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Traditionally, firms have been dependent on internal sources such as their own employees – and up to a certain extent, on some external sources, their customers – for innovation. However, in the current scenario of technological dynamism, firms are exploring multiple sources to generate ideas for innovation. Therefore, there is a need to understand the relative effect of various sources of innovations on a firm’s performance.

We offer a conceptual framework where we identify six distinct sources of innovations – firm, customers, external network, competition, macro-environment, and technology and how they create value for focal firms especially their brand equity. We introduce a taxonomy of various costs and benefits related to innovations. We then argue using our proposed taxonomy to understand the relative strengths of various sources of innovation affecting a firm’s brand equity.

We discuss and compare the relative effects of these sources of innovations on a firm’s brand equity by rank-ordering the sources. The customers and the technology as a source of innovation have the maximum impact on the firm’s brand equity followed by the marginal impact of macro-environment and external network of a firm. The firm itself has a moderate impact on its brand equity, while competition has the minimal impact. Further, we also discuss how the relationship is moderated by different innovation characteristics (nature and type of innovations).

The main practical implication is to create awareness among managers about various costs and benefits of the proposed six sources of innovations and their effects on brand equity. Managers would be able to prioritize their sources of innovation based on firms’ current needs, and whether to focus on lower costs or building higher brand equity in the scarce resource environment.

We offer a comprehensive list of six sources of innovation, build a conceptual framework wherein we discuss the relative strengths of these sources affecting brand equity.

This study aims to investigate the role of three customer equity drivers on customer repurchase intent in business-to-business (B2B) markets. It also explores the interconnected nature of equity drivers, specifically, the effects of brand equity and value equity on relationship equity. Further, it investigates how perceived switching costs moderates the interrelationships between customer equity drivers. The authors explore the interrelationships between the customer equity drivers in a B2B context involving commodity products in a developing market.

Data collection was done from a pool of 184 institutional customers of a lubricant brand in a developing market. The sample had representations of buyer organizations across sectors, namely, automobile, cement, metal, fertilizer, railway, defence and mining, etc. The final data were subjected to partial least squares-based structural equation modeling to test the hypothesized model.

The study found a direct effect of brand equity, and value equity on relationship equity and an indirect effect on repurchase intent, namely, relationship equity. Perceived switching cost was found to moderate the interaction between brand equity and relationship equity as well as between value equity and relationship equity. The direct effect of relationship equity on repurchase intent was also significant.

The study implies that B2B firms should ground their marketing program on these customer equity drivers, especially when dealing with commodity products. The absence of any of these drivers would be detrimental in customer retention. The study also establishes the relevance of switching cost(s) and its impact on the underlying dynamics between the different equity drivers in the context of commodity products. The customer equity drivers along with switching costs, if managed well, may become switching barriers for customers and eventually would ensure recurring revenue through repeat purchases.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies that focuses on the disaggregated effect of customer equity on customer outcomes in the B2B context. Furthermore, this study investigates how perceived switching costs moderates the interrelationships between customer equity drivers in the industrial sales context in an emerging market.

The main purpose of this study is to fill the research gap on how B2B global service firms integrate dynamic capabilities within their omnichannel management to influence positive word of mouth (WOM), customer engagement (CE) and customer equity.

Drawing on the dynamic capability and WOM theories, a model has been developed that defines the subjects of the empirical test. The paper reports on data collected from 312 service-oriented global firms in Australia, through a cross-sectional survey. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The findings suggest that content management (i.e. information consistency, source trustworthiness and endorsement) and concerns management (i.e. privacy, security and recovery) capabilities are the two significant antecedents of positive WOM within a B2B omnichannel setting in international marketing. The findings also confirm the key mediating role of CE between positive WOM and customer equity.

The findings extend dynamic capability theory in the context of international marketing by linking WOM, CE and customer equity. The findings add further theoretical rigor by establishing the nomological chain between positive WOM and customer equity, in which CE plays a key mediating role.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between collaboration product attributes, consumption value, customer equity and purchase intention – specifically, the moderating effect of fashion brand type (luxury and sports).

Online game and fashion (luxury and sports) brands were selected and online game items showing items' logos were used as stimuli. A total of 328 South Korea consumers answered a survey. The hypotheses were tested using a structural equation model (SEM).

Collaboration product attributes influence consumption value, which links to customer equity. Customer equity increases purchase intention. The multi-group analysis confirmed the difference between variables according to the brand.

Research on collaboration with the online environment is limited. This study provides theoretical background for future research and suggests multiple items to measure collaboration product attributes.

Fashion brands can utilize online games to extend target markets. However, consumers perceive collaboration products differently depending on the brand types. Thus, companies should consider brand characteristics or identity when designing collaboration products with online games.

This study focuses on collaboration of fashion brands in the online environment. The results will help fashion brands establish relevant brand extension strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to adopt a customer‐centric value creation perspective to provide insights into the contribution of business orientations, especially marketing orientation and innovation orientation to the creation of customer‐centric value (customer equity and brand performance).

To undertake this examination, a model was developed and then tested to validate its applicability in the context of both developed and developing economies. The paper includes partial least squares.

The findings demonstrate that being marketing‐oriented and innovation‐oriented appears to be important in creating customers, keeping them, and increasing add‐on selling to them and rewards the firm with greater brand performance in the marketplace. Importantly, these relationships are universally held across developed and developing business environments. Interestingly, marketing orientation was found to contribute more to the creation of customer‐centric value than innovation orientation in developing business environment, whereas the opposite was found in the context of developed business environment.

The data incorporate only the subjective measures of customer‐centric value. Future studies can use financial measures to complement the self‐reporting approach used in this paper. This dual‐approach to measuring the value of customers to the firm (customer equity) and brand performance would provide additional insights into the customer‐centric marketing literature.

The findings suggest that managers should strive to develop a high level of marketing orientation and innovation orientation as two efficient ways to achieve higher levels of customer equity. They are also advised that if their firms are more effective in acquiring potential customers, retaining current customers, and enhancing add‐on selling, they see their brands perform better. Importantly, the findings also provide guidance for managers on how to allocate their resources to key business activities (e.g. marketing and innovation) in the context of international business (developing versus developed business environments).

This study contributes to customer‐centric marketing theory by enhancing understanding of the contribution of marketing and innovation to the creation of customer‐centric value in different business environments. This study also contributes to the business orientation literature by demonstrating the utility of a cultural‐behavioral approach in measuring marketing orientation and innovation orientation.

Investigating the influence of intensive distribution and sales promotion towards customer-based brand equity, repurchase intention and word-of-mouth (WOM) (study on Suzuki car owners in PT Surya Batara Mahkota Wilayah Nusa Tenggara Timur).

The research was conducted in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) and the analysis unit was customers of PT. Surya Batara Mahkota NTT (PT SBM NTT) as the owner of the Suzuki car. The population is 1,782 Suzuki car owners who bought their cars from PT SBM NTT, based on data from 2015. The sampling technique is the multi-stage area sampling.

Incentives distribution had significant and positive influence towards brand equity and repurchase intention. Sales promotion had significant and positive influence towards word-of-mouth (WOM), but it did not have influence towards brand equity. Brand equity had significant influence towards repurchase intention and WOM. On the other hand, repurchase intention did not have influence towards WOM.

The originality of this study was that the researchers did not find a previous study that discussed the relationship between intensive distribution and repurchase intention, between sales promotion and WOM and between customer-based brand equity and WOM. Previous studies used different variables as determinants of positive WOM.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the significant contribution of emotions along with other conventional loyalty drivers on the loyalty intentions.

The influence of three conventional loyalty drivers, i.e., value equity, brand equity, relationship equity on loyalty intentions was investigated by further exploring the moderating effects of negative and positive emotions. A sample of 834 Pakistani consumers in the supermarkets and banking industries was studied employing store-intercept survey design.

Consumer behavior is driven by emotions in both the supermarkets and banking context. Thus, in order to better predict customer loyalty intentions, the emotional component is crucial and should be included along with other cognitive components.

Since customers’ emotional responses throughout service delivery are strongly linked to loyalty, therefore supermarkets and bank service managers need to make sure that the customers experience with their services as pleasurable as possible and for this purpose, customer service employees need to be trained in order to better understand the customers’ emotional responses during the course of service delivery process.

The present study complements the existing literature regarding the role of emotions in service settings and offers a new point of view for the linkage among emotions, customer equity drivers and customer loyalty intentions.

Draws from the equity theory and customer equity literature, this study aims to argue that the implementation of contactless service as an innovative service design in the hospitality industry can generate customers’ emotional attachment and cognitive evaluation of the brand.

This study uses partial least squares modeling and data from a large-scale survey of hotel guests who have experienced contactless service in mainland China. The authors performed an importance-performance map analysis to evaluate the significance of critical variables and constructs by including the performance dimension.

Customer equity is a three-dimensional higher-order construct that embraces value-, brand- and relationship equity. A pleasant experience of contactless service in hospitality encounters generates a positive effect on customer equity and delight. Additionally, increased customer equity improves satisfaction and trust.

This study provides practical evidence for hospitality practitioners to consider contactless service in creating memorable experiences, improve customer satisfaction, build trust and add value to hospitality brands.

The findings of this study add to the understanding of emerging contactless services, contribute to the development of the equity theory and current customer equity literature and advance the implementation of innovative service design in hospitality.

This paper aims to investigate the effects of customer equity drivers on customer loyalty via customer trust in a B2B context.

A self‐administered online survey was conducted to collect data from the organizational customers of an on‐hold service company in Australia. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data.

The study reveals that in a B2B context, value equity and relationship equity have significant influence on customer loyalty through the mediating effect of customer trust. On the other hand, brand equity is found to have no effect on customer trust and loyalty.

In order to obtain business customers' loyalty, managers should focus more on value and relationship equity than brand equity.

While most of the previous studies on “customer equity” focused on the B2C context, this study focuses on a B2B context. It demonstrates the impact of customer equity drivers on business customers' loyalty.