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Business‐to‐business marketing has come of age in the last three decades and research in this area has been extensive and impressive. This paper examines the extant body of business‐to‐business marketing research and identifies surpluses and shortages with the goal of stimulating future research.

This paper focuses on two questions regarding future business‐to business marketing. First, what has been the focus of understanding in business‐to‐business marketing theory and what should be its future focus? Second, what has been the purpose or objective to study business‐to‐business marketing and what should be the future objective for research?

It is found that research in business‐to‐business marketing is fundamentally changing and will continue to change. The paper identifies areas of business‐to‐business marketing research that have received surplus attention and areas that require additional attention.

The paper provides guidelines for future exploration of the business‐to‐business research domain.

The paper is analogous to the widely cited paper by Sheth (1979) that reviewed the state of consumer behavior research and identified areas that had been unexplored or under‐explored, and in the process provided an impetus for new research in consumer behavor.

With the publication of Volume 10 Number 4 1995, the Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing (JBIM) celebrated its tenth anniversary. Over the years, JBIM has emerged as a leading journal in the area of business‐to‐business marketing. To commemorate this achievement, examines the contributions of the Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing to the marketing field, in general, and to the more specific sub‐area of business‐to‐business marketing in particular. To accomplish this, reviews the origins of JBIM and provides an analysis of the nature of the articles published and contributors’ backgrounds. In addition, presents an overview of the journal’s history, contributions and content, along with some interesting summary statistics. Finally, discusses JBIM’s past and present objectives, as well as its current positioning, recent developments and future directions.

Concern has been expressed by business and marketing scholars that academic research in these fields should be made more relevant to managers. In this paper the focus in on the views of marketing managers concerning the relevance of academic research to them. The empirical context of the work is business‐to‐business marketing. The experienced marketing practitioners interviewed knew very little about the current state of academic research in marketing, and considered that academic researchers did not understand the realities of business life and could not communicate effectively with managers. Marketing practitioners prefer to work with consultants, whom they consider understand business realities better and are more effective communicators. The paper discusses the barriers that marketing academies will have to overcome if they are to make their research more relevant to practitioners.

Following this introduction, the Chapter 2, “A Note on Knowledge Development in Marketing,” by Amjad Hajikhani and Peter LaPlaca, examines four themes in the development of marketing management knowledge. The discussion initially considers the scientific basis for the marketing discipline, then the academic divide between academic researchers and marketing managers.

This article reports on three related empirical studies of the relevance of academic research to management practice in the field of business‐to‐business marketing. These studies comprise a survey of 58 academic researchers, a qualitative study of ten marketing practitioners, and a qualitative study of eight academic researchers. Academic researchers in the field of business‐to‐business marketing believe that their work is of interest, potential value, and relevance to practitioners, and aspire to make a contribution to management practice. Practitioners claim not to be interested in academic research, and are more favourably disposed towards consultants, who they see as more responsive to, and understanding of, business pressures. It seems clear that although academics would like to get closer to practitioners, they are inhibited by institutional factors, such as academic reward systems and the “publish or perish” culture. Mechanisms for improving the degree of cooperation between researchers and practitioners are explored.

This study aims to focus on a specific project marketing concept, i.e. “discontinuity,” and analyzes how this concept emerged in project marketing, becoming its key scholarly embodiment, how it became decoupled from the increasingly service-intensive project business practice and what the relevance of discontinuity is for project marketers moving forward.

This study is built on a systematic literature review of 31 years (1993–2023) of publishing data from major marketing and management journals.

This study provides three findings. First, the author reveals the risks related to marketing scholars and practitioners losing sight of each other as business practices evolve much faster than scholarly research can keep up. Second, the author highlights the role of interdisciplinary collaboration in advancing conceptual innovations. Finally, the research elucidates the need for broader metatheoretical reflection to keep this research tradition on an upward trajectory.

The aim of this study is not to criticize project marketing, as many strands of business-to-business (B2B) marketing face the same challenge, but to elucidate a need for conceptual innovations, collaboration with practitioners and other disciplines and broader metatheoretical reflection to keep this research tradition on an upward trajectory.

This study makes several contributions to the project marketing research tradition. First, it reviews the emergence and dissipation of the concept of discontinuity, drawing on semantical, etymological and epistemological insights. It also reflects on recent disruptions in the marketplace and envisions future research trajectories for this elusive concept. In addition, the author develops a conceptual framework that combines project types with exchange elements in project and service businesses. This conceptual framework helps elucidate what part of the exchange is continuing and what is discontinuing in the resulting business relationships. Furthermore, the research contributes to B2B marketing more broadly by highlighting the fleeting correspondence between theory and the real world. It underscores the need for constant updates to maintain relevance.

Mark S. Glynn is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the Business and Law Faculty, AUT University, Auckland, New Zealand. He obtained his PhD in marketing from the University of Auckland. In 2006, Mark won the Emerald/EFMD best thesis award for outstanding doctoral research in the category of marketing strategy. His research experience is in the areas of branding, relationship marketing, business-to-business marketing, and retail channels. Mark Glynn's business-to-business research appears in Industrial Marketing Management, the European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Advances in Business Marketing & Purchasing, Australian Marketing Journal, and Marketing Theory. He also serves on the editorial boards of Industrial Marketing Management and the Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing.

This chapter describes the main issues in scientific literature related to industrial branding. First, we set the background focusing on industrial branding, followed by brand equity and measurement, and brand orientation in business markets. The second section relies on controversies and problems inherent in the gaps in theory and implementation of branding. The third section proposes several solutions and recommendations for academics and practitioners, followed by proposals for future research directions and conclusions. We also present a case study and several case questions arising.

This study provides a comprehensive framework of adaptation in triadic business relationship settings in the service sector. The framework is based on the industrial network approach (see, e.g., Axelsson & Easton, 1992; Håkansson & Snehota, 1995a). The study describes how adaptations initiate, how they progress, and what the outcomes of these adaptations are. Furthermore, the framework takes into account how adaptations spread in triadic relationship settings. The empirical context is corporate travel management, which is a chain of activities where an industrial enterprise, and its preferred travel agency and service supplier partners combine their resources. The scientific philosophy, on which the knowledge creation is based, is realist ontology. Epistemologically, the study relies on constructionist processes and interpretation. Case studies with in-depth interviews are the main source of data.