Content Library

Effect of Alliance Network Asymmetry on Firm Performance and Risk (Chakravarty, Zhou, and Sharma 2020)

There are costs and benefits to firms having similar networks. These factors must be considered in new product alliances that often fail to meet their desired objectives.

March 18, 2021

An Exploratory Study of Business-To-Business Online Customer Reviews: External Online Professional Communities and Internal Vendor Scorecards (Steward, Narus, and Roehm 2018)

Business-to-business (B2B) buyers often rely on online reviews to make purchasing decisions. However, the impact of a positive or negative review can often vary depending on if the review is written on an internal or external channel.

January 6, 2021

The Effect of Review Writing on Learning Engagement in Channel Partner Relationship Management (Aguirre et al. 2018)

Channel partners play a critical role in the financial performance of suppliers. One way in which suppliers can provide useful information to their channel partners is through partner relationship management strategies. Aguirre et al. 2018 provide recommendations for how these strategies can generate the most engagement amongst channel partners.

December 21, 2020

Multichannel Strategies for Managing the Profitability of Business-to-Business Customers (Lawrence et al. 2019)

Companies selling to B2B customers face two key issues: managing the salesperson channel and managing the customer-specific discounts often utilized to drive sales. Companies must determine if customers using online channels would benefit from also being served using salesperson channels, or if utilizing salespeople in such a way would be a waste of valuable resources. Lawrence et al. (2019) provide compelling evidence that sellers gain approximately twice as much net profit from customers that have greater contact with salespeople. The interpersonal relationships that salespeople forge with buyers in the B2B context may bring forth positive financial outcomes.

November 14, 2020

Social Comparison in Retailer–Supplier Relationships: Referent Discrepancy Effects (Lee and Griffith 2019)

While maintaining relationships between different parties proves imperative across business contexts, the task often becomes challenging in the business-to-business (B2B) domain. Perceptions of fairness in retailer-supplier relationships are a key issue in B2B relationships. Due to multiple suppliers often having active relationships with the same retailer, these perceptions can lead to conflicts. Recent research by Lee and Griffith (2019) studied the social comparisons that occurs, and focus on distributive fairness, reference discrepancies, and tie strength.

November 7, 2020

The Relative Effects of B2B (vs. B2C) Service Innovations on Firm Value (Dotzel and Shankar 2019)

As B2B firms increasingly become service-dominant in hopes of building lasting customer relationships, it becomes imperative to determine if the resources and expertise needed to implement B2B service innovations also create increased risk for B2B firms. The differences between customer and business markets find that the impact of service innovations varies across B2B and B2C domains.

November 1, 2020

Business-to-Business E-Negotiations and Influence Tactics (Singh et al. 2020)

Sales negotiation over email exchanges between sellers and buyers (e-negotiation) is increasingly common in B2B sales. The use of influential tactics as textual cues in emails to manage buyers’ attention significantly affects sales outcomes. To test the effectiveness of influential tactics in e-negotiations, the authors of this study analyze seller-buyer emails over a two-year period part of 40 e-negotiations, along with other data sources and a controlled experiment. In an era where remote working is more prevalent than ever, e-negotiations are more important than ever. It underscores the relevance of this research.

September 28, 2020

Should a B2B Firm Have a Customer on the Board of Directors? (Bommaraju et al.)

One way to gain insight into their customers’ needs is to invite customers to have a seat on the board of directors. Based on a sample of 329 B2B firms in S&P 900 firms over nine-year period (2007-2015), Bommaraju et al. (2019) concluded that having a customer on the board of directors enhances customer orientation of firms and provides unique insights, especially when demand uncertainty is high.

September 3, 2020

The Relative Influence of Economic and Relational Direct Marketing Communications on Buying Behavior in B2B Markets (Kim and Kumar)

B2B firms spend significant resources in direct marketing to manage their customer relationships. Firms should understand how customers evaluate these organizational marketing communications, which ultimately affect their buying behaviors. Based on four years of customer relationship management data of a Fortune 500 B2B service firm, Kim and Kumar (2018) built a model that aids B2B firms to strategically allocate marketing resources across economic and relational value messaging.

August 31, 2020

The Temporary Marketing Organization (Hadida, Heide, and Bell)

As marketing departments are shrinking and CMO tenures are getting shorter, marketers are increasingly relying on temporary marketing organizations to meets objectives with immediate impacts. However, temporary marketing organizations’ outcomes exhibit high variance. Thus, Hadida et al. (2019) propose a conceptual framework to guide firms in determination of the most appropriate selection and enforcement mechanisms depending on the form of temporary marketing organization.

August 11, 2020

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