2024 Joint Academic Conference & Members Meeting

  • PhD Camp on Research in B2B Markets8:00AM – 6:00PM ET (PhD Student Campers & Faculty Camp Counselors)
  • Everyday Voice-of-the-Customer (Dan Adams, The AIM Institute) – 8:00AM – 12:00PM ET
    (separate registration required)
  • One-on-One Conversations with ISBM Fellows & Speakers and ISBM Member Firms – 12:00PM – 5:00PM ET (30 minutes time slots scheduled by request)
  • ISBM 40th Anniversary Celebration
    • Reception – 5:00PM
    • Dinner – 6:00PM

 

Complete Schedule below.

Tuesday, June 4, 2024 - Eastern Daylight Time

5:00PM

Welcome & Networking Reception

Smeal, Atrium

6:00PM

ISBM Welcome & 40th Anniversary Celebration and Dinner

Welcome from ISBM (Stefan Wuyts & Lynn Yanyo)

Welcome from Penn State University President (Neeli Bendapudi)

A Humorous Retrospective Looking Back at the Last 40 Years (Irv Gross, Gary Lilien, & Ralph Oliva)

Smeal, Atrium

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 - Eastern Daylight Time

8:00AM

Continental Breakfast

Smeal 119, MBA Commons

9:00AM – 10:15AM 

Joint Academic & Member Meeting Plenary Session

Looking to the Past – Anticipating the Future (Fariborz Ghadar)

For this opening talk, Dr. Ghadar will share personal anecdotes and knowledge stemming from his research and experience from working as a global consultant, academic, and businessman at the forefront of global technological and social change the last 40+ years.  He will also discuss emerging trends in society, politics, business, and the environment that could play out in the next 40 years.

Smeal 110, Auditorium

10:15AM – 10:30AM

Networking Break

Smeal 119, MBA Commons

10:30AM – 11:45AM 

Joint Academic & Member Meeting Plenary

Reflections on the Future of B2B Marketing (V. Kumar (VK), Sandy Jap, and Raji Srinivasan & Moderated by Andrew Petersen & Lynn Yanyo)

This session is a moderated panel featuring three ISBM Distinguished Research Fellows. Each of these ISBM Fellows will reflect on the emerging trends raised by Dr. Fariborz Grader in the preceding session and discuss what they see as the biggest opportunities and challenges for B2B Marketing in the coming years. The session will conclude with a Q&A between the audience and the panelists.

Smeal 110, Auditorium

11:45AM – 12:45PM 

12:45PM – 1:30PM

Lunch

  • ISBM – What’s Next? (Stefan Wuyts)
  • Introduction to the New 2024 ISBM Distinguished Research Fellows & ISBM Scholars (Andrew Petersen)

Smeal, Atrium

1:30PM – 2:30PM 

Concurrent Sessions

(ACC) – ISBM Fellows & Scholars Talk

 

Smeal 217

(MM) – Beyond the Hype:  Top A.I. Enablement Use Cases in B2B (Amir Hartman, Managing Director, Dasteel Consulting)

With the backdrop of surging and ever-changing AI innovations, B2B leaders are tasked with discerning which technologies are mere novelties and which are essential for competitive advantage. “Beyond the Hype: Top AI Enablement Use Cases in B2B” aims to highlight the most impactful AI applications across various industries. Led by bestselling author and acclaimed AI/Digitization Strategist Amir Hartman, whose insights are further elaborated in his upcoming book about AI Readiness, this session will explore how businesses can effectively gauge their AI readiness and effectively deploy AI solutions.

Smeal 126

2:30PM

Networking Break

Smeal 119, MBA Commons

2:45PM – 4:15PM 

Concurrent Sessions

(ACC1.1) – Coordination, Conflict and Adaptations in Vertical Marketing Channels: Current Issues (SS)

Session Chair:  Sourav Ray

  • Upstream Competition and Manufacturer Disclosure Strategies (*Arash Roghani & Mrinal Ghosh)
  • Adapting to Channel Conflict: An Empirical Study (Kamran Eshghi, *Sourav Ray)
  • Reaping the Harvest of Channel Integrations (*Bharat Vaishnav, Sourav Ray)
  • Adapting to Supply Chain Shocks (Marco Qin and *George John)
 

Smeal 125

(ACC1.2) – Salesperson and Customer Exchange Relationships

Session Chair:  Ann-Kathrin Kieler

  • Customer Success Management: Conceptulization, Scale Development, and Validation (*Amit Mahimkar, Edward Ramirez, & John Hadjimarcou)
  • The Bright and Dark Sides of AI-Assisted Control in B2B Relationships (Jody Crosno, Paige Fender*, Avishek Lahiri, Dave Gilliland, Zhen (Richard) Tang)
  • Breaking Bad: Antecedents and Performance Consequences of Unethical Negotiation Behavior in Sales (Andreas Hinterhuber, Owais Khan)
  • Success Factors for the Adoption of AI Technologies in Industrial Solution Selling – Influences of Corporate Culture on the Adoption of AI Technologies in Industrial Solution Selling (*Ann-Kathrin Kieler & Sascha Alavi)
 

Smeal 124

 

3:00PM – 4:00PM

(MM) – Beyond the Cult of Prediction (Patrick Marren, Principal, Futures Strategy Group)

The essence of leadership and strategy is decision-making under conditions of fundamental uncertainty. Yet far too often, especially since the turn of the millennium, we have pretended that perfect (or at least adequate) certainty can be achieved prior to making strategic decisions. The result, at both organizational and societal levels, has been a series of strategic shocks. 9/11, the Iraq War, the Global Financial Crisis, COVID-19: each of these jolts was in large part the result of a pretense that the future could be predicted with certainty, even with scientific precision. Unfortunately, experts’ response to repeated predictive failure has been to double down on this “cult of prediction,” particularly via numerical forecasting approaches – even in areas in which prediction is either impossible or useless for planning. Fortunately, there is another approach to dealing with fundamental uncertainty: rigorous imagination. But it’s something we are not that good at, as a species, and we all need to get much better at it. This presentation will lay out the principles of rigorous imagination as an antidote to the cult of prediction.

Smeal 126

4:30PM

Networking Reception

Smeal, Atrium

Thursday, June 6, 2024 - Eastern Daylight Time

8:00AM

Continental Breakfast

Smeal 119, MBA Commons

8:30AM – 9:30AM 

Joint Academic & Member Meeting Plenary Session

Seeing Beyond the Horizon (JT Mudge, University of Houston)

Many corporations and organizations use strategic foresight to help anticipate and drive change. Perhaps the most important practice in foresight is horizon scanning, the ability to identify signs of change in different aspects and time horizons. Learn how to avoid black swan events (rare events we have not envisioned) and determine where to best apply resources to create desired futures. In this presentation, JT will discuss the fundamentals of strategic foresight, horizon scannings, and what drives change. Participants should be able to have the basic skills necessary to strengthen their anticipatory and strategic skills within their organization.

Smeal 110, Auditorium

9:30AM – 9:45AM

Networking Break

Smeal 119, MBA Commons

9:45AM – 11:15AM 

Concurrent Sessions

(ACC2.1) – Franchises, Channel Partners, and Branding 

Session Chair:  Sudha Mani

  • Estimating the Value of Sports Arena Naming Rights: A Marketing Analytics Approach (John C. Herron & *R. Dale Wilson)
  • Effect of Digital Marketing Strategy on Franchisor and Franchisee Performance (Jun Wang, *Sudha Mani, & Bhoomija Ranjan)
  • Implications of Transactional and Relational Governance Mechanisms in a Contract on Franchisor Performance (Areej Saad Alshamrani, *Sudha Mani, Shanfei (Sophie) Feng)
  • Downstream Supply Chain Members and a Firm’s CSR Performance (*Sean Yim & Ben Lee)
 

Smeal 125

(ACC2.2) – Marketing Mix Issues (Trade Fairs, Pricing, Social Media, and Promotions)

Session Chair:  Sotires Pagiavlas

  • Prohibiting Unfair Trading Practices: The Impact of a Regulatory Intevention on Market Prices (*Sotires Pagiavlas &  Stefan Wuyts)
  • The B2B Trade Fair as a Driving Force for Market Evolution (Sophie Feldner, *Dominik Hettich & Torsten Bornemann)
  • Measuring the Effects of Targeted B2B Promotions: A Counterfactual Imputation Approach (Paul Ellickson, *Wreetabrata Kar & James C. Reeder, III)
  • B2B Social Media Engagement: The Impact of Names in Narrative Posts (Maryam Bahra, *Benoit Bourguignon, Seyed Habib Hosseini Saravani & Harold Boeck)
 

Smeal 124

 

9:45AM – 10:45AM

Member Session

9:45AM – 10:45AM

(MM) – Organizing Insights for Maximum Business Impact (Niels Schillewaert, Co-Founder & Partner, Human8)

If insights functions wish to maximize their impact on the business and contribute to being relevant to people in the market as well within their organization, they need to combine deep human and business understanding. To realize this, getting close to stakeholders is as important as getting close to and understanding customers.

Based on industry research, qualitative and quantitative research as well as case studies from the industry, we will show that getting to impact is a journey with different routes.

Smeal 126

10:45AM – 11:00AM

Networking Break

Smeal 119, MBA Commons

11:00AM – 12:00PM 

Member Session

11:00AM – 12:00PM 

(MM) – The More Things Change…Growing Revenue will Continue to be the Focus, with new Tools to Accelerate this Growth (Joe Foreman, President, The Insight Group & Eric Beck, Regional Director, North America, Syngenta Seeds)

The Insight Group Viewpoint, presented by Joe Foresman

  • Sales will continue to be a critical element for business success and validating customer wants and needs the most important task.
  • A.I. will help to accelerate the process, but findings will still require validation in the marketplace.
  • Digital capabilites, and the Tech-based side of the team will grow in importance.

Customer Example, presented by Erick Boeck

Smeal 126

12:00PM – 1:00PM 

Lunch

Smeal, Atrium

1:00PM – 2:30PM 

Concurrent Sessions

(ACC3.1) – Innovation, Technical Requirements, and Risk

Session Chair:  Luciano Lapa

  • Modularity in Digitalized Business-to-Business Offerings – Magic Bullet or Double-Edged Sword? (*Dalal AlQadeeri & Stefan Wuyts)
  • Organizing Problem Solving in Interorganizational Relationships: The Role of Functional and Technical Requirement Specifications (*Anna Stepanova, Jon Bingen Sande & Kenneth H. Wathne)
  • Confidence-Based Sales Risk: Conceptualization, Measurement, Managerial Reactions, and Downstream Consequences (*Luciano Lapa, Lopo Rego & Neil Morgan)
  • Revisiting Supply Chain Response Strategy Under Uncertainty and Asymmetric Information (*Chuqiao Peng, Junyan Shen, Haozhe Chen, & Qiong Wang)
 

Smeal 125

(ACC3.2) – Market Expansion and Cultural Issues

Session Chair:  Amrita Mitra

  • Resilience in the Face of Adversity: Evidence from a Multinational Enterprise’s Expansion into Multiple Markets (*Amrita Mitra & Kersi D. Antia)
  • Financial Implications of International Market Entry by U.S. Retailers (*Anna Sadovnikova, Saurabh Mishra & Manish Kacker)
  • The Positive Side of Power Asymmetry in Channel Relationships: A Meta-Analytic Review on the Moderators of Country Culture (*Yuerong (Cindy) Liu &June (Grace) Xu

Smeal 124

 

1:00PM – 2:00PM 

Member Session

1:00PM – 2:00PM

(MM) – The Importance of Person-to-Person (P2P) Relationships within B2B Relationships (Lisa Scheer, Professor of Strategic Business-to-Business Management, University of Graz)

We are bombarded with claims that people are being displaced by technology—websites, databases, robots, AI, and more. Certainly, these technologies are increasingly deployed in interorganizational relationships, but does that mean people are becoming less important? Although some jobs will be consolidated or eliminated as the workplace evolves, interpersonal relationships will remain importantor even increase in importancein business-to-business relationships. We will explore ways in which P2P will continue to play an important role in B2B.

Smeal 126

2:30PM

Networking Break

Smeal 119, MBA Commons

2:30PM – 5:00PM 

Marketing Excellence Roundtable

This meeting’s special topic will be “A.I. Ready,” a new book from Amir Hartman, the groundbreaking author of Net Ready, (which in the 1990’s laid out the framework for deploying the internet).  His new book provides a framework to plan and delploy A.I.

Smeal 120

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