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Many manufacturing firms entrust partners to provide services on their behalf. However, it is not clear whether and when firms can capture the potential value advantages of outsourcing business services. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of different types of business service outsourcing on firm value.

The paper uses event study methodology to estimate the impact of business service outsourcing announcements on abnormal returns of publicly traded manufacturing companies in Europe.

External service outsourcing that directly affects the company’s customers leads to more favorable outcomes than internal service outsourcing. This effect is contingent on the strategic outsourcing intention, the service’s reliance on technology, and the choice of the outsourcing partner.

Findings show that firm value depends critically on the service value it delivers to customers. Future research could explore further contingency variables, and investigate the role of service outsourcing networks and relationships.

The insights of this study help managers to decide why, how, and to whom they should outsource their business services, as well as how to justify their outsourcing decisions, and how to communicate them toward the financial markets.

This research sheds light on the value implications of outsourcing decisions. Two types of business service outsourcing are distinguished, namely, internal and external. Furthermore, the study enhances our understanding of a contingency perspective on service outsourcing decisions.

This study aims to conceptually propose and empirically validate a path perspective on the servitization process of manufacturing firms. It identifies a customer and an outcome path to servitization, sheds light on the pivotal role of digital technology usage for both value-creating paths and explores their financial and relational performance outcomes.

The authors use a mixed-method approach, combining a qualitative study with a cross-sectional survey in the USA, the UK and Germany.

Manufacturing firms choose between two generic paths to servitization, a customer and an outcome path. Digital technology usage is equally important for both value-creating paths. Progress on the outcome path has a positive effect on firms’ financial performance, whereas the customer path has an indirect effect only, fully mediated by firms’ relational performance. Customer tenure and customer’s open-mindedness are contingency variables in the digital technology usage – servitization path – firm performance framework.

A path perspective is useful to conceptualize the servitization processes in manufacturing industries. Future research should investigate the sequential choice of servitization paths and explore its drivers and performance outcomes.

To create and claim superior value for their customers, managers can choose between two servitization paths, leading to differential performance outcomes. While digital technology usage is key to progress on both paths, it is particularly effective for newly acquired customers on the customer path. Suppliers should target their value-creating service offerings at open-minded customer firms to reap their full performance potential.

Propose and empirically validate a path-perspective on servitization. Understand the pivotal importance of digital technology usage for both servitization paths.

Business marketers increasingly pursue greater shares of their customers' business. While the merits of such a strategy are straightforward from a supplier perspective, this paper aims to explore its consequences from the customer's point‐of‐view.

Drawing on resource‐dependence theory, value and dependence are established as fundamental characteristics of buyer‐seller relationships. Data envelopment analysis is used as a benchmarking tool to integrate these characteristics into a common efficiency score indicating the customer‐perceived attractiveness of a sourcing relationship. A post‐DEA‐regression‐analysis explores the link between sourcing attractiveness and relative customer share.

This research suggests a quadratic relationship between sourcing attractiveness and relative customer share. The perceived level of sourcing attractiveness improves until the local maximum is reached and declines beyond a relative customer share of 61.33 per cent.

Additional fraction of variability (R²) in sourcing attractiveness explained by customer share displays a modest, yet substantial, level. Studies on customer share in comparable contexts found similarly low levels.

Sourcing attractiveness provides an interesting metric for assisting managers in their decision‐making. Instead of comparing supplier relationships across the board, the proposed approach allows to compare relationships against their best‐in‐class benchmark. Findings suggest that the vast majority of supplier relationships still offers avenues for further improving the existing supply bases. Pushing the share of customer beyond its optimum level, however, will have negative consequences for the customer‐perceived attractiveness of the sourcing relationship.

The paper contributes to a better understanding of the consequences of customer share marketing from the customer's perspective.

Established models of buyer‐seller relationships do not reflect managerial emphasis on supplier performance evaluation when modelling business relationships. Proposes that relationship value should be included as a key constituent in such models. Aims to explore the construct's links with key constituents of relationship quality, i.e. commitment, satisfaction, and trust.

A two‐stage research design was used. First, depth‐interviews were conducted with ten senior‐level purchasing managers in US manufacturing companies. Second, data were gathered in a nation‐wide mail survey among 400 purchasing professionals.

The findings suggest that relationship value is an antecedent to relationship quality and behavioural outcomes in the nomological network of relationship marketing. Value displays a stronger impact on satisfaction than on commitment and trust. Value also directly impacts a customer's intention to expand business with a supplier. In turn, its impact on the propensity to leave a relationship is mediated by relationship quality. Contrary to previous research, trust does not appear in this study as an antecedent of behavioural outcomes, but as a mediator of the satisfaction‐commitment link.

Confirms the role of value as a key relationship building‐block. Researchers should integrate this cognitive performance‐based construct in models of business relationships. Limitations and research directions refer to the sampling procedure, the need to include the supplier's value perceptions, the possibility of conducting longitudinal research, and the opportunity to assess additional moderating variables.

When the goal is to increase business with an existing customer, managers should focus on relationship value. In turn, when managers are concerned with the risk of customers leaving a relationship, they should focus on relationship quality. Trust appears as an important ingredient in stabilising existing business relationships.

Stresses the pivotal role of relationship value in marketing. Contributes to a better fit between relationship marketing models and managerial practice in business markets.

Research on customer-perceived relationship value (CPRV) in business-to-business (B2B) markets has flourished over the past two decades. This paper aims to meta-analytically take stock of this research stream. It creates a comprehensive overview of the theoretical bases of CPRV research and establishes CPRV in its nomological network. The latter includes relationship benefits and sacrifices, offer quality, trust, switching costs, satisfaction, commitment, loyalty and salience of alternatives. Meaningful boundary conditions of the links to and from CPRV emerge from this research.

To locate suitable primary studies for inclusion in this meta-analysis, a comprehensive literature search was performed. Selection criteria ensured that only suitable B2B samples were included. Meta-analytical random and mixed-effects models were performed on a sample of k = 83 independent data sets from 94 primary publications, with a total n = 22,305.

All constructs are strongly related to CPRV in the expected direction, except for switching costs and salience of alternatives with a moderate relationship and relationship sacrifices with a non-significant mean association. Firm type (manufacturing, non-manufacturing), key informant role (purchaser, non-purchaser), supplier offering type (goods, services) and measurement approach (reflective, formative) function as boundary conditions in the moderation analysis.

This study is one of the very rare meta-analyses that draws exclusively from B2B marketing primary studies. It summarizes and solidifies the current theoretical and empirical knowledge on CPRV in business markets. The novel inclusion of boundary conditions offers additional insight over primary studies and makes for interesting new research directions.

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in the value construct among both marketing researchers and practitioners. Despite a growing body of research, it is still not clear how value interacts with related marketing constructs. Researchers have called for an investigation of the interrelationship between customer satisfaction and customer value to reduce the ambiguities surrounding both concepts. Investigates whether customer value and satisfaction represent two theoretically and empirically distinct concepts. Also addresses whether value is a better predictor of behavioral outcomes than satisfaction in a business marketing context. Two alternative models are developed and empirically tested in a cross‐sectional survey with purchasing managers in Germany. The first model suggests a direct impact of perceived value on the purchasing managers’ intentions. In the second model, perceived value is mediated by satisfaction. This research suggests that value and satisfaction can be conceptualized and measured as two distinct, yet complementary constructs.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Manufacturing firms transitioning from product to more service-oriented offerings have scope to enhance value creation for their customers by following an appropriate pathway toward servitization. Digital technologies play a critical part in enabling progression along different pathways but the performance impact can be greater when new customers who are open to novel ideas are targeted.

The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

The purpose of this article is to provide a brief summary of all the articles in this special issue.

Briefly discusses each article in this special issue.

This special issue of Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing aims to understand in greater depth both business‐to‐business purchasing and various types of buyer‐seller relationships. The authors selected 14 articles that provide an in‐depth understanding of the critical issues involved in purchasing orientations.

The article highlights how the papers in the special issue seek to understand in greater depth both business‐to‐business purchasing and various types of buyer‐seller relationships.