Search results

This paper shows how business suppliers set up processes allowing the translation of their competencies into value for the customers. As such, this paper seeks to complement the dominant view in which competencies are seen mainly as valuable for the firm owning the competencies but not for that firm's customers. In so doing, the paper seeks to contribute to two bodies of research: the notions of core competencies in strategic management and of value for customer in business marketing. These two bodies of research interact infrequently thus far, leaving the question of how value is transferred unanswered. This question is relevant because competencies are immaterial, tacit, and non-tradable assets. Hence, the research question underlying the present paper becomes: How can competencies translate into valuable outputs and be made accessible to the customer? To answer this question, a qualitative approach is used that involves a multiple-case study analysis aimed at exploring the competence-based process of value supplying in business markets. Specifically, this paper suggests the following propositions: (1) Competence-based value analysis, where suppliers anticipate customers’ competence needs, require an end-market orientation. (2) Competence-based value creation implies an accumulation of know-how that overlaps with customer competencies. (3) Competence-based value communication builds on live communication tools that allow customers to get an ongoing experience of the value potential of competencies. (4) Competence-based value delivery is based on bundles of suppliers’ competencies into tradable means and direct access to competence tools.

The following is an introductory profile of the fastest growing firms over the three-year period of the study listed by corporate reputation ranking order. The business activities in which the firms are engaged are outlined to provide background information for the reader.

This chapter describes the complementary benefits of model-building and data analysis using algorithm and statistical modeling methods in the context of unobtrusive marketing field experiments and in transforming findings into isomorphic-management models. Relevant for marketing performance measurement, case-based configural analysis is a relatively new paradigm in crafting and testing theory. Statistical testing of hypotheses to learn net effects of individual terms in MRA equations is the current dominant logic. Isomorphic modeling might best communicate what executives should decide using the findings from algorithm and statistical models. Data testing these propositions here uses data from an unobtrusive field experiment in a retailing context and includes two levels of expertise, four price points, and presence versus absence of a friend (“pal” condition) during the customer-salesperson interactions (n = 240 store customers). The analyses support the conclusion that all three approaches to modeling provide useful complementary information substantially above the use of one or the other alone and that transforming findings from such models into isomorphic-management models is possible.

At the level of a cognitive schema, a business model is a mental map of a firm’s value-creating, value-delivering, and value-capturing activities and the linkages between them. An important question in the study of business models as cognitive schemas is whether and how schemas differ across industry actors and whether the differences are connected to the variation observed in actual business models in the industry. This chapter examines, in particular, the ways in which business model schemas of industry insiders differ from those of industry outsiders. Using data from interviews with chief executive officers (CEOs) of 30 legal-tech firms, we graphically construct and analyze the CEOs’ schemas of important causal interdependencies between their firms’ activities. The analysis shows systematic differences between insiders and outsider CEOs’ schemas. We theorize that these differences underlie insider and outsider CEOs’ distinct approaches to opportunity recognition, expertise perception, and value framing, and have consequences for actual business model evolution in the industry.

Further understanding of how stakeholder marketing explains firm performance through greater customer satisfaction, innovation, and reputation of a firm.

Grounded in stakeholder theory, the study provides a conceptualization of stakeholder orientation based on cultural values that is distinctive from stakeholder responsiveness and examines the relationship of stakeholder responsiveness to firm performance. The study determines the mediating role of marketing outcomes on the impact of stakeholder responsiveness on firm performance. Multiple regression analysis tests hypotheses using a data set consisting of qualitative data obtained from corporate documents and quantitative data from respected secondary sources.

Our findings provide support for stakeholder marketing creating a strong relationship to organizational outcomes. There exists a positive relationship between stakeholder responsiveness and firm performance through customer satisfaction, innovation, and reputation.

Our definition implies that stakeholder responsiveness is acting in the best interests of the stakeholder as a responsible business. This study shows that stakeholder marketing may not always represent socially responsible marketing. Further research could explore how and why firms may not respond ethically and responsibly to stakeholders.

We further the discussion whether stakeholder marketing equates to sustainability. Marketers can build on expertise of managing customer relationship and generating customer value to develop a stakeholder marketing approach that addresses the economic, social, and environmental concerns of multiple stakeholders.

We further the discussion whether stakeholder marketing equates to sustainability. Marketers can build on expertise of managing customer relationship and generating customer value to develop a stakeholder marketing approach that addresses the economic, social, and environmental concerns of multiple stakeholders.

This chapter describes how to do variable-based analysis of cases of two-person conversations. The chapter makes use of the same data that Chapter 9 describes. Here, the study examines 40 transactions between actual insurance salespersons (n = 3) and prospective clients (n = 57) interacting in field settings. The study describes conversations among purchase behavior and the frequency of key orientation and bargaining statements made by the salespersons and customers. The findings support the high value in studying social factors, influence attempts, and situation variables in constructing a general conceptualization of exchange relationships.

Over the last ten years, researchers have increasingly focused on the pursuit of opportunity as one of the central acts of entrepreneurship. This chapter proposes a model of opportunity recognition which emphasizes the process through which entrepreneurs interact with their social contexts to develop opportunities, that is, to develop and shape ideas into attractive opportunities. The central research question is “how does an individual use his or her social context to recognize opportunity?” The question can be re-phrased in two parts, highlighting the two sides of the influence process. First, how do the people around the individual affect both the entrepreneurial thinking process and the opportunity ideas? And second, how does the individual structure his or her social context and use the people surrounding him or her for recognizing and pursuing opportunities?

Sharing services increasingly extends beyond intraorganizational concentration of service delivery. Organizations have started to promote cooperation across their boundaries to deal with strategic tensions in their value ecosystem, moving beyond traditional outsourcing. This chapter addresses two research questions geared to the challenge of interorganizational shared services (ISS): why would organizations want to get and remain involved in ISS? And: what are the implications of ISS for (inter)organizational value creation?

The conceptual chapter reviews literature pertaining to ISS from public, commercial, and nongovernmental sectors. ISS is understood as a multistakeholder organizational innovation. In order to analyze ISS and conduct empirical research, we developed a taxonomy and research framework.

The chapter shows how ISS can be positioned in value chains, distinguishing vertical, horizontal, and hybrid ISS. It outlines ISS implications for developing business models, structures, and relationships. Success factors and barriers are presented that epitomize the dynamic interplay of organizational autonomy and interorganizational dependence.

The research framework offers conceptual ideas for theoretical and empirical work. Researchers involved in ISS studies may adopt strategic, strategic innovation, and organizational innovation perspectives.

ISS phases are distinguished to focus innovation management — initiation, enactment, and evaluation. Furthermore, insights are provided into processes and interventions aimed at making ISS a success for participating organizations.

Cross-sectoral perspective on ISS; taxonomy of ISS; research framework built on organization and strategic management literature.

This chapter seeks to optimize HR shared services performance by highlighting the potential for service fragmentation that can arise out of in the so-called Ulrich (structure or service delivery) model.

The evidence used in this chapter principally comes from the author’s own work, especially research for the UK’s Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), and draws upon academic literature where possible.

This chapter argues that HR directors should guard against three sets of fragmentation risks. Firstly, HR shared services should be properly connected to the rest of HR to offer customers an integrated service to avoid the structure’s division of labor inducing incoherence. Second, to guard against this risk, HR directors should exercise care in outsourcing/offshoring beyond individual, discrete services because contractually or spatially separating services risks exacerbating this tendency to fragmentation. Outsourcing/offshoring may focus too much on cost savings and insufficiently on quality. So, third, HR should argue for the distinctiveness of its activities and fight commoditization that is also implied in the creation of cross-functional shared service centers.

The arguments in this chapter could be better supported by academic research. In-depth case studies of management decision making and shared services operation would help support or challenge the chapter’s conclusion, as could quantitative evidence on the benefits/disbenefits of outsourcing/offshoring/cross-functional shared services centers.

We have highlighted a number of reported problems with HR shared services operation, besides the three principal risks noted above, but we have suggested possible solutions that could be adopted by practitioners.

HR managers may find this chapter helpful in designing new HR structures or in assessing the effectiveness of shared services that goes beyond the typical key performance indicator measures.

Purpose – This chapter proposes three main objectives in relation to understanding customer involvement in business networks. First, to identify important aspects of the network structure and environment and how the actions of the customer and other network participants create and maintain these. Second, to identify and explore the mechanisms and processes of resource integration in the network. Third, to identify the capabilities and competencies that customers bring to the network, and to understand how these are enhanced and developed.

Methodology/approach – Conceptual.

Research implications – We recognize that aspects of the resources themselves are important and that the characteristics of the resource and the way in which partners align them were key components of resource analysis.

Practical implications – We note that the interaction of different operant and operand resource combinations opens new doors to customer knowledgeability and involvement, where power over either authoritative or allocative resources in itself will not guarantee value creation.

Social implications – We support the call for the development of more sociologically enriched and complex models of interagent resource exchange. In particular, we would advise the need for a better understanding of how different network structures and environments are created and maintained through domination, legitimation, and signification processes.

Originality/value of chapter – This chapter addresses the gap in our understanding of how customer involvement in business-to-business networks may influence learning, value cocreation, and innovation. This chapter makes an important contribution to research in the field in that it investigates how the inclusion of the customer in business networks alters current assumptions and practices.