Industrial Marketing Management最新文献

In contemporary and global business-to-business (B2B) markets, sales interactions are increasingly conducted via video-based technologies. However, research on the consequences of video-based sales interactions (VSIs) on customer relationships is surprisingly limited. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore the consequences of VSIs on cross-cultural customer relationships. We employ a grounded theory approach and derive empirical insights from interviews with 31 salespeople in 17 sales organizations, and 8 of their customers from 8 customer organizations. The findings reveal how VSIs can enhance or restrict different dimensions (interactive, affective, relational, visual) of social presence in the relationship initiation and maintenance phases, and how this can lead to positive and negative relationship consequences. Overall, this study contributes to B2B marketing theory and practice by providing novel insights and a new understanding of the effects of VSIs on customer relationships and explains why and how they manifest in practice.

Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are promising approaches that B2B companies consider to be part of their customer experience management. However, this area is largely unexplored academically, resulting in a lack of theory and practical guidance. Based on existing customer experience and AR/ VR literature, we anticipate that these technologies can expand touchpoints in the customer journey, enhancing the experiences of professionals involved in purchasing activities by providing them with empowerment and support. Consequently, we applied exploratory, theory-building research to identify and organize current industry practices into a coherent framework and theorize their role in shaping customer experiences. For example, current marketing use cases include project and product visualization, event-based engagement, remote support, and employee training, and are particularly employed in the early stages of the customer journey. We also identified several benefits related to branding, relationships, transactions, costs, and sustainability. The theoretical contribution of our study extends the current understanding of the role of AR and VR in B2B customer experience management. It provides practical insights for B2B marketing professionals on the strategic deployment of AR and VR technologies to enhance customer experiences based on real-world examples.

Cloud computing services represent a rapidly growing business-to-business (B2B) market, but managers lack guidance on managing the customer journey for these complex digital services. To address this challenge, we conduct an exploratory qualitative study based on 20 interviews with providers and customers of cloud computing services, supplemented by data from observations. Our research highlights critical touchpoints along the customer journey in cloud computing markets and provides implications for B2B customer journey management. A key finding is that B2B customers' IT competency is a crucial differentiator in this market. That is, while IT-savvy companies evaluate these services independently and use them in a self-service fashion, IT-novice companies rely on multipliers (e.g., IT system houses) to act as support and gatekeepers to buying cloud computing services. This difference has implications for the composition of buying and usage centers, the development of the customer journey, and the control of touchpoints by the service provider. Thus, cloud service providers need to manage two types of customer journey: one directly focused on customers and another involving the management of multipliers. Based on these findings, we offer recommendations for B2B practitioners to guide their customers through the journey for this complex digital service.

Customer analytics capability remains underdeveloped among firms despite its potential for enhancing competitiveness. Previous research has predominantly focused on inside-out organizational factors as drivers of customer analytics capability. This paper examines the role of outside-in resource, the complementarity between outside-in and inside-out resources, and their boundary conditions. Specifically, we study how customer orientation culture (an outside-in resource) complements data-driven culture (an inside-out resource) in firms of different ages to drive customer analytics capability and subsequently, firm performance. Using survey data obtained from Canadian firms, we find that customer orientation is not only positively related to customer analytics capability but also reinforces the effect of data-driven culture. We further find that the conditional effect of customer orientation becomes stronger as firm age increases. In particular, among older firms, the impact of data-driven culture is greatest when customer orientation is high, but it becomes nonsignificant when customer orientation is low. We also link these relationships to firm performance using mediation and moderated mediation analyses. Overall, the results suggest that achieving customer analytics excellence and resultant competitive performance requires marketing to continuously act as customer champions and advocate data analytics efforts to ensure the firm embraces an outside-in orientation.

This paper investigates the relationship between managerial ties (business and political ties) and firm performance (operational performance and innovation). We consider marketing capabilities as a mediating variable to analyze how it mediates the relationship between managerial ties and firm performance. Previous studies have often taken a piecemeal approach to examining the ties-performance linkage and have been limited by sample size. We use a meta-analytic structural equation modeling (meta-SEM) approach to analyze the proposed relationship. We consider 281 studies assessing 943,331 effect sizes to analyze the results. To investigate the relationship, we consider social exchange and resource-based theory. The results suggest that business (political) ties are positively (negatively) associated with operational performance, while both business and political ties are positively associated with innovation. Further, our result suggests that (a) approximately 14.2% of the effect of business ties on innovation is mediated by marketing capabilities and (b) industry type moderates the relationship between ties and performance. This study helps managers leverage managerial ties to improve firm performance and further suggests a proper mechanism through which firms can improve performance.

While the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) holds much promise, there is a mismatch between its potential and companies capturing value from investments in IIoT. Indeed, even when companies recognize the value of IIoT, they do not necessarily know how to grasp related opportunities and are challenged in developing a suitable business model. Accordingly, to alleviate roadblocks to capturing value from IIoT, in this paper we address the challenge of identifying suitable business models in the age of the industrial metaverse. We do so through an extensive review and classification of main IIoT business model archetypes that are successful in practice. In particular, we conduct a content analysis of IIoT projects based on over 2000 articles in industry trade magazines and newspapers. Our analysis identifies four distinct business model archetypes in the context of IIoT, viz. IIoT digical, IIoT service-centered, IIoT data-driven, and IIoT platform, and further explores the challenges that need to be addressed to ensure that companies can capture value from their IIoT initiatives. We explore appropriate contexts for these business model archetypes, and, in doing so, we provide actionable guidance for industrial (marketing) managers seeking to position their IIoT offerings and maximize their value.

Sustainability is at the top of the agenda of most tech companies. Specifically, tech companies increasingly utilize artificial intelligence (AI) to meet their sustainability goals. However, little is known about how tech companies can leverage AI to accelerate sustainability by formulating and implementing appropriate strategies. To better understand the intertwined nature of AI and sustainability from a strategy perspective, this research conceptually develops a novel AI x Sustainability framework by drawing from the nested sustainability model and integrating insights from different literature streams. It then applies this framework to six leading Big Tech companies (i.e., Amazon, Google, IBM, Meta, Microsoft, and SAP) by conducting a comprehensive document analysis of 69 documents describing 244 individual AI x Sustainability initiatives to reveal whether and how these companies appear to follow specific AI x Sustainability strategies. Lastly, an exploratory survey with potential tech companies' clients (N = 192) sheds light on how clients perceive tech companies' communicated strategic positioning based on the framework. The research provides new theoretical insights, serves as a blueprint for other tech companies, including implications for their AI x Sustainability positioning, and offers a variety of future research directions.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing every facet of the business landscape. Early adopter firms have implemented AI for various reasons, but the number one benefit realized is increased innovation (Jyoti & Riley, 2022). Early adopters of AI for new product development (NPD) not only demonstrate that AI finds many applications in NPD, but also offers substantial payoffs. This AI revolution is coming fast, estimated to have a 13–15 year window of adoption, peaking before the end of this decade.

This article focuses on AI applications in three target areas in the new product process, where the need for better solutions is high, and the applications for AI show significant benefits. They are: 1) idea generation and concept creation and testing; 2) building a robust business case leading to better “go-to-development” investment decisions; and 3) the design, engineering, development, and testing of the product. AI applications in each of these three target areas are described briefly, along with some in-depth case illustrations of AI at work in NPD, and the benefits achieved by leading firms. These benefits include a remarkable reduction in development and testing times; optimally designed products; better and more appealing new product ideas and concepts; and more effective and productive voice-of-customer studies.

Despite the reported benefits of AI in NPD, the adoption rate is quite low, about 13% across firms globally (McKinsey, 2023); thus, AI for NPD was in the “early adopter” stage of the Rogers diffusion of innovation curve by early 2023. Impediments to adoption are outlined, based on numerous studies: the lack of a strong business case; high perceived costs of adoption; the lack of corporate readiness and the right mindset; and risks and ethical issues.

High uncertainties remain regarding the adoption of AI in NPD, and many unknowns still exist; thus, numerous opportunities for academic research are identified in the form of research questions begging to be answered. The article ends with a call to action, aimed at both practitioners and academics: AI is the most significant innovation in our lifetime! It's time we all got on board.

Data breaches are becoming a growing concern causing customer data vulnerability levels to increase. Arguably, data breach vulnerabilities are more detrimental in business-to-business (B2B) rather than in business-to-consumer (B2C) settings; yet more is known about B2C than B2B. Building on social contract theory, this research explores the impact of buyer data breach vulnerability if a buyer or buyer firm's information is compromised by a major supplier. An empirical model is proposed and tested. Results from 606 B2B buyers indicate that buyer vulnerabilities reduce buyer trust, whereas it increases their level of dissatisfaction, and their intent to take protective actions and switch to another supplier. Buyer trust increases relationship commitment and brand reputation, while dissatisfaction decreases them. Trust and dissatisfaction fully mediate the relationship from vulnerability to relationship commitment and brand reputation. Loss of a buyer's (buyer’ firm) information impacts not only (supplier-) buyer-related outcomes but also (buyer-) supplier-related outcomes, indicating spillover effects. Furthermore, results indicate the moderating effects of the affected party (whose information is compromised) on the buyer- and supplier-related outcomes as well as relationship quality factors. These findings indicate that B2B data breaches can have detrimental consequences. To mitigate these negative outcomes, managers should emphasize building and sustaining relationship quality, as well as employ good privacy practices through transparent and clear policies and giving users control of their data. An appropriate communication plan to inform the victims of the data breach may also help mitigate the effects of data loss.

Previous studies have addressed social media adoption in business-to-business (B2B) contexts, but limited research has focused on understanding social media marketing assimilation in the B2B context. Using an integrative model, this study examines how top management participation influences the assimilation of social media in the key marketing areas of product development, pricing decision-making, channel management, and promotion. Furthermore, it examines the resulting impact of these assimilations on B2B firms' performance, particularly in respect of sales performance and relationship development. The study also examines the moderating impact of absorptive capacity on top management participation in the assimilation processes. The findings reveal that top management participation strongly influences social media assimilation into marketing functions. However, the impact of social media assimilation on B2B firms' performance is varied. While assimilation for channel management positively impacts both sales performance and relationship development, assimilation for product development is only positively related to relationship development. Conversely, assimilation into the functions of pricing decisions and promotion activities shows no significant impact on either sales performance or relationship development. Finally, absorptive capacity positively moderates top management participation in social media assimilation into all key marketing functions except one. The theoretical and managerial implications of these findings are discussed.