauthor of the Canadian editions of a number of marketing textbooks (Marketing Management; Principles of Marketing; and Marketing: An Introduction). Her work is published in a number of journals, including theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the Journal of International Marketing, and California Management Review. Minette E. Drumwright (mdrum@mail.utexas.edu) is an associate professor with a joint appointment in the College of Communication (Department of Advertising) and the College of Liberal Arts at The University of Texas at Austin. Previously, Dr. Drumwright was on the marketing faculties of Harvard Business School and the University of Texas Business School. She currently is the faculty chair of the Bridging Disciplines Program in Ethics and Leadership at the University of Texas. She has a Ph.D. in business administration (marketing) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Drumwright’s current research is in the areas of corporate social responsibility, marketing for nonprofit organizations, and business ethics. Her focus is on understanding how managers and consumers integrate noneco-nomic criteria related to society into their decision making. Dr. Drumwright has studied noneconomic criteria in various contexts, including cause-related marketing, partnerships between companies and nonprofit organizations, socially responsible buying behavior, and corporate volunteerism. Her articles and cases have been published in various books and journals, includingCalifornia Management Review, theJournal of Advertising, and theJournal of Marketing.     

The role of corporate social responsibility in strengthening multiple stakeholder relationships: A field experiment

This research relied on a field experiment involving a real-world instance of corporate philanthropy to shed light on both the scope and limitations of the strategic returns to corporate social responsibility (CSR). In particular, the authors demonstrate that the impact of CSR in the real world is not only less pervasive than has been previously acknowledged but also more multifaceted than has been previously conceptualized. The findings indicated that contingent on CSR awareness, which was rather low, stakeholders did react positively to the focal company not only in the consumption domain but in the employment and investment domains as well. Stakeholder attributions regarding the genuineness of the company’s motives moderated these effects. Sankar Sen (sankar_sen@baruch.cuny.edu) is a professor of marketing at the Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College, City University of New York. He received his Ph.D. in marketing in 1993 from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on consumer decision making. He is interested, more specifically, in consumer reactions to company actions, particularly in the domain of CSR. His research has appeared inCalifornia Management Review, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Economic Theory, and others. C. B. Bhattacharya (cb@bu.edu) received his Ph.D. in marketing from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1993 and his M.B.A. from the Indian Institute of Management in 1984. Prior to joining Boston University, he was on the faculty at the Goizueta Business School, Emory University. His specific expertise is in the areas of customer retention and the roles of CSR and organizational identification in designing marketing strategy. He served on the editorial review board of theJournal of Marketing from 2002 to 2005 and has published in journals such as theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Marketing, Journal of Applied Psychology, andOrganization Science. He speaks frequently at many academic and business forums and won the William Novelli Best Paper Award at the Social Marketing Conference in 1997. Dr. Bhattacharya received the 2001 Broderick Prize for Research Excellence at Boston University and the Emory Williams Distinguished Teaching Award in 1995, the highest teaching award at Emory University. He is also part of the select group of faculty members onBusiness Week’s Outstanding Faculty list. Prior to his Ph.D., he worked for 3 years as a product manager for Reckitt Benkiser PLC. He has consulted for organizations such as the Hitachi Corporation, Procter & Gamble Company, Bell South, The Prudential Bank, Information Resources Inc., Airwick Industries, Silo Inc., and the High Museum of Art. Daniel Korschun (danielk@bu.edu) is a doctoral candidate in marketing at Boston University. His current research interests include brand management, CSR, and interorganizational relationships.     

Creating a firm-level dynamic capability through capitalizing on market orientation and innovativeness

Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, this study addresses the dynamic capability-generating capacity of market orientation on firm performance. Whereas prior literature has examined environmental turbulence as a contextual condition shaping the market orientation-firm performance relationship, this study takes an internal approach by focusing on existing stocks of resources within the firm while controlling for environmental conditions. A conceptual model is developed that explains how market orientation can be transformed into dynamic capability when complemented by transformational (reconfig-urational) constructs, such as innovativeness. The empirical results support the authors— theory that the effect of market orientation on firm performance is strengthened when market orientation is bundled together with internal complementary resources, such as innovativeness. The authors discuss the findings in the context of varying stages of the product life cycle and at different levels of market development. Bulent Menguc (menguc@brocku.ca), Ph.D., Marmara University, is currently an associate professor of marketing at Brock University, St. Catharines, Canada. His areas of research interest include sales force management and internal marketing, strategic orientations, and cross-cultural research methodology. His research has appeared in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Retailing, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theJournal of Business Research, theJournal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, Industrial Marketing Management, theJournal of Business Ethics, and theEuropean Journal of Marketing, among others. Seigyoung Auh (sauh@yonsei.ac.kr), Ph.D., University of Michigan, is an assistant professor at Yonsei University, South Korea. His research interests are the application of the resource-based view to marketing strategy, the role of top management teams on marketing strategy, and innovation and organizational learning. He has publications in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theJournal of Business Research, Industrial Marketing Management, and theJournal of Economic Psychology, among others.     

Information system innovations and supply chain management: Channel relationships and firm performance

This study explores how innovations surrounding supply chain communication systems (SCCS) affect channel relationships and market performance. Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, the study hypothesizes that certain SCCS innovations can be viewed as firm resources that enhance channel capabilities, which in turn affect a firm’s market performance. The empirical research is based on 184 responses from a survey with U.S. supply chain and logistics managers using structural equation modeling as the analytic method. The results suggest that the effect of applied technological SCCS innovations on channel capabilities is mediated by interfirm systems integration. In contrast, administrative SCCS innovations enhance information exchange and coordination activities directly. Furthermore, the influence of applied technological innovations for SCCS is not strong enough to affect either responsiveness of the partnership or firm performance, whereas administrative innovations for SCCS affect both. Daekwan Kim (dkim@cob.fsu.edu) is an assistant professor of marketing and international business in the College of Business at Florida State University. He received his Ph.D. from Michigan State University. His research interests include the impact of information technology on channel relationships and marketing strategies, role of information technology in global supply chain management, channel relationships, global brand management, and family conglomerates in emerging markets. S. Tamer Cavusgil (cavusgil@msu.edu) is University Distinguished Faculty and the John W. Byington Endowed Chair in Global Marketing, the Eli Broad Graduate School of Management, Michigan State University. His research interests include international marketing strategy, coordination in the global company, and emerging markets. He is the founding editor ofAdvances in International Marketing and a governor of the Academy of Marketing Science. Roger J. Calantone (rogercal@msu.edu) is the Eli Broad Chaired University Professor of Business and is University Distinguished Faculty at Michigan State University. He is program director of the university specialization program in Information Technology Management and is also adjunct professor of economics. His publications and research are mostly in the areas of product design and development processes, decision support systems, and organization process metrics and control.     

Discrete choice surveys by telephone

In two consumer studies, discrete choice surveys were administered both by telephone and by traditional pencil and paper methods. Study participants responded to discrete choice surveys concerning pizza restaurants in the first study and fast food restaurants in the second. Neither aggregate level estimated utilities for the pizza restaurants, nor market shares for the fast food restaurants differed by method of administration. The results indicate that discrete choice surveys can be successfully administered by telephone. He received his Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Texas at Dallas. Dr. Perkins is interested in marketing research methodology and in the use of marketing research information in managerial decision making. Dr. Perkins has published articles in theJournal of Marketing Research andPsychometrika. He is a member of the American Marketing Association, the Marketing Research Association, and the TIMS College of Marketing. Jacqueline Roundy recently completed the M.S. degree in marketing from the Pennsylvania State University. In addition she holds an M.B.A. from the University of Utah. She is currently working in Europe.     

Managing trade promotions in the context of market power

The use of trade promotions as a channel-programming tool has increased substantially in the past decade. In focusing on the tactical implications of trade promotions, some firms appear to have underestimated the tendency of poorly planned trade promotions to interfere with the implementation of a marketing strategy. In this article, the authors examine the complex issue of trade promotion use from both long-term and short-term perspectives. Different trade promotions can produce dissimilar types of channel cooperation, consumer responses, and postpromotion channel member behavior, resulting in differences in distribution-programming preferences between suppliers and retailers. The authors argue that the adjudication of these different preference structures is addressed through the market power of the channel participants. Based on an assessment of these channel relationships, an approach for suggested courses of action is forwarded. Jack J. Kasulis is an associate professor of marketing at the University of Oklahoma. He obtained his Ph.D. in marketing from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and has research interests in marketing channels, retailing, and consumer behavior. His articles have appeared in such journals as theJournal of Consumer Research, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Advertising Research, and various other journals and proceedings. Fred W. Morgan is the Ashland Professor of Marketing at the University of Kentucky. He obtained his Ph.D. in marketing from Michigan State University in East Lansing and has research interests in legal issues in marketing, sales management, and marketing channels. His articles have appeared in such journals as theJournal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing and Public Policy, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing Channels, and various other journals and proceedings. David E. Griffith is an associate professor and the Harvey Jones Chair of Marketing at Ouachita Baptist University. He obtained his Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Texas in Austin and has research interests in marketing channels, marketing strategy, and ethics. His research has appeared inMarketing Letters, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing Channels, and various other journals and proceedings. James M. Kenderdine is an associate professor and director of the Distribution Research Program at the University of Oklahoma. He obtained his D.B.A. from Indiana University in Bloomington. His research interests are in wholesaling, retailing, and marketing channels. His publications have includedThe Changing Economics of Wholesaling: A North American Chart Book, Wholesaling in Transition: An Executive Chart Book, and articles in various journals and proceedings.