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Cause-related B2B marketing programs involve sponsoring organisations working with B2B suppliers with the help of non-profit organisations (NPOs) on practises relating to environmental friendliness, workforce diversity, human rights, safety, philanthropy and business ethics. The study aims to identify the combinatory factors driving the adoption of Digital B2B platforms for managing cause-related B2B marketing programs.

The study adopts an innovative approach of fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) on data collated from top corporations in India supporting cause-related B2B marketing programs. Sponsoring organisations and NPO dyads (i.e. survey both) filled out an email survey on 264 cause-related B2B marketing programs.

The study establishes that the combination of technological, organisational and environmental factors would lead to the adoption of Digital B2B platforms in managing cause-related B2B marketing programs. The study identifies six combinations of these factors for adopting Digital B2B platforms within and across sponsoring organisations and NPOs.

The study findings would aid cause-related B2B marketers in developing Digital B2B platforms’ capabilities by understanding the different combinations of factors driving adoption. Digital B2B platforms’ capabilities can improve market performance if developed as core competencies.

The study findings would enable improvements in the implementation and performance of cause-related B2B marketing programs. Better management of cause-related B2B marketing programs would help increase beneficiary coverage and the realisation of societal goals.

To the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to apply the TOE framework in conjunction with complexity theory to explain the diffusion of adoption of Digital B2B platforms for managing cause-related B2B marketing programs.

As B2B firms face increasing scrutiny due to increased stakeholder awareness of environmental and social concerns, doing business with a conscience has become an important imperative. Despite a growing focus on conscientious corporate branding (CCB), the construct has never been clearly defined, and many of the exemplars used to depict CCB have focused on a B2C context. The purpose of this research paper is to define CCB, to develop a framework that leaders can apply to build and manage a conscientious corporate brand and to demonstrate application of the components of the framework in the B2B context.

This study uses an exploratory approach and focuses on extant literature relating to operating with a conscience, including organizational purpose, ethical leadership, ethicalization of the organization, stakeholder co-creation, sustainability and corporate social responsibility.

This study shows how companies in a B2B context can use a framework that includes dimensions of purpose, ethics, stakeholder co-creation, sustainability and CSR to build a CCB through reconciling and integrating leadership and stakeholder perspectives to create and communicate sustainable and responsible behavior.

This study opens the door for further research into the actions required to build CCBs. There is a need to validate the CCB framework in future studies.

This study identifies how to build a conscientious corporate brand and applies it in the B2B context.

This study expands our understanding of CCBs by providing a definition and framework to guide scholars and practitioners. Given the paucity of focus on CCB in the B2B context, the authors exemplify the framework using B2B examples.

Business organizations are evermore expected to behave conscientiously, but a lack of clarity remains regarding this strategy for business-to-business (B2B) brands. This paper aims to develop and validate a B2B brand conscientiousness model that identifies what factors are driving this approach.

The research model is validated through a three-stage study that collects insights from high-level executives, mid-level managers and employees in B2B firms. Whereas the first two exploratory stages follow a qualitative approach to identify what factors motivate B2B firms to be conscientious and develop a model, the third stage empirically tests the proposed model through structural equation modeling.

The results suggest that brand conscientiousness is viewed as an important strategy by B2B stakeholders. Whereas perceived risk discourages, external and internal stakeholder expectations and a firm’s financial commitment to a cause encourage, brands to pursue a conscientious approach. Furthermore, a B2B conscientious strategy must be perceived as authentic. Long-term commitment to the cause, strategic alignment of brand values with the cause and a congruent delivery of the brand’s promise are the drivers of this perceived authenticity.

This paper contributes to the emerging knowledge on B2B conscientious brands by confirming the importance of this approach in a B2B context, identifying the factors that B2B stakeholders – executives, managers and employees – believe are driving it and highlighting the importance and identifying the factors that drive its perceived authenticity.

This study aims to examine the differences in the impact of three leadership styles (transactional, transformational and creative) on intraorganizational online knowledge-sharing and employee creativity. Specifically, we use self-determination theory (SDT) to examine the impact of these three leadership styles on four aspects of online knowledge sharing (knowledge donating, knowledge collecting, lurking and active lurking) and the moderating role of organizational innovation on these relationships.

Data were collected from 361 employees of business-to-business organizations in Vietnam to support all our hypotheses. Structural equation modelling was used for data analysis.

Transformational, transactional and creative leadership were found to affect online knowledge sharing, wherein creative leadership had the most potent effect. Online knowledge sharing was found to mediate the impact of three types of leadership on employee creativity. The results also showed that organizational innovation moderates the influence of leadership on online knowledge sharing.

This paper extends the current knowledge management research on online knowledge sharing by studying two new behaviors (lurking and active lurking), linking diverse leadership styles to these behaviors and employee creativity, and exploring the moderating role of organizational innovation. Our findings shed light on the complexity of the relationship between leadership and online knowledge sharing. This study also provides valuable implications for practitioners to help them choose the most appropriate leadership style for their digitalization process to ensure optimal outcomes.

This interdisciplinary study aims to analyze how service organizations communicate sustainable beliefs in their social media narratives and use them to generate brand awareness, customer recognition and ongoing demand for sustainable service.

A two-phase exploratory analysis of 10,342 tweets from 2019–2020 was conducted by sustainable global corporations to identify best practices for their social media teams operating within a service-based business model. First, the significant themes were identified using an unguided machine learning approach of three types of firms: services, goods and mixed. Next, the full set of tweets with linguistic sentiment analysis was analyzed followed by a deeper view of the services-based organizations based on their strategic focus (business-to-business [B2B] versus mixed).

The findings indicate that tweets that appear to create the highest customer engagement are characterized as having high levels of analytical language, high clout (i.e. are socially relevant), a positive tone, a high number of words and a high number of words per sentence. On the other hand, having complex language in terms of six-letter words does not seem to associate with customer engagement. The last level of analysis shows that B2B services-based corporations with positive tone and higher word count exhibit higher levels of retweets. Implications include providing rational and informational tweets to increase engagement and highlight societal relevance.

Climate change has negative consequences on human and physical capital, and ecosystems across the globe. This study provides specific recommendations for how services corporations can increase their sustainable communications and actions.

The key implication of our research is that corporations must strategically design social media narratives about climate change as part of their online branding and communications process.

Over the last five decades, business to business (B2B) marketing has evolved from a transactional model to a behavioral model. This evolution is a consequence of the rise in thoughts of managing customer journeys, services marketing and acknowledging value co-creation amongst stakeholders. The contemporary B2B marketing strategies of relationship, innovation, sustainability and digital marketing that emerge through the literature review are discussed to demonstrate how they add value to the competitive advantage of firms and facilitate co-creation between business partners to help design the customer journey. The purpose of the paper is to discuss how the apparel industry could implement the B2B marketing strategies highlighted and further suggests a framework of value co-creation. The framework shows the journey between business partners followed by the value propositions as service exchange through resource integration within the service ecosystem.

Through a review of the literature, the evolution of B2B marketing unveils the importance of services marketing and how the marketing strategies discussed add value to the services marketing, this is further explored with propositions of value co-creation between business partners. The propositions are based on the theory of service dominant logic, whereby, the partners in the service ecosystem co-create value from value propositions offered by the business partners in collaboration with supply chain innovation.

A framework is suggested in the context of the apparel industry that demonstrates the value propositions as a part of the B2B marketing strategy. Through resource integration and collaboration between the business partners, the value propositions in the form of services, are exchanged resulting in value co-creation that leads to the ultimate offering to the end customer.

The service dominant logic theory and the supply chain innovation model are the basis of the framework, showing the value propositions made, are in collaboration between the firm and the supply chain partners. The value propositions in the form of services are exchanged as an outcome of resource integration amongst the business partners resulting in value co-creation which will aid apparel manufacturers differentiate their services and manage customer journeys better. The framework will be further researched through primary research to determine its rationality in the real-world context. The nature of the industry being fast paced, the literature will be outdated in a short span of time and with the vast growth, new strategies will need to be executed eventually.

The paper discusses how the apparel industry can move forward with the B2B marketing strategies highlighted through the literature review and further suggests a framework of value co-creation. This will aid apparel manufacturers to focus their marketing efforts in an era of services marketing and compete better globally with service offerings.

The competitive advantage strategies and other key emerging themes of co-creation, value co-creation and customer journeys are highlighted and shows increasing importance to the survival of businesses in an era of service orientation and relationship marketing.

Through a critical literature review of B2B marketing strategies and with the use of theoretical models of service dominant logic and supply chain innovation, the conceptual paper proposes a framework by the authors that allows future research to analyse value co-creation in B2B marketing strategies for the apparel industry.

While few studies have examined business-to-business (B2B) mobile application (app) usage, none have examined the challenges in developing these technological assets. This study aims to examine B2B marketing executives’ perceptions regarding benefits, barriers and facilitators in app development.

A survey of 311 B2B marketing executives at selling firms in the USA was conducted to identify key themes related to the benefits, barriers and facilitators in developing B2B apps. The research featured “open-ended” questions exclusively, and advanced textual and thematic analysis of executives’ responses produced several key themes.

Results show that the perceived benefit of lowering customer servicing and costs drives development more so than trying to realize new revenue opportunities (e.g. “saving” vs. “making” money). Achieving internal buy-in/participation was perceived as a larger barrier than the commitment of financial resources. Additionally, training and education were viewed as the strongest facilitators of an app’s success over its design and functionality. Implications for B2B firms are discussed.

The open-ended format of this research captures a greater breadth of perspectives at the expense of more granular analysis of any particular issue.

The themes generated from the responses offer novel insights into the benefits sought in developing an app, as well as the technological, organizational and environmental factors that act as barriers and facilitators. The open-ended format of this research captures a greater breadth of perspectives at the expense of a more granular analysis of any particular issue.

This study aims to explore challenges and opportunities in the digitalization of the business-to-business (B2B) customer journey in different buying situations. It also investigates where in the customer journey digital marketing is most efficient.

This research adopts a single case study approach to examine a B2B company that implemented digitalization in its customer journey in different buying situations. Data were collected through semistructured interviews, complemented by internal documents and information from the company’s website and social media, to identify reasons for and against the decision to digitalize the B2B customer journey.

Digitalization can offer firms a cost-effective and value-creating way to interact with customers in a B2B context. The B2B buying situation, however, plays a significant role in decisions on how to implement digitalization. Moreover, in the prepurchase phase, digital marketing is more effective in building awareness; in the purchase phase, personal selling is more effective in addressing customers’ needs.

The use of a single case study cannot produce results directly generalizable to other contexts. However, the findings are applicable to the digitalization of B2B customer journeys in similar industrial contexts.

To successfully implement digitalization in the customer journey, B2B firms should choose digital tools according to different buying situations and phases in the customer journey, segment buyers by their needs rather than individual characteristics and integrate the sales and marketing functions.

This study contradicts prior research that claims that digital marketing can be used in a similar way in both B2B and business-to-consumer contexts. It further shows that the relevant demarcation is not between personal sales and digitalization but between automated digital marketing and individualized personal sales, regardless of medium.

The increased digital interactions in the B2B industry have enhanced the importance of customer engagement as a measure of firm performance. This study aims to map and analyze temporal and spatial journeys for customer engagement in B2B markets from a bibliometric perspective.

The extant literature on customer engagement research in the B2B context was analyzed using bibliometric analysis. The citation analysis, keyword analysis, cluster analysis, three-field plot and bibliographic coupling were used to map the intellectual structure of customer engagement in B2B markets.

The research on customer engagement in the B2B context was studied more in western countries. The analysis suggests that customer engagement in B2B markets will take centre stage in the coming times as digital channels make it easier to track critical metrics besides other key factors. Issues like digital transformation, the use of artificial intelligence for virtual engagement, personalization, innovation and salesforce management by leveraging technology would be critical for improved B2B customer engagement.

The study provides a comprehensive reference to scholars working in this domain.

The study makes a pioneering effort to comprehensively analyze the vast corpus of literature on customer engagement in B2B markets for business insights.

This study aims to help uncover corporate culture and values to attract and retain talent by understanding job reviews written by business-to-business (B2B) salespeople.

Over 40,000 job reviews on Glassdoor.com are analyzed by a dictionary-based content analysis tool, Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC2015), to explore the links between corporate culture and linguistics characteristics of reviews as articulated by B2B salespeople. This study adopted a multidimensional scaling approach based on the nine cultural value scores to create a map of corporate profiles. A projection of the LIWC2015 scores on this map uncovers differences in language patterns and emotions expressed across the profiles.

Findings reveal a map of corporate profiles with two dimensions, namely, product-centricity and customer-centricity, that divide salesforce subculture into a 2 × 2 matrix of four types: Empathic Innovators, Product Pioneers, Customer Champions and Commodity Traders.

This study combined two data sets, scores on CultureX’s nine cultural values (agility, collaboration, customer orientation, diversity, execution, innovation, integrity, performance and respect) and job reviews on Glassdoor.com. This research seeks to develop profiles of the organizational culture and to use a blend of qualitative and quantitative methods. This study adds to the literature on salesforce subculture and showcases a solution to the methodological difficulty in categorizing and measuring culture.