It ain't over 'til it's over: Evaluating reacquisition opportunities in business-to-business markets

Using a qualitative critical incident research technique, this paper examines how sales firms evaluate defected customers in order to determine their worthiness for reacquisition. Findings from interviews with fifty professional salespeople suggest that, when sales firms assess reacquisition opportunities, these opportunities are evaluated based on the likelihood of reacquisition and the value of the customer (i.e., ease of reacquisition and value of the customer). Salespeople report that the barriers to reacquisition, leveraging remaining customer relationship and investigating their own value-adding capabilities are critical in determining the ease of reacquisition. In addition, salespeople report that account size, profitability, market influence and cross-selling potential are fundamental in determining the value of a customer. Furthermore, the importance of ease and value in reacquisition assessments varies with (1) the reason for the customer defection, (2) the formalization of a firm's reacquisition process, and (3) market opportunities. Managerial implications and future research directions are discussed.     

How salespeople facilitate buyers' resource availability to enhance seller outcomes

Positive outcomes for buyers and sellers occur when the partners readily make their resources available and integrate those resources in a beneficial relationship. This research investigates how salespeople facilitate the use of these buyer resources. Taking the seller's perspective, this study examines the effect that the salesperson's interaction activities, and the availability of buyer resources, have on relationship outcomes.     

Examining hotel salespeople's new membership programme sales performance

Promoting new membership programmes can be a rewarding, yet challenging task for hotels. However, high-performance sales teams can improve consumer perceptions of new membership programmes in the market and allow hotels to remain competitive. Few studies have explored how hotel sales personnel approach the task of selling new membership programmes, and studies examining the moderating influence of market orientation are also rare. The current study contributes to the hospitality sales management literature by using the goal orientation theory to examine the new membership programmes sales performance of 168 salespeople. ‘Market orientation' was included as a variable that could moderate salespeople's performance. The results show that learning goal orientation and performance-prove goal orientation positively influence salespeople's performance, but performance-avoid goal orientation negatively influences sales performance. Furthermore, hotels' levels of market orientation (high or low) can moderate the relationship between goal orientation and sales performance.     

Building and using a charity customer database

This paper describes how a leading campaigning organisation, Greenpeace, improved its fundraising performance through a major supporter database project. It shows how a complex and inadequate database situation can be transformed into a successful operation by applying professional statistical, marketing and systems techniques that are becoming much more widely available, while reducing costs considerably. Copyright © 1999 Henry Stewart Publications     

Energy eco‐innovations for sustainable development: Exploring organizational strategic capabilities through an energy cultures framework

This article reports on research on energy eco‐innovation using case studies of firms. Positioning energy efficiency changes in an organization as “eco‐innovations,” the paper examines the firm‐level resources involved for these to be successful. To identify these resources, the energy cultures (EC) framework, an organizing tool to understand energy behaviour, is drawn on. From an analysis of 142 case studies of successful business and energy change, three models are developed. It is found that the EC framework (consisting of norms, material culture, and practices) makes explicit key resources involved in developing energy eco‐innovations. The findings show that for an eco‐innovation capability, there is a need to align the physical resources with intangible resources to lead to learning and knowledge that, in turn, needs to be aligned with the firm strategies. This research has implications for developing company strategy and practice to drive energy eco‐innovations.     

Role conflict and ambiguity confronting transnational business networkers: Contrasting social stigma and relational risks for Chinese and Western boundary spanners

Our research explores the role conflict, ambiguity and resulting social stigma and relational risks that transnational B2B networkers face when facilitating the formation of new exchange dyads between firms from distinct and distant cultures, i.e. Chinese and Western. We integrate literature from institution theory and role theory to establish the comparative framework. This allows us to explore: (1) what stigma and relational risks guanxi brokers assume when facilitating transnational business connections; (2) if Western brokers encounter similar stigma and negative consequences that threaten their professional standing and the formation process; and, (3) the lessons from both that transnational firms can learn and incorporate into best practices. We conclude our paper with managerial implications and suggestions for further research.     

Why the public thinks natural resources public participation processes fail: A case study of British Columbia communities

This study examines the experiences and opinions of a “public” which became involved in a government driven comprehensive land use and natural resource planning exercise in British Columbia, Canada during the 1990s. While it is generally assumed to be an inherently good thing, or at least a politically necessary thing, to involve the public in natural resources or land use planning, few studies have examined the experiences of the public or examined perceived failures from the public's perspective. This study examines British Columbia's CORE and LRMP planning processes, their successes and failures, as determined by residents of six communities that participated in these processes. Lessons on improving public processes from the viewpoint of that public are discussed.     

Treatment patterns and healthcare costs among newly-diagnosed patients with chronic myeloid leukemia receiving dasatinib or nilotinib as first-line therapy in the United States

Objective: To compare treatment patterns and economic outcomes of dasatinib and nilotinib as 1st-line therapies for chronic myeloid leukemia (CML).

Methods: Adult CML patients initiated on first-line dasatinib or nilotinib in 2010–2014 were identified from two large US administrative claims databases. Treatment patterns, tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) adherence and healthcare resource utilization (HRU) and costs were measured from the 1st-line TKI initiation (index date) to the end of follow-up.

Results: A total of 604 and 418 patients were included in the dasatinib and nilotinib cohorts (mean ages = 50.9 and 52.5 years, 46.4% and 45.7% female), respectively. Among the dasatinib patients, 91% started with 100?mg/day, 3% with <100?mg/day, and 6% with >100?mg/day. Among the nilotinib patients, 76% started with 600?mg/day, 16% with >600?mg/day, and 8% <600?mg/day. The dasatinib cohort had a higher hazard of dose decrease (hazard ratio [HR]?=?1.66; p?=?.002) and of switching to another TKI (HR =1.62; p?=?.019) compared to the nilotinib cohort. The hazard of dose increase (HR =0.76; p?=?.423) and treatment discontinuation (HR =1.10; p?=?.372) were not significantly different between cohorts. There was also no significant difference in TKI adherence levels (mean proportion of days covered [PDC] difference over first 6 months = ?0.0003, p?=?.981; mean PDC difference over first 12 months = ?0.0022, p?=?.880) and HRU (inpatient day incidence rate ratio [IRR]?=?1.03, p?=?.930; emergency room IRR =1.26, p?=?.197; and days with outpatient services IRR = 1.01, p?=?.842). The dasatinib cohort incurred higher healthcare costs by $749 per patient per month (p?=?.044) compared to the nilotinib cohort.

Limitation: Information on CML phase and Sokal score was not available.

Conclusions: Dasatinib was associated with an increased hazard of dose decrease and switching to another TKI and higher healthcare costs, vs nilotinib.     

Hedging spot fuel oil in Singapore: Will the new SIMEX contract succeed?

We assess SIMEX's new market for fuel oil futures by examining its effectiveness in hedging a cash fuel oil position in Singapore. We find that the SIMEX contract can eliminate about two-thirds of the volatility of a Singapore cash position and is many times more effective than a cross-hedge constructed with overseas contracts. Given its potential usefulness as a hedging tool for the regional petroleum industry, we anticipate that the new contract will be a success.We are grateful to Mobil (New York) for making the Platt oil price data available to us and to Jim Bovenage specifically for accessing the data for us.