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The COVID pandemic has prompted B2B and industrial marketing scholars to understand more about how external disruptions impact parties involved in B2B transactions. This paper aims to adopt an ecosystem perspective to conceptually classify the interactions between actors involved in B2B ecosystems.

This conceptual paper presents a framework across multiple levels of ecosystem interactions (at micro, meso and macrolevels) to illustrate how value cocreation and knowledge flows (as mechanisms underlying B2B relationships) are related to firm performance.

Based on this framework, this paper offers propositions and several research questions about the effects of disruptions and how they propagate among these essential business ecosystem elements.

This conceptual framework underscores the vital role of relationships and interactions in shaping B2B ecosystems, especially during disruptive periods. With a greater understanding of how these interactions operate across levels (micro, meso and macro), scholars and practitioners may be better able to navigate disruptive periods.

This paper illustrates how online databases, available from commercial vendors, can be used as the foundation for developing new business strategies. Emphasis is placed on the use of customer relationship management (CRM) ideas to identify new prospective customers for a high‐tech B2B firm. Specifically, the concept of customer lifetime value was used to evaluate current customers and match their profiles with the profiles of new prospects from the database. Once high‐quality new prospects were identified and prioritized, the company’s salesforce had a much clearer path to follow towards success. The paper contributes to the competitive strategy literature by documenting the successful use of a CRM approach to develop marketing strategies and tactics for a B2B firm that is seeking growth by acquiring new customers.

The purpose of this paper is to conduct an exploratory study of potential business-to-business (B2B) customers that includes an empirical analysis that investigate the effect that customer entertainment has on customer suspicion toward the salesperson, and how those negative attitudes are influenced by the relationship stage and the perceived cost of the event.

Using an experimental design, data were collected from 105 potential customers working in a B2B environment that assessed their attitudes regarding offers of varying levels of customer entertainment across differing stages of the relationship.

Results demonstrate that B2B customers have important perceptions regarding the perceived cost of customer entertainment offers by salespeople. Those evaluations resulted in a positive relationship between customer attitudes of suspicion toward the salesperson and the perceived cost of the entertainment event. However, the stage of the relationship tended to ameliorate suspicious attitudes of customers, although not in a completely symmetrical manner.

Additional testing with larger sample populations would better solidify the existence of the relationships.

This study provides a framework for practitioners that gives direction to the strategic use of customer entertainment such that it acts as a relationship catalyst, and not a relationship poison.

The paper uses a customer perspective to fill a need to better understand the instrumental role of customer entertainment in relationship marketing, and how it interacts with the perceived cost of the event and relationship stage to create differing customer attitudes.

In business-to-business interactions, conflicts are inevitable, and conflict-handling strategies that consider different variables improve the decision-making process of actors. This study aims to reveal the role of power and criticality in conflict-handling research in logistics service networks.

A 2 × 2 between-subject experimental design with four different scenarios was used. One hundred sixty logistics service actors completed an online questionnaire. Data were analyzed with ANOVA and paired sample t-tests using the SPSS 28.0 program.

In comparative scenarios involving high and low power dynamics, individuals with high power and high criticality situations are more inclined to favor the dominating strategy compared to low-power and low-criticality contexts. However, when faced with specific circumstances characterized by both high power and high criticality, actors tend to prioritize the integrating strategy initially, followed by the dominating and obliging strategies in that order. Notably, the statistical analysis revealed no significant interaction effect between criticality and power concerning the integrating, obliging and dominating conflict-handling strategies.

This study used an experimental approach to investigate criticality and power as contextual elements in determining conflict-handling strategies in an inter-firm environment within logistics service networks. This study is particularly groundbreaking in its knowledge of the relationship among power dynamics, conflict criticality and conflict-handling strategies.

Although customer co-creation has received a significant amount of attention in both practice and academics, most of the previous studies have been conducted from the customer perspective while how service employees are involved in the customer value co-creation process has been rarely examined. To fill in this gap, the purpose of this paper is to develop a scale of employee involvement in customer value co-creation, and test a theoretical model that investigates the antecedents and consequences of employee involvement in customer value co-creation.

Based on a comprehensive literature review and 12 in-depth interviews with service employees, a scale of employee involvement in customer value co-creation was developed in Study 1. The items were purified, and the construct validity and reliability were evaluated via a survey (n = 178). In Study 2, the newly developed scale was cross-validated in a new service context and a conceptual model was tested by estimating a structural equation model with survey data collected from service employees (n = 225).

The newly developed scale of employee involvement in customer value co-creation has demonstrated sufficient construct validity and reliability across different service contexts. Moreover, the results show that both customer orientation and perceived organizational support are positively associated with employee involvement in customer value co-creation, which, in turn, influences employees’ job satisfaction and job stress. In addition, firm cross-functional cooperation strengthens the relationships between perceived organizational support and employee involvement in customer value co-creation.

Future research from other service contexts and countries is needed to confirm the generalizability of the new scale and the findings.

The findings of the study will provide implications to service managers regarding where to focus their organizational resources and how to facilitate employee involvement in customer value co-creation.

This study takes an initial step to develop a scale of employee involvement in customer value co-creation and test the antecedents and consequences of employee involvement in customer value co-creation.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of supply chain management in enabling manufacturers' mass customization capabilities.

This paper is based upon survey data from 262 manufacturing plants, spanning nine countries and three industries. Responses from multiple employees were aggregated for each item. Hypothesized relationships between variables were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The results generally indicate that plant mass customization capabilities are driven by customer‐focused product design and reduced supplier lead times. In turn, these factors are driven by management's emphasis on supply chain planning. Post hoc tests show that the effects of supply chain planning on mass customization capabilities are fully mediated by customer‐focused product design and reduced supplier lead time.

While the literature suggests that mass customization depends upon a dynamic extended enterprise, extant empirical work has focused on internal firm characteristics. The paper is among the first to examine the significance of supply chain management upon the development of mass customization capabilities.

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.

Consumers are increasingly connected to each other through electronic devices. Consequently, the potential for online retailer (hereafter, e‐tailer) initiated communications delivered through electronic media to inspire viral‐like e‐WOM processes among consumers is also expanding. Microblog postings and e‐mails may impact consumers' perceptions of retail web sites (e‐servicescape). These perceptions may trigger other outcomes (i.e. greater trust, patronage, or e‐WOM) that redound to e‐tailers' interests. The first purpose of this paper is to expand online e‐tailers' (e‐tailers') understanding of how and whether microblog postings affect consumers' e‐servicescape perceptions. The second purpose is to investigate how and whether e‐servicescape perceptions influence consumers' trust in e‐tailers' web sites, patronage of e‐tailers, and propensity to engage in e‐WOM about e‐tailers' messages.

By integrating the e‐servicescape construct with the Network Coproduction Model of WOM theory, a model is developed. This model examines how e‐communication efforts affect consumers' perceptions of e‐servicescape, trust, e‐tail patronage and e‐WOM. Each relationship is investigated through a consumer survey.

Findings suggest: microblog postings may have a negative impact on consumers' e‐servicescape perceptions; retail web site's usability, financial security, customization, and entertainment value positively affect consumers' trust; and consumers' trust positively impacts retail patronage and e‐WOM intentions.

Prescriptive insights for managing microblogging in ways that more favorably influence consumers' perceptions of e‐tailers' e‐servicescapes – and subsequently consumer trust in, patronage of, and e‐WOM about the retailer and its web site – are developed.

The paper is the first to integrate word‐of‐mouth theory with e‐servicescape to test a model examining how microblog postings affect e‐servicescape perceptions, consumer trust, consumer retail patronage, and e‐WOM intentions.

This paper aims to explore how business-to-business (B2B) salespeople use social media and emulate value creation strategies used by social media influencers.

Using 28 interviews with salespeople, this paper develops six propositions and a conceptual framework that outlines when and how B2B salespeople use social media in value-creating sales.

This study’s findings provide a critical analysis of when social media are most effective and beneficial in supporting salespeople’s value-creating sales in various stages in the sales process (e.g. prospecting, opening relationships, qualifying prospects and serving accounts) and when they are less effective (e.g. presenting sales messages and closing sales).

This research yields a substantive understanding of the evolving role that social media play in B2B sales by examining B2B salespeople’s value creation strategies through the lens of social media influencers’ practice and outlines ideas for future research on B2B salespeople’s social media strategies.

The findings of this research can be used by B2B organizations to structure the training of B2B salespeople to use social media to the fullest extent by aligning specific strategies with different parts of the sales process.

This paper contributes by summarizing the B2B sales literature on social media and integrating recent insights from the social media influencer literature; empirically identifying how B2B salespeople use social media to create value, thus validating previous findings and extending understanding by offering a set of six theoretical propositions; and delineating B2B salespeople’s social media practice into 11 value creation strategies that are critically explored for their place in the sales process.