academic research

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

Strategies to Connect with Barricaded Buyers (Chase and Murtha)

When responding to a Request for Proposal (RFP) in both the public and the private sector, suppliers’ access to buyers is often restricted due to law and informal rules of engagement. The authors term these buyers ‘barricaded buyers’. Despite having limited access to these individuals, suppliers can still increase their competitiveness and selection likelihood when selling to barricaded buyers.

August 6, 2020

Business Cycles Research in Marketing (Dekimpe and Deleersnyder) (open access)

Facing the economic consequences of the current COVID-19 pandemic, a recession seems inevitable. In the light of a likely downturn in the economy, academic research on business cycles is more relevant than ever before. For this purpose, we selected a review article by Marnik Dekimpe and Barbara Deleersnyder (Tilburg University), published in 2018, that synergizes the evidence presented in 31 post-2000 marketing studies focusing on the impact of business cycles.

July 17, 2020

Partnering with Nonprofits to Confront a Crisis (Ballesteros and Gatignon)

The private sector cannot wait and see until the COVID-19 storm is over. They need to act, and be part of the solution. Helping out now may regain the trust that the private sector has lost recently, by demonstrating its ability of mobilizing resources, generating innovations, and scaling them up fast. However, in doing so, firms should consider the unique abilities of the nonprofit sector in times of disaster and crises.

April 21, 2020

Understanding the Long-Term Implications of Retailer Returns in B2B relationships (Beitelspacher et al.)

Beitelspacher et al. (2018), used longitudinal survey data and supplier CRM data of a global sporting goods supplier to analyze the effects of returns on salespeople behavior and future retailers returns. The authors found that conceptualization of exchanges between suppliers and retailers as reciprocal rather than negotiated enhances relationship building efforts. This article also highlights the importance of salespeople’s ability to recognize that negative occurrences (i.e. returns that might lower their sales achievements and commissions) could be turned into positive opportunities.

April 14, 2020

Disentangling the effect of services on B2B firm value: Trade-offs of sales, profits, and earnings volatility (Nezami, Worm, and Palmatier)

Many B2B manufacturers have moved from their previously successful product-centric strategies to more service-oriented business models. Yet despite their substantial investments in services, firms fail to understand the performance ramifications of these offerings. With a longitudinal data set of 227 B2B manufacturers listed in the S&P 1500 index, this study disentangles the simultaneous effects of financial-based mechanisms that link the service ratio (i.e., share of a firm’s revenue generated from selling services) to firm value.

April 6, 2020

Marketing Channel Management by Multinational Corporations in Foreign Markets (Grewal et al.)

Multinational corporations require ongoing management of marketing channels, leading to challenges rooted in complex relationships between HQ-subsidiaries, subsidiaries-local channel partners, and third-party mediators at each host country level. For effective channel management, HQ should align subsidiary goals with HQ’s strategic motives and leverage subsidiary networks. This could be achieved by informal decision-making processes with subsidiaries to boost performance, or by moving employees across subsidiary networks.

March 30, 2020

Book: Unlocking the Customer Value Chain: How Decoupling Drives Consumer Disruption

In his book ‘Unlocking the Customer Value Chain, Harvard Business School professor Thales Texeira describes how the disruption of an industry is driven by customer behavior rather than technologies. Innovative new business models allow startups to ‘decouple the value chain’ – picking one aspect of an incumbent’s business model and doing it better.

March 20, 2020

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