Global marketing of industrial products: Are interpersonal relationships always critical?

The present paper examines the issue of whether interpersonal relationships are critical for global marketing of industrial products. The fields of relationship marketing, IMP group research, sales research, and network theory have stressed the importance of interpersonal relationships in the business-to-business or industrial marketing context. In contrast to this emphasis on interpersonal relationships, we argue that industrial firms can both conceive and enhance marketing strategies based on developing high quality and consistent processes, products, services or outcomes (consistent processes and outcomes). Such strategies are especially important given the fact that developing interpersonal relationships is expensive due to their reliance on frequent and/or face-to-face communications. In this paper, we examine industry and country contexts that lead to the choice of alternative industrial product marketing strategies and highlight some future research directions and managerial implications.     

Global marketing and procurement of industrial products: Institutional design of interfirm functional tasks

Marketing and procuring component parts in the global marketplace can pose such significant trading hazards that industrial transactions often must be embedded in protective governance. This article identifies key forces influencing the institutional designs that best safeguard exchanges between international trading partners for such industrial tasks as the design, fabrication and delivery of component parts. The effectiveness of designs such as market contracting, alliances, and international joint ventures are shown to be a consequence of the transactional characteristics of a given task, the governance risks experienced by both buyer and supplier, and the differences between the institutional environments of the partners' countries. In addition to a comprehensive institutional design model, several propositions are developed to serve as a guide to future empirical research in the areas of global industrial marketing and procurement.     

Social media research in the industrial marketing field: Review of literature and future research directions

Since the emergence of social media, industrial marketing academics and marketers have also been intrigued by the influence of such media on the discipline. As, social media research in the field of industrial marketing has been of increasing interest, this research attempts to review and assess the advances in social media research in the industrial marketing field. From the literature review conducted, it can be identified that some of the research areas have witnessed steady theory development increases, e.g., sales and marketing communications, while others are clearly lagging behind, e.g., pricing and ethics. Also methodological pluralism is called for instead of more traditional methods (conceptual analysis, qualitative and survey) to establish and solve more nuanced research problems. This research provides a review of the current state of research in the field and suggests directions for future development.     

Institutional theory in business marketing: A conceptual framework and future directions

Institutional environments exert significant effects on organizational behavior, structure, strategy, governance, and process. To gain competitive advantage, managers are striving for legitimacy while maintaining efficiency. In line with this thinking, we propose the developmental process of institution-driven and legitimacy-embedded efficiency, and emphasize the confluence of legitimacy and efficiency in the context of business marketing. We then highlight several promising directions for further research on the development of institutional theory and its application in business marketing. Finally, we present a brief summary of each paper in this special issue.     

Global marketing in business-to-business contexts: Challenges,developments, and opportunities

This article introduces the special issue on global marketing in business-to-business contexts. The aim is to advance knowledge on the subject that can stimulate further research in this important and emerging area of industrial marketing. The twelve contributions selected for this special issue bring together high quality contemporary research that address challenges and recent developments. The articles specifically offer unique insights that progress understanding in the area, provide interesting managerial implications, and present intriguing opportunities for future researchers. These contributions reflect the variety of current work in global marketing in the business-to-business context. While most of the contributions in this special issue focus on the development and deployment of unique resources and capabilities to enhance international competitiveness and performance success, insights are also offered on international relationships and/or relationship marketing within the business-to-business context, country of origin effects, and knowledge transfer between international partners in subsidiaries. The article concludes with a summary of important avenues for further research.     

Value in business and industrial marketing: Past,present, and future

This article offers an overview of research on the ‘value’ that businesses and industrial marketers analyze, create, and deliver. First, value literature (up to and around 2005 and post 2005) is discussed. This review highlights the changes in our notions of value and helps to identify seven areas for consideration that should drive future research: value proposition, relationship form, capabilities management, value metrics, temporal horizon, innovation imperative, and tactical focus. Following this depiction of value analysis, value creation, and value delivery, we present a process model for value orchestration in business and industrial marketing. Three activities collectively form the basis of value orchestration, namely structuring activities, bundling activities, and leveraging of resources.     

Outside-in marketing: Renaissance and future

Marketing is an applied discipline. As new generations of technology affecting marketing practice develop, marketing theories have to be re-visited, adjusted, and sometimes scrapped and replaced with new theory as new phenomenon emerge in the increasingly dynamic world of marketing practice. This technology-enabled aspect of why and how some firms may be more successful in becoming and maintaining strong OI marketers is clearly worthy of scholarly exploration. This research commentary extends Quach et al.'s review paper that synthesizes and consolidates what is known as outside-in marketing, recognizes some key changes in relevant aspects of the business context, and extends thinking in new directions for outside-in marketing to consider important unanswered questions regarding the OI construct and its relationship with other constructs and performance outcomes. For example, can OI marketing activities such as leveraging customer data for segmentation and targeting be undertaken in more or less OI ways? When and how might IO marketing potentially lead to better firm performance outcomes? Should OI marketing and performance relationship be hypothesized and tested in terms of OI alone or OI vs. IO or O-I + I-O? How should firms measure OI performance?     

Undergraduate industrial marketing: Content and methods

Business marketing is taking a more prominent place in marketing education. Faculty members unfamiliar with business marketing may need to develop and teach business marketing courses. We provide the background information and suggest the resources needed for such a course at the undergraduate level. First, we address the growing importance of business marketing education and the nature of the students as a business product. Next, we discuss our perspectives on course philosophy, goals, and topical coverage. Subsequently, we review the use of pedagogical tools, including the role of the textbook, casebook, reading book, and the secondary sources of business information. Finally, our general thoughts for course execution are presented. Our purpose is to promote further dialogue concerning the development of this important area of undergraduate marketing study.     

Artificial intelligence-based systems applied in industrial marketing: An historical overview,current and future insights

Intelligent systems have particular potentialities and strengths to support decisional situations faced by companies, especially those of a strategic nature, where good strategic intelligence is necessary. In this paper, we carry out an historical literature review of artificial intelligence-based systems applied to marketing, covering a time period of several decades (from the 1970s to the present day), with special focus on applications to industrial marketing. A detailed review is presented, along with conclusions and some future insights. Then, we briefly introduce the set of papers in this special issue.     

Setting B2B digital marketing in artificial intelligence-based CRMs: A review and directions for future research

The new business challenges in the B2B sector are determined by connected ecosystems, where data-driven decision making is crucial for successful strategies. At the same time, the use of digital marketing as a communication and sales channel has led to the need and use of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems to correctly manage company information. The understanding of B2B traditional Marketing strategies that use CRMs that work with Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been studied, however, research focused on the understanding and application of these technologies in B2B digital marketing is scarce. To cover this gap in the literature, this study develops a literature review on the main academic contributions in this area. To visualize the outcomes of the literature review, the results are then analyzed using a statistical approach known as Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) under the homogeneity analysis of variance by means of alternating least squares (HOMALS) framework programmed in the R language. The research results classify the types of CRMs and their typologies and explore the main techniques and uses of AI-based CRMs in B2B digital marketing. In addition, a discussion, directions and propositions for future research are presented.     

Market and supplier characteristics driving distributor relationship quality in international marketing channels of industrial products

Although we are beginning to comprehend the fundamental importance of relationship quality in interorganizational exchange, a relatively small, but growing, body of literature that has not kept pace with the tremendous growth in global channel transactions has been devoted to the development of cross-border relationship quality. This study addresses this gap in the literature by investigating the extent to which certain market and exporter characteristics affect the development of relationship quality in the context of importing distributors trading with exporting manufacturers of industrial products. Relationship quality is viewed as a higher-order construct composed of trust, commitment, and satisfaction. Findings reveal that psychic distance is related negatively to relationship quality, while transaction-specific investments and role performance are associated positively with relationship quality. No link is found between environmental uncertainty and relationship quality. Managerial implications of the findings are considered and limitations along with future research directions discussed.     

Economic geography and industrial marketing views on trade shows: Collective marketing and knowledge circulation

In this paper, we critically review literature on trade shows developed in industrial marketing (IM) and economic geography (EG), aiming to contribute to the ongoing conversation between these disciplines and showing that they can learn from each other. In IM, trade shows are conceived as promotional instruments, whereas in EG these events are seen as temporary clusters through which firms can escape the liabilities of embeddedness and interact with, and learn from, distant actors. EG literature has integrated insights from IM that have provided a means to go beyond earlier formulations that downplayed market-based learning processes at these events. IM has in fact far under-theorized space and conceived exhibitors as individual agents, neglecting the fact that many of these events are collective marketing platforms that industry agglomerations or geographical clusters can use to affirm their presence in international markets. Based on our analysis, we propose research directions that can benefit individual exhibitors as well as geographically-based business networks. The analysis addresses the boundaries and limitations of disciplinary analyses and strongly suggests transdisciplinary encounters and engagements in IM and EG research.     

Increasing the role of direct mail marketing in industrial marketing strategy

Direct marketing has long been a dominant factor in the distribution strategy of industrial goods and services. Yet frameworks for strategy formulation in this area are nearly nonexistent in the literature. Much that has been written focuses on successful techniques, such as how to use a specific type of sales letter to improve results. This article outlines a set of key perspectives that industrial marketers may use to evaluate the potential effectiveness of direct marketing strategies.