Search results

The purpose of this paper is to determine the impact that chief marketing executives’ (CMEs) mindsets about important marketing capabilities have on company performance.

The authors propose a structural model for analysing specialised, cross-functional and dynamic capabilities at the functional level of marketing. The model is tested by using a quantitative survey among CMEs. Additionally the authors conducted a cluster analysis with the purpose of identifying differences in CMEs’ mindsets about important marketing capabilities and the impact of these differences on company performance.

The study identified four categories of mindset about important capabilities. An investigation into the company performance profile of each mindset shows that integration and rejuvenation are central qualities of CMEs’ mindsets and important drivers for company performance. Hence, companies that have a CME who prioritises both brand management, product development and customer relationship management as well as a set of specialised and dynamic marketing capabilities will outperform companies that have a CME who focuses on only one area of cross-functional marketing capabilities.

Top managers, including CMEs, can use the typology of mindsets to analyse and critically reflect on their own ideas about important marketing processes and capabilities, but also as a tool for initialising change processes in their business unit or particular function (general management or marketing).

The study provides an original assessment of sets of marketing capabilities at the functional level of marketing, and of the link between dynamic and two cross-functional marketing capabilities (product development and customer relationship management).

This paper aims to address two issues facing marketing management: firstly, the need to make marketing a more central function of the firm; and secondly to explore ways in which marketing can be more innovative.

The logic of marketing management as practised by corporate marketing executives (CMEs) is investigated. Logics describe the sensemaking activities of managers which help explain the disparate ways in which marketing managers approach similar marketing problems. The paper develops a framework for analysing managerial decision making. The research applies a grounded theory technique and 15 personal in‐depth interviews are carried out with top managers in marketing (CMEs) in three financial services companies, three telecommunications and IT companies, and nine pharmaceutical companies.

The results suggest four main logics, i.e. performance, communication, stakeholder and innovation. These are then defined in terms of management and marketing capabilities.

The paper develops a framework in which to examine the use of logics in marketing management. In the actual survey the authors examined only a relatively small sample of organisations in a few industries, but in considerable depth. The research does however give the basis for a more quantitative study to generalise the existence of these logics and investigate their links with company performance.

This paper gives important managerial insights into the ways in which managers' logics both limit and provide opportunities for managerial action. The findings will help managers become more reflexive towards the tacit assumptions they make about the business environment, the tasks that they undertake and the capabilities that they need to develop.

The paper represents a new and unique way of addressing marketing management. Management logics and sensemaking have been studied in the management literature but their repercussions for marketing managers have not been fully explored. The paper paves the way for further research into the role of marketing logics in influencing managerial action.

The purpose of this paper is to present findings from a large-scale survey of members of co-operative and mutual enterprises (CMEs) that examines the factors influencing members’ intentions to remain loyal to the enterprise and to provide word of mouth (WOM).

A model was suggested and tested to examine the interrelationships between constructs measuring emotional, functional and financial value, affective and continuance commitment, intention to remain loyal to a CME and WOM communication. A large sample was drawn from a range of co-operative and mutual enterprises, and the suggested model was estimated using a partial least squares approach.

Significant relationships were found between all constructs. However, emotional value and affective commitment were found to have particularly strong relationships. Emotional value had a strong influence on both affective and continuance commitment, while affective commitment had a strong influence on loyalty and WOM.

This paper provides empirical support for suggestions about the factors that influence member loyalty within CMEs and the relative importance of non-financial motivations. It also provides a strong foundation upon which directors and executive managers of CMEs can build more effective member marketing and communications strategies.

This study analyzed the explicitness, the salience of ethics and the transparency of messages in firms' social reports based on their significance to strategic corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication.

Drawing on institutional theory, this content analysis investigated 750 social reports from 125 firms for a ten-year period in liberal market economies (LMEs: US, UK), coordinated market economies (CMEs: Germany, Japan) and state-led market economies (SLMEs: France, South Korea).

First, firms in CMEs showed the highest level of transparency, and in all market economies, an overall trend of increase in the level of transparency was found. Second, firms in SLMEs communicated their CSR activities least explicitly. Third, firms in CMEs showed the lowest salience of ethics.

Useful theoretical as well as practical implications are provided in relation to the institutional perspective to CSR, and cross-national CSR communication.

This study aims to explore the role of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot marketing efforts (CMEs) in the establishment of relationships between brands and their customers, extending the link between relationship marketing and online consumer behavioral intentions.

Data are collected from 1,072 customers in the USA, who used chatbot marketing activities from any of 30 brands leading their industries in messaging innovation. Structural equation modeling is used for data analysis.

Results show that interaction, information, accessibility, entertainment and customization are important CMEs components. CMEs have significant direct effects on the quality of communication with chatbot agents and indirectly affect customer–brand relationships (CBR) and customer response. In addition, the findings demonstrate that CBR mediates the association between communication quality and customer response.

Implications of this study can enable practitioners to understand the effects of AI on user experiences and provide a guide for the development of CMEs strategies and relationship building.

This study aims to compare the different effects of the 2008 economic crisis on companies’ corporate social performance (CSP) in coordinated market economies (CMEs) and liberal market economies (LMEs).

This paper mobilizes a pluralistic theoretical framework that borrows from neo-institutional and corporate governance theories to compare the impacts of the 2008 economic crisis on long-term CSP in an international context. Based on the longitudinal database of Vigeo Eiris (2004–2015), the panel was decomposed between two models of capitalism (LME and CME). For each model, this paper conducted a series of regressions, taking into account the longitudinal nature of the data using estimates based on generalized estimating equations (Liang and Zeger, 1986).

The paper shows that the economic crisis prompted companies operating in LMEs and CMEs to reorient their corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices in quite different ways during the four-year period that the crisis lasted, as well as the succeeding four-year post-crisis period. While CSR was perceived in LMEs as a threat during the crisis period because of the additional costs it generated, it offered CME companies a way of redefining how they relate to the rest of society, with their goal becoming the creation of greater shared value.

The results are dependent from the data, and specifically from the Vigeo Eiris database. It would be interesting to extrapol this kind of research with the use of other CSP/environmental, social and governance (ESG) databases as Morgan Stanley Capital International, Sustainalytics or RepRisk, to compare and conclude more globally on tendencies. Another limitation relates to the binary nature of Hall and Soskice’s (2001) typology, with its neo-institutionalist inspiration, that puts Continental European and social-democratic models of capitalism on the same plane.

This study teaches managers, analysts and policymakers that CSR can be a powerful strategic lever capable of remedying the harmful effects that economic crises have in both LMEs and CMEs, notwithstanding the cultural, socio-economic and political differences between these models of capitalism. Economic and social crises must help companies to rethink and revisit their business models and CSR practices to subsequently implement sustainability strategies more in sync with the values forced upon them by the economic systems to which they belonged but also by all their stakeholders.

From a managerial standpoint, this study allows practitioners to consider CSR as an opportunity to rethink their strategy and business models in a period of crisis, and no more a threat that could reduce the economic performance in increasing the costs, and thus, the cost of financing.

After reading the literature on the topic, this paper clearly thinks about the high degree of contribution of the paper, as the topic is not so developed and that the study implies several contributions. First, from a theoretical level, the study differs from previous research studies insofar as it compares the impacts of the economic crisis on companies’ CSP in CMEs and LMEs using a theoretical framework that operationalizes both contractual and neo-institutional theories. Second, from a methodological standpoint, the approach using an ESG data provider known worldwide (Vigeo Eiris) has not been down yet. Third, on a managerial level, the present study teaches managers, analysts and policymakers that CSR can be a powerful strategic lever capable of remedying the harmful effects that economic crises have in both LMEs and CMEs, notwithstanding the cultural, socio-economic and political differences between these models of capitalism.

This paper aims to identify managerial implications for multinational corporations (MNCs) with regard to circular economy (CE) by using data on corporate social responsibility (CSR) perception in different types of market economies owing to diverse institutional contexts. These managerial implications can contribute to the linking of CSR and CE strategies for MNCs.

This is an empirical study with a mixed-methods approach using both quantitative and qualitative research elements. The varieties of capitalism (VOC) approach with its two kinds of market economies – liberal market economy (LME) and coordinated market economy (CME) – builds the theoretical foundation.

All three guiding hypotheses of the quantitative research part are confirmed, which are: there is a differing perception of CSR in the two kinds of VOC; LME corporations adopt a shareholder value perspective; and CME corporations adopt a stakeholder values perspective. Furthermore, the qualitative research part has identified several key success factors for strategically conducting CSR in nexus with CE.

The mentioned key success factors become managerial implications for MNCs aiming at strategically conducting CSR. Due to several crossing points between (strategic) CSR and CE, those implications are largely also eligible for CE.

The paper helps to propel empirical findings into a more up-to-date discourse of debate. By emphasizing that the institutional background is likely to have an effect on how CSR is perceived in different kinds of market economies, the research offers a proposition how to use CSR perception as a signpost for CE and fuel future research into this direction.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to show how patterns of union organization vary over time and across countries in the economically advanced world, with a focus on Europe.

Methodology/approach – The data analysis uses the “Institutional Characteristics of Trade Unions, Wage Setting, State Intervention and Social Pacts” dataset to report on patterns of union density in 16 economically advanced countries between 1960 and 2006 and draws on the European Social Survey to show how union membership is segmented by gender, educational attainment and economic sector in 13 European economically advanced countries during the 2000s.

Findings – The chapter demonstrates more clearly than in previous work that trends of decline in union density cut across national varieties of capitalism; on average, the trends look quite similar in Anglo-American liberal countries and the coordinated countries of Continental Europe. On the other hand, cross-national differences are still important, as evident in the fact that the Nordic countries have not experienced substantial declines.

Originality/value – Current work in political economy is marked by a dividing line between those who see change over time or cross-country differences as the primary axis of variation in contemporary capitalism. Some focus on differences between periods of embedded liberalism and neoliberalism, while others key on distinctions between liberal and coordinated national models. This chapter advocates an integrated approach that captures more fully the ways in which forms of organization in different institutional domains vary across both time and space.

The purpose of this paper is to explore varieties of capitalism (VoC) as a moderator of the effect of: the strategic HR function role; and the level of union presence on the adoption of different human resource management (HRM) practices categorized as either person-centered or performance-centered.

The authors use data on both multinationals and locally owned firms from 14 OECD countries, collected through the Cranet 2009 survey. The hypotheses of the proposed model were tested using hierarchical multiple regression analysis.

Evidence shows that the strategic HR function is positively related to the adoption of both types of HRM practices, whereas higher levels of union presence inhibit the adoption of performance-centered practices and promote the adoption of person-centered practices. In addition, although VoC does not show any significant direct effects on HR practices, there is a moderating effect of VoC on the HR function role – HRM practices and union presence – HRM practices relationships.

The use of survey data with single respondents might produce reliability problems. Additionally, the data used are cross-sectional, which means that causality cannot be determined.

Managers in multinationals corporations and local firms must be aware of the distinct effects of the strategic HR function and trade union presence in different market economies. In particular, special attention must be paid when a firm expands globally, “outside the reach” of the national market economy or type of capitalism, and operates in different VoC.

The present paper contributes to better understanding the influence of VoC, not only on HRM practices, as in previous research, but also on the relationships between the HR function role and the level of union presence and the types of practices promoted.

This paper aims to demonstrate that state shareholders are confronted with contradictory logics leading to institutional contradictions that activist shareholders can exploit. The competing logics of the state as shareholder and their impact on corporate governance and shareholder activism offer fertile grounds for research advances in Coordinated Market Economies (CMEs).

Through an extensive literature review of state ownership, institutional contradictions and shareholder activism, this paper analyzes two case studies involving the French State as shareholder.

In the French context, these two cases illustrate how institutional contradictions result in opportunities for shareholder activism. By focusing on the institutional contradictions of the state shareholder, this investigation suggests a need for experimental research to observe how shareholder activists adapt to each institutional change in CMEs. This experimentation can help policymakers to avoid creating additional conditions that shareholder activists can exploit.

This focuses only on France and its state shareholdings. To generalize results, studies of other CMEs and state shareholders are needed.

Policymakers should consider all legislative proposals for their potential to deviate from corporate governance practice by experimenting with them in a laboratory setting. Shareholder activists can compare state shareholders’ actions against the state’s legislation to emphasize institutional contradictions that counter minority shareholders’ rights.

This research is the first to analyze how the state as shareholder can exploit its competing logics to resist against shareholder activism and support management or to become itself a shareholder activist.