Entrepreneurship capital and its impact on knowledge diffusion and economic performance

In this paper, we develop two hypotheses: First, regional innovation efforts have a positive impact on regional knowledge based entrepreneurial activity. Second, knowledge based entrepreneurship positively affects regional economic performance. We test these hypotheses using county level data from West Germany, employing a structural equation model to analyze the relationships between latent variables. Our empirical analysis provides evidence supporting both hypotheses. In particular, our results suggest that innovation efforts have an indirect effect on economic performance via entrepreneurship. This indirect effect is neglected in existing empirical studies focusing on the direct effect of innovation on economic performance.     

The impact of fairness on trustworthiness and trust in banking

Abstract

Theorists and empirical researchers in marketing and other fields suggest that fairness is important in underpinning trust, which, in turn, is integral to developing and maintaining buyer–seller relationships. However, empirical investigation of fairness in the domain of marketing has, to date, been limited. Consequently, the relationship between fairness and trust is not well understood. Thus, the purpose of this study is to provide a fully developed social exchange model examining the differential effects of various dimensions of fairness on trustworthiness and customers’ trust. Data were collected from customers of banks and were analysed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling. Findings of the study show that perceptions of fair treatment on the part of customers are important in driving trustworthiness and engendering trust.     

Information Asymmetries as Antecedents of Opportunism in Buyer-Supplier Relationships: Testing Principal-Agent Theory

ABSTRACT

Purpose: A severe problem in supplier selection refers to moral hazard: suppliers not behaving in the expected way once contracted. Principal-agent theory could provide insights on how to reduce this problem. Because buyer–supplier relationships can be interpreted as principal-agent situations, the application of agency theory should facilitate improved supplier selection. Although theoretically compelling, empirical tests verifying this assumption are not prevalent. Regarding the advancement of theory, this paper tests whether both ex ante and ex post information asymmetries influence moral hazard. In particular, in the context of a globalizing economy with a subsequent increase in information asymmetries as a problem in supplier selection, this conceptual approach may be contributive.

Design/methodology/approach: The authors use a set of 87 buyer–supplier relationships to conduct a test, applying a partial least squares model with latent variables. A particularity of the data set is that it contains information on ongoing as well as on discontinued relationships.

Findings: The analysis indicated that both ex ante information asymmetries (operationalized by a reputation variable) and ex post asymmetries (operationalized by a monitoring variable) have shown to be significant and strong antecedents explaining the occurrence of moral hazard. Interestingly, and opposed to the common assumption, the length of a relationship and the amount of direct meetings have not revealed any explanatory significance. Buyer dependency hardly showed influence on supplier opportunism.

Research limitations/implications: Data were collected from a multitude of buyer–supplier relationships from a single firm in the chemical-pharmaceutical industry. Generalizations to other industries still need to be tested. Socially desirable answering behavior cannot fully be excluded because relationship discontinuation is not a desirable situation. In terms of theory implications, this research adds to the notion that both hidden action and hidden intention can lead to moral hazard.

Practical implications: An agency-based analysis can be operationalized with the help of an agency-based supplier classification portfolio. It might be of particular value to firms to discuss those suppliers that scored high in risk of opportunism but did not (yet) reveal any signs of moral hazard. Finally, the strong explanatory power

of reputation alerts buyers to pay more attention to behavioral information on the (potential) supplier available in the market.

Originality/value: Analyzing the occurrence of moral hazard and including terminated relationships adds to the emerging stream of literature on relationship discontinuation in B2B markets. Further, the strong empirical results may encourage researchers to elaborate on principal-agent theory-based assumptions, adding another layer of explanation to buyer–supplier relationships. Findings show that reputation is unduly neglected as supplier selection criterion in current theory and practice.     

The Confines of Stakeholder Management: Evidence from the Dutch Manufacturing Sector

Stakeholder theory is a pertinent example of a framework that has been stretched over many conceptual contexts and that has been applied to a wide variety of empirical phenomena. A pressing issue involves the scope of application of stakeholder theory, however, because it is not a comprehensive ethical scheme or problem-solving algorithm. We begin our search for the boundaries of stakeholder management by identifying a presently under-acknowledged yet major underlying assumption, notably that the approach is rooted in voluntary action and association. Building on this presumption, we argue that firm – stakeholder relationships are best to be understood in contractualist terms; i.e. as voluntary arrangements between two or more parties seeking mutual benefit. This assertion subsequently allows us to identify three boundary conditions applying to stakeholder theory: (1) the parties should be sufficiently autonomous; (2) their interests need to be alignable; and (3) they should be capableof living up to their commitments. We substantiate these criteria with evidence from a collective case study of buyer – supplier relationships in the Dutch manufacturing sector, demonstrating that the stakeholder management model fails when these boundary criteria are violated.     

Trusting and Monitoring Business Partners throughout the Relationship Life Cycle

Purpose: The goal of this research is to understand the theoretical and empirical confluence of multi-dimensional trust with the role of monitoring as business partnerships unfold and evolve dynamically throughout the course of the relationship life cycle.

Methodology: A pilot study is run in which in-depth interviews are conducted with managers to glean their insights regarding the theoretical questions and to verify terminology for survey items. A large-scale survey study is then conducted to test hypotheses about the relationships among the focal constructs. The participants in both studies are real procurement professionals reporting on their primary supplier relationships. The qualitative study and the samples of real world managers enhance the external validity of this research.

Findings: In early stages of business relationships, monitoring and benevolence trust interact to positively impact business performance. Continued monitoring in later stages interact with benevolence trust to performance detriment. Conversely, monitoring and competence aspects of trust hurt business performance in earlier life stages.

Research Implications: Theoretical frameworks that include the constructs of multidimensional trust, monitoring, and relationship life cycle stages can build on the nuanced 3-dimensional contingencies established in this research. In particular, this research furthers the concepts of monitoring and the relationship life cycle.

Practical Implications: There is a time and a place to trust one's business partners, and a time and a place to verify their trustworthiness. As business partnerships are forged, monitoring and benevolence trust can be particularly fruitful.

Contribution: In this research, the authors build on the business marketing literature that has begun to delineate the benevolence and competence dimensions of trust in business relationships; they demonstrate the role that partner monitoring has in maintaining business commitments; and establish how these effects are modified over the stages of the relationship life cycle; i.e., from exploration, to build-up, maturity, and decline.     

Value dimensions and relationship postures in dyadic 'Key Relationship Programmes'

Business-to-business marketing is often concerned with the way in which companies manage strategically important relationships with their counterparts: their Key Relationship Programmes (KRPs). These relationships can be managed through the implementation of specific managerial and organisational structures, commonly implemented via Key Account Programmes (on the supplier side) or Key Supplier Programmes (on the customer side). Underlying this managerial process is an implicit assumption that these important relationships bring some form of additional value to one or both parties involved. However, a dyadic view of how this value is created and shared between the parties remains an under-researched area. In this conceptual paper, we use the multi-faceted value construct introduced in Pardo et al. (2006) and posit that the buyer's or seller's value strategies can be best understood as being internally, exchange, or relationship based. This in turn allows us to analyse the value gained as being the outcome of one of nine generic key relationship postures within any dyadic KRP. We focus on an analysis of so-called "managed" relationship postures and identify a number of dyadic activities and competencies that we hypothesise are important in managing such KRPs, and which can form the basis for further empirical research.     

Effects of Network Embeddedness on the Relationship Between Environmental Volatility and Interfirm Contracts

Purpose: This study examines the effects of an embedded network on the contractual relationship between exchange parties under conditions reflecting varying levels of environmental volatility and investigates the role of an important network factor—the embedded network—in the contractual relationship between manufacturers and their suppliers.

Methodology: The empirical test was conducted with manufacturing companies in the context of manufacturer–supplier relationships. Construct measures were based on existing measures and previous research. Measurement reliability and validity were established using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and an overall measurement model was assessed with structural equation modeling using LISREL.

Findings: The results of a survey of manufacturers indicate that firms in an embedded network preferred “soft” contracts even when they face volatile environments, whereas those facing volatile environments in a less embedded network preferred “hard” contracts with explicitly specified written requirements. Network partners carefully evaluated embedded networks (a critical factor that has not received enough attention) before forming contractual relationships in a network perceiving interfirm relationships differently.

Originality: The study introduces network embeddedness to explain governance mechanisms in volatile environments and shows that the explicit recognition of embedded network may facilitate the development of contracts with specific provisions as the contractual relationship evolves.     

Customer perceived value,satisfaction, and loyalty: the role of willingness to share information

This study proposes and tests an integrative model to examine the relationships among customers’ willingness to share information, satisfaction, perceived value, and loyalty in a retailing context. This study extends research on customers’ willingness to share information from trust and privacy concerns toward key outcome measures such as perceived value, customer satisfaction, and loyalty, and is thus among the first to model customers’ willingness to share information with companies in robust theoretical retailing frameworks. The proposed relationships were tested using data from two retailing contexts – groceries (N = 429) and do-it-yourself (DIY) (N = 895). Findings from the two samples suggest that both perceived value and satisfaction are significant determinants of customers’ willingness to share information with a company. Although some differences emerge in the two studies, structural modeling largely supports the hypothesized framework and positions customers’ willingness to share information as an important antecedent of their loyalty intentions and behavior. This study provides practitioners with preliminary insight into the relationship between willingness to share information and perceived value, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty. This study advances retailing research, as it is one of the few empirical studies investigating the role of customers’ willingness to share information in driving loyalty and its relationship with perceived value and satisfaction in a retailing context.     

Marketing education to international students: A systematic literature review and future research agenda

Even though numerous studies provide information on marketing education to international students, research that reviews the accrued knowledge holistically remains elusive. Accordingly, the main purpose of this study is to (1) systematically synthesize, compile and understand the existing line of empirical research on the topic of marketing education to international students and (2) outline a comprehensive future research agenda to help further advance this field. This study adopts the theory-context-characteristics-methodology (TCCM) framework proposed by Paul and Rosado-Serrano to systematically review 52 articles published in A*, A and B category journals from the ABDC Journal Quality List. This systematic review reveals that the existing studies mostly focus on consumer-specific theories and detects a need for more macro-market, and industry-related theoretical perspectives (theory); it also identifies research gaps related to international student host and home country settings (context), and the application of competition-related variables for the main relationships in this field (characteristics). Finally, the author proposes several methodological best practices (methodology) to advance findings in this field.     

Organizational Citizenship Behavior and the Public Service Ethos: Whither the Organization?

Public services worldwide have been subject to externally imposed reforms utilizing tools such as financial incentives and performance targets. The adverse impact of such reforms on a public service ethos has been claimed, but rarely demonstrated. Individuals within organizations work beyond their formal contracts of employment, described as Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB), to further organizational interests. Given New Public Management reform and the subsequent contextual changes in the way in which public sector organizations are managed and funded, the present study theorizes that OCB directed towards the organization may be ‘crowded-out’. This article tests the relationships between public service ethos and OCB and it presents empirical evidence from a study in England (n = 433) of the ability of each dimension of this ethos to predict OCB.     

THE INTELLECTUAL FOUNDATION OF THE JOURNAL OF BUSINESS LOGISTICS AND ITS EVOLUTION BETWEEN 1978 AND 2007

Many logistics and supply chain management researchers have so far studied the nature of logistics and supply chain management research in terms of its domain and scope, its epistemological assumptions, and its evolution. However, the knowledge repository on which the scientific research community draws, that is, its intellectual foundation, has not yet been studied. Studying the intellectual foundation of research provides an unbiased and comprehensive picture of the development, dissemination, and utilization of its knowledge. In this article, we identify the most contributive works—in terms of citations received—that have been used in 497 articles published in the Journal of Business Logistics (JBL) between 1978 and 2007. By means of citation and co‐citation analysis, the intellectual structure of research in JBL is revealed and transformations therein are explored. Overall, the most frequently‐cited literature can be classified into six themes: physical distribution; inventory models; customer service; interorganizational relationships; competitive strategy; and empirical methodologies for socio‐scientific research. Furthermore, we determined a development in citation frequencies to these themes: literature related to physical distribution and inventory management declined over the three decades under study, whereas literature related to competitive strategy and empirical methods gained in importance. This development indicates a shift from an operational focus to a prioritization of managerial issues. Moreover, our results demonstrate a shift towards more relational and institutional research in logistics (management), which has been typically linked with the notion of supply chain management since the 1990's.     

品牌关系指数模型研究:一个量表开发的视角

The aim of this research is to develop a new evaluation approach based on a brand relationship index model (BRI model), which includes a three stage study on the indicator system; indicator weight; and indicator integration. Based on brand identity theory and interpersonal relationship theory, four-brand relationship participants and three-brand relationship natures are put forward to make up a hypothesis of twelve-dimension brand relationships. Through a series of empirical studies based on exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), a five-dimension structure of brand relationships is obtained, which is the basis of the indicator system. Indicator weight is calculated by the normalization of path coefficients derived from a second order factor analysis of the five dimensions. Indicator integration is based on the Weighted Sum method. Based on these three ingredients, the brand relationship index (BRI) model is developed. According to analysis of data on ten mobile phone brands, the BRI model is tested. Translated from Yingxiao Kexue Xuebao 营销科学学报 (Journal of Marketing Science), 2006, 2(2): 24–40     

Internationalization of Chinese Firms: What Role Does Guanxi Play for Overcoming Their Liability of Outsidership in Developed Markets?

This article explains how managers of Chinese firms can use guanxi when entering and expanding in developed markets. The empirical basis for the investigation is formed by interviews with 29 managers at 17 Chinese business‐to‐business firms internationalizing to Europe. The results generated are twofold. On the one hand, existing guanxi was largely irrelevant for initially entering the European market. On the other hand, Chinese firms managed to successfully overcome the liability of outsidership by building new guanxi‐like relationships with their Western business network partners after a certain period of time. Six propositions give insights on the process for Chinese firms to become insiders in the business networks of developed countries. The propositions were combined into two comprehensive models that give implications for future research and for management practice. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Modeling the Effects of Sponsorship-Linked Marketing: When Does Memory Matter?

The current study examined the mediating and moderating roles of sponsorship-linked marketing on the relationships among cognitive, affective, and behavioral sponsor evaluations. A panel of National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) fans (N = 249) participated in an online survey, and the survey included multi-item scales including sponsor-brand recognition, consumer perceptions of property-based articulation, sponsorship-themed advertising, sponsorship-themed promotion, sponsor attitude, and purchase intention. Visit to sponsors' exhibits experience was incorporated as a moderator. This study provides empirical support for the full mediating role of sponsorship-linked marketing efforts in leveraging high levels of sponsor brand recognition into more desirable brand outcomes.     

The Influence of Trust on the Trilogy of Knowledge Creation,Sharing, and Transfer

This empirical article focuses on the phenomenon of trust and its influence on the trilogy of the following interrelated factors that are crucial to the success of international business cooperations and their economic results: knowledge creation, knowledge sharing, and knowledge transfer. Trust is expected and desired by many business partners, but it is also abused by others. The term trust, due to its intangible and invisible nature, is often ignored or superficially treated by companies. However, when trust does not exist between international cooperation partners or is not nurtured, negative relationships and financial implications occur. These lacunae could be explained due to the difficulty in quantifying as a financial asset. The article presents qualitative findings (from two empirical research studies): (1) the implications of trust development for knowledge transfer between Russian‐ and German‐speaking companies, and (2) the influence of trust on knowledge sharing in the completion of an Austrian construction project. The authors applied phenomenological interviewing and observations of critical incidents or significant occurrences, combined with comparative content analysis. The positive influence of trust on the aforementioned trilogy results in higher levels of the involved companies’ innovativeness, culminating in higher levels of competitive advantage and profitability. The empirical findings are presented to explain the influence of trust on knowledge creation, sharing, and transfer, which have a bearing on intercultural cooperations. One innovative finding relates to the differentiated perception of emotions and the implications that this entails. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Predictors of export performance in developing economies: a longitudinal analysis of Moroccan SMEs

Purpose: To help increase understanding of the export performance, we investigate the influence of firm size, research and development (R&D), advertising expenditures and network relationships, and develop a conceptual model to increase export intensity. Design/methodology/approach: The research involved a four-year longitudinal study of export performance of 168 exporting SMEs in Morocco (672 observations). The two-stage least square estimation (G2SLS) was used to test the hypotheses. Findings: The findings of the two-stage least square estimation (G2SLS) suggest that export sales and domestic sales are interdependent and influence each other. R&D expenditures and network affiliation have positive and significant impact on export sales, while advertising expenditure has a negative and significant influence on export sales. Research limitations/implications: Readers should use caution in generalizing the findings unless verified in other developing contexts. Practical implications: The findings of this study are useful for managers and export policy makers in developing countries. A proper understanding of the predictors of export performance may help them encourage the growth and diversification of exports that is so vital for developing countries. Originality/value: Export performance is a key element in the field of international marketing. Unfortunately, the literature exhibits a lack of empirical studies in developing countries, particularly in Maghreb regions. The empirical testing of the theoretical model in a developing economy is a significant contribution to fill the needed gap in the literature toward generalizing findings.     

Cut-off Process in Reinsurance Relationships

The article reports empirical research into the cut-off processes in reinsurance. The framework is based on Mittilä's [2000] Relation Trine Model. In this model evaluation together with bargaining and negotiation play a central role. The empirical part consists of two cases. Special emphasis is given to collective bargaining processes in the dissolution of relationships. The results of the analyses suggest that the model, originally created for analysing industrial business-to-business relationships with elements of both services and goods, is also applicable to the service sector     

The Content of Internet Advertisements and its Impact on Awareness and Selling Performance

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the different relationships consumers build with anthropomorphised devices and how these relationships affect actual and intended future usage. An exploratory, three-week empirical study of 39 informants using voice controls on their smartphone uncovered a diversity of relationships that the informants built with such devices. We complement anthropomorphism theory by drawing on extended-self theorising to identify three primary roles that emerge from consumers’ interactions with these devices. Our findings theorise the distinct ways in which consumers perceive the object agency of anthropomorphised smart devices and how these perceptions impact the consumers’ engagement and future use intentions.     

Public research/industry relationships: Efficiency conditions

If economists of technical change dealt with the public research/industry interface, the literature lacks empirical contributions. The present paper is clearly empirical. It investigates the efficiency of the relationships between public research institutions and industry from the point of view of the firm looking for solutions to its problems. The empirical work is based on the study of 32 cases of partnerships in France. It suggests that the efficiency of the interface depends on the context (nature of innovations, public research skills needed, duration of relationships, technological strategies of firms) and on the strategies of public research institutions (organizational linkages adopted). Four hypotheses are examined to test these efficiency conditions.     

Relational Domain Switching: Interpersonal Insecurity Predicts the Strength and Number of Marketplace Relationships

In this paper, the authors test a compensation model of interpersonal and marketplace relationships. Guided by an attachment theory perspective, the authors argue that reflecting on or experiencing insecure interpersonal relationships can induce consumers to seek surrogate relationship partners in the marketplace. This general prediction is supported by results from an experiment and two surveys. Specifically, results show that interpersonally anxious consumers report more and stronger brand relationships. Furthermore, interpersonally avoidant consumers report more and stronger brand relationships, as well as more numerous but weaker service relationships. These studies support the prediction that people employ marketplace solutions to offset deficiencies in their personal relationships. The paper concludes by contextualizing the results within research on loneliness and materialism.