ISBM at the Penn State Smeal College of Business – Academic Institute supporting B2B Research. Switch to the ISBM-Corporate website.
ISBM at the Penn State Smeal College of Business – Academic Institute supporting B2B Research. Switch to
Collaborative actions between peer firms can ultimately contribute to industry growth in a three stage process.
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.
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.
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.
The level of trust in the government, organizations, traditional and social media has never been lower. As a result, when interacting with customer service representatives, customers may be emotionally charged. Research in language use in service interactions may help to build customer trust and confidence even in these uncertain times.
Reseller selection efforts are costly, time consuming, and are sometimes questioned as effective governance mechanisms. Nevertheless, reseller selection efforts are justified as they lower suppliers’ ex post transaction costs amd weaken the likelihood of resellers’ possible exploitation of supplier-reseller relationship in the case of supplier’s investments in the relationship, and promote value creation. Analyzing two waves of surveys in a B2B supplier-reseller context, the authors of this study insights on relationship governance dynamics of reseller selection efforts.
B2B firms are increasingly shifting to offer service solutions as competitive and commoditization threats increase. However, much of these shifts to service-oriented offerings have generated mixed results. The authors investigate this problem as a governance problem and highlight that the different phases of solutions development (experimentation, integration, and evolution) expose actors to various governance tensions.
In this Marketing in Uncertain Times Town Hall, as states and businesses start to reopen after COVID-19 shutdowns, this session focuses on reviving customer connections. Hear from expert panelists Laura Patterson, President of VisionEdge Marketing, Inc. and Bob Thomas, Professor of Marketing at Georgetown University and ISBM Fellow & Mastery Curriculum instructor.
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.
Agency theory has proved to be useful as a theoretical and empirical lens for examining a wide range of issues in business to business markets. This chapter attempts to explore the current and potential (future) applications of agency theory in business markets. First, the chapter explains the major constructs embedded in agency theory, the assumptions underlying the theoretical structure, and the classes of problems to which this structure is inherently well suited. Next, the key characteristics of business to business marketing are discussed, as well as the demands that these characteristics impose on incumbent theories which seek to shed light on business markets. Following, the the range of issues in business markets to which agency theory might be productively applied is outlined, along with modifications/extensions required to accommodate unique features of these markets. Finally, emerging areas of interest are reviewed, identifying promising areas for future research.
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