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The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the elevation of the business-to-business (B2B) marketing field at the business school level.

The study follows a Delphi method. The authors conducted two rounds of discovery to answer: why do you think universities do not highly appreciate publications in Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing or Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing? What would you suggest for improving the impact of such journals not only in the USA but around the world?

Through the analysis of the coding transcript, four categories were found to elevate the B2B marketing field at the business school level: B2B as uncommon ground, B2B researcher practices, marketing science underpinnings and B2B marketing journals management.

The value of current research is based on its explorative nature and application of grounded theory to provide a framework to analyze how to elevate the B2B marketing field at the business school level.

This study examines the potential of foreign business-to-business (B2B) firms to select high-status local partners in emerging markets to achieve positive relationship outcomes. Because a domestic firm’s high status may also promote opportunism, the study also examines if the foreign B2B firms may mitigate such behavior through either or both transaction-specific investments (TSIs) and socialization.

The research is conducted via a model that suggests a positive correlation between high local partner status and the focal relationship outcomes and the moderating effects of structural TSIs and social governance systems. The model was developed and empirically tested using data collected from 96 foreign firms operating in China.

Using multiple regressions, the findings suggest that foreign B2B firms are likely to achieve more beneficial relationship outcomes with high-status local partners. Standing alone, foreign B2B firms’ TSIs mitigate the positive relationship outcomes, whereas their socialization with the high-status partners enhances the beneficial outcomes. Most importantly, combining socialization with TSIs increases beneficial outcomes.

This study adds to B2B marketing, status theory and the application of transaction cost economics (TCE) and social exchange theory to foreign-local B2B exchange relationships in emerging markets. The findings confirm the attractiveness of high status in emerging markets by exploring how the selection, formation and chosen B2B governance processes may lead to competing outcomes of opportunism or success. Future research will benefit from simultaneously securing data from both sides of the dyad.

The paper suggests that foreign B2B firms consider high status as a key criterion in selecting local partners in emerging markets and the importance of managing high-status partners’ potential opportunism by effective governance mechanisms.

This study is one of the first to apply and explore the workings of status theory in the foreign-local B2B partner selection process and relationship outcomes in emerging markets and thereby contributes to B2B marketing, status theory and both TCE and social exchange theories in the focal foreign-local B2B context.

Drawing on Resource-based Theory, the purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the effect of International Strategic Brand Management (SBM) on export performance within the Business-to-Business (B2B) context. To be able to purposely assess the relationship, this paper also sets out to discover what antecedent international resources, (financial resources) and international capabilities (market information, branding and marketing planning) contribute to the ability of B2B exporters to effectively manage their brands abroad.

A mixed method firm-level approach was employed. First, a qualitative study of 34 in-depth interviews explored the focal inter-relationships and constructs identified within the literature. A survey of 208 successful UK exporters was then conducted and the results were analysed using structured equation modelling.

The results confirm that certain marketing capabilities (branding and marketing planning) are advantageous antecedents to the employment of effective SBM in foreign markets which, in turn, leads to increased financial and market performance internationally.

This paper outlines practical brand management considerations managers need to account for to achieve effective exporting. Practitioners are advised to prioritise the development of robust international branding and marketing planning capabilities which can enable them to exploit their limited financial resources for optimal benefits. Furthermore, by developing these capabilities, firms can focus on the essence of their brand and communicate their brand image through the effective strategic management of their brand to business customers, evoking positive brand associations, enhanced perceived brand value and the achievement of increased export performance.

This paper is the first to focus on international SBM as the deterministic factor leading to improved B2B export performance. An innovative framework is offered which positions the pivotal role of International SBM as the central focus. The construct for international branding capabilities is extended specifically for use in the B2B domain.

This paper aims to help challenger marketers identify and target the right customer organization.

This paper adopts a customer organization profiling route to targeting for challenger marketing that is predicated on a thematic analysis of key findings of customer organization profiles from an international case study.

This paper introduces and explains the concepts of aggressiveness to succeed, compatibility of offerings, openness to new ideas and willingness to take action (or A-C-O-W) as components of a newly developed customer organization profiling matrix for challenger marketing.

The A-C-O-W customer organization profiling matrix offers a fresh conceptual outlook for targeting customer organizations using a challenger marketing approach in the contemporary business-to-business (B2B) marketplace.

The A-C-O-W customer organization profiling matrix illuminates how challenger marketers can target the right customer organizations in the contemporary B2B marketplace.

The A-C-O-W customer organization profiling matrix is a pioneering concept for challenger marketing in B2B theory and practice.

The purpose of this paper is to apply an economic sociology perspective to the activity–resource–actor (ARA) interaction model for business relationships. Interaction has been chosen as a conceptual domain where economic sociology has a particularly high potential to advance business-to-business (B2B) marketing in terms of its future research directions.

The paper provides a structured account of economic sociology through the description of eight key economic sociology concepts and discussion of the structuration theory. This is followed by an overview of the usage of the eight key economic sociology concepts in current B2B marketing research, and concludes with outlining eight specific future research directions which guide future research on interaction in business relationships.

Eight economic sociology concepts are identified: embeddedness, networks, institutions, power, social capital, identity, social structures and cognition. An overview of the application of these constructs within the B2B marketing literature shows how most of them are used as metaphors with a gap in understanding their economic sociology background.

Future research directions are described individually, do not include potential interaction effects and are developed within the ARA interaction model framework. Given the conceptual nature of the paper, it does not provide any empirical data and illustrations related to any of the eight key economic sociology concepts.

The paper answers a call for a wider integration of economic sociology into the B2B marketing literature. It provides a systematic eight-concept economic sociology framework to be used by B2B marketing theorists and researchers. The paper finishes with eight concrete future research directions through which an economic sociology perspective can help advance B2B marketing theory and business relationship management practice. A brief discussion of managerial implications is also provided at the end.

This chapter documents the contributions in the business-to-business (B2B) marketing–buying literature that focus on implemented strategies in specific contexts. Research on implemented strategies often includes thick descriptions of how things actually get done over a period of weeks, months, or years including how decision makers make sense of situations, go about processing information, make choices, interact with other decision makers, participate in specific actions, and interpret events and outcomes. Research on implemented strategies favors “direct research” (Mintzberg, 1979) that includes multiple face-to-face interviews of the same and different participants in B2B processes over the course of days, week, months, or years. Direct research is inherently inductive theory-building and case-based data driven in its theory-empirical approach. Direct research includes applying a number of possible research methods and results in a number of advances in B2B implemented-strategy-in-context theory.

This article aims to identify methodological openings and barriers for using managerial relevance as a method to further business to business (B2B) marketing theory.

There is currently an imbalance between two research modes; notably, the normative knowledge accumulation mode confers scant space to the solution mode. This negatively affects both the production of managerially relevant research and theoretical developments within B2B marketing which, in turn, hinders the development of marketing as an applied science. Against the background of an upgraded methodological cartography, emphasizing the equal importance of the two research modes, this article illustrates the context of using managerial relevance as a method to forward B2B marketing theory. An aggregate picture of corresponding calls in the literature shows why this is important.

Calls for increased managerial relevance and methodological diversity outside the normative knowledge accumulation mode will face difficulties in terms of changing researcher behavior, as long as the biased relationship between the two research modes persists. For managerially relevant research to increase, and for B2B marketing science to progress, underlying assumptions of different methodological stances have to be uncovered, calling for increased methodological clarity.

To prevent a relapse, the analysis suggests a further strategy by which to modify schematic models to study organizational change and behavior.

A more significant role attributed to managerial relevance for theory development early in the research process, permits to align the perspectives of research with the needs of practice and will decrease the research–practice gap.

The article pinpoints two research modes and three epistemological stances – predict, describe and depict – which sharpens methodological clarity beyond traditional qualitative–quantitative, and conceptual–empirical classifications.

This final chapter of the book provides an up-to-date overview of research on B2B branding. The chapter discusses the current academic endeavors and propositions from researchers in the field, while focusing on the discipline of B2B marketing. It furthermore elaborates on the importance of brands and branding for decision-making processes by discussing the role of B2B buyers and sellers. Additionally, branding as part of marketing has been reviewed from its historical background and the first attempts to develop its conceptual background. The chapter then focuses on business buyers and their main characteristics with regard to brand relevance. Finally, the key challenges of developing a strong B2B brand are presented and discussed, after which future research avenues and upcoming trends within the B2B branding context are considered. Digitalization and the digital context are identified as important areas to know in the future, as they are increasingly becoming important stages for marketing activities within the B2B domain. The digital context is a specific platform to explore further. In addition, the intangible aspects of B2B branding that are still unknown to many managers and academics, such as emotions in situations of interaction and sales are explored. From a thematic point of view, sustainability issues will become increasingly important to handle in organizations, which will put pressure on B2B marketers, as sustainability can be communicated through the corporate brand and related branding efforts.

This study aims to investigate how business-to-business (B2B) companies use message strategies on social media platform and how these strategies are effective in improving customer perceived value and encouraging customer engagement, as well as how B2B companies differ from business-to-customer (B2C) counterparts in terms of utilization and effectiveness of social media message strategy.

Based on content analysis of Sina Weibo brand pages and survey of website visitors, this paper examines the differences of social media message strategies and their impacts upon customer perceived value and customer engagement between B2B and B2C companies.

B2B companies use more rational appeals and less emotional appeals, have lower degree of informativeness and perform better in interactivity and variety than B2C companies. These five dimensions of message strategy have different roles in engaging customers via perceived value across B2B and B2C settings.

The research makes significant contributions to B2B social media marketing literature by answering two interrelated questions, namely, “What companies are doing?” and “What companies should do?” on social media websites. Besides, it provides insightful implications for B2B companies on how to implement appropriate message strategies in their social media marketing efforts by conducting Importance-Performance Analysis.

Digitalisation has increased the importance of online forms of marketing, including social media (SM) marketing, for entrepreneurial firms. This paper aims to identify digital engagement strategies and tactics in developing SM marketing capability.

The study uses ethnographic content analysis of an entrepreneurial firm and a network of business-to-business (B2B) actors to classify 1,248 B2B Facebook posts and Twitter tweets from a case of an artisan food producer in addition to semi-structured interviews with 26 networked actors.

The authors derive a range of digital engagement strategies (8 in total) and tactics (15 in total) for the four defining layers of SM marketing capability, namely, connect, engage, co-ordinate and collaborate.

This research focuses on a case study and a network of B2B actors within the artisan food sector. However, the strategies and tactics are applicable to other entrepreneurial firms and contexts.

The digital engagement strategies and tactics are of direct practical benefit to entrepreneurial firms willing to learn and develop SM marketing capability in interaction with their B2B partners.

This study investigates three under-researched areas, SM as it relates to B2B relationships, and entrepreneurship, and marketing capability gaps in an era of rapid digitalisation. The definition of SM marketing capability and associated digital engagement strategies and tactics are new to the extant literature moving forward the understanding of SM B2B marketing in theory and practice.