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The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether communicating recent changes in the sales profession, shifting from a performance-focused model to a customer need-focused model, to job candidates by re-labeling job descriptions can increase job candidates’ interest in pursuing sales jobs.

Two experiments using job candidates (undergraduate business students) were conducted at two public US universities to examine: whether job candidates use job title or job description to determine their interest in pursuing jobs and whether terminology used in the job description affects job candidates’ interest in pursuing sales jobs.

Results show that job candidates’ interest in pursuing jobs are affected by job titles more than the actual job responsibilities. Further, job candidates’ interest in pursuing sales jobs is affected by terminology used in the job descriptions, where customer need-focused (selling-focused) terminology increases (decreases) interest in pursuing a sales job.

Sales jobs have been recognized as one of the hardest job positions to fill. Results from this paper can help recruiters develop effective strategies to improve job candidates’ interest in pursuing sales jobs, especially the emerging social selling jobs.

Contrary to most extant research that investigates resistance toward sales jobs by examining job candidates’ idiosyncratic characteristics, this paper adopts a branding and consumer learning perspective and examines how job candidates’ interest in pursuing a job is influenced by their ability or willingness to process job information.

Prior research has produced conflicting results on the relationship between firm-level patenting activity and financial performance. To identify a factor that impacts the results, this study tests whether the level of customer-base concentration (defined as focusing on a small number of major customer sales transactions) changes the relationship between firm-level patenting activity and financial performance (return on assets: ROA).

Using a longitudinal secondary dataset from Japanese manufacturers from 1991 to 2016, this study investigates the interaction effect between firm-level patenting activity and customer-base concentration. With additional analysis using multiple profitability measures, this study provides robust evidence that customer-base concentration is an important factor in changing the relationship between firm-level patenting activity and financial performance.

The analysis results show that there is a positive relationship between firm-level patenting activity and ROA. In addition, this relationship is positively moderated by the customer-base concentration. This means that suppliers can improve the performance of the patenting activity by concentrating on their customer base.

By identifying a moderating factor between patenting activity and financial performance, this study advances the interpretation of conflicting results in patent research. Moreover, this study reveals a situation where customer-base concentration, which has a direct negative impact on financial performance, leads to better financial performance. This also indicates that firm-level patenting activities may compensate for the negative aspects of customer-base concentration.

The creation of a target market strategy is integral to developing an effective business strategy. The concept of market segmentation is often cited as pivotal to establishing a target market strategy, yet all too often business‐to‐business marketers utilise little more than trade sectors or product groups as the basis for their groupings of customers, rather than customers' characteristics and buying behaviour. The purpose of this paper is to offer a solution for managers, focusing on customer purchasing behaviour, which evolves from the organisation's existing criteria used for grouping its customers.

One of the underlying reasons managers fail to embrace best practice market segmentation is their inability to manage the transition from how target markets in an organisation are currently described to how they might look when based on customer characteristics, needs, purchasing behaviour and decision‐making. Any attempt to develop market segments should reflect the inability of organisations to ignore their existing customer group classification schemes and associated customer‐facing operational practices, such as distribution channels and sales force allocations.

A straightforward process has been derived and applied, enabling organisations to practice market segmentation in an evolutionary manner, facilitating the transition to customer‐led target market segments. This process also ensures commitment from the managers responsible for implementing the eventual segmentation scheme. This paper outlines the six stages of this process and presents an illustrative example from the agrichemicals sector, supported by other cases.

The process presented in this paper for embarking on market segmentation focuses on customer purchasing behaviour rather than business sectors or product group classifications ‐ which is true to the concept of market segmentation ‐ but in a manner that participating managers find non‐threatening. The resulting market segments have their basis in the organisation's existing customer classification schemes and are an iteration to which most managers readily buy‐in.

Despite the size of the market segmentation literature, very few papers offer step‐by‐step guidance for developing customer‐focused market segments in business‐to‐business marketing. The analytical tool for assessing customer purchasing deployed in this paper originally was created to assist in marketing planning programmes, but has since proved its worth as the foundation for creating segmentation schemes in business marketing, as described in this paper.

This paper discusses the problems and challenges of change management in the university libraries to facilitate their growth, resources management and service performance similar to the work culture of the corporate sector.

Discusses the changing face of Indian university libraries. Describes the developing corporate culture in the university libraries and explores the ways the university libraries can manage change. Presents a case study of managing change at the University of Jammu Library.

This study reveals the complexities of change management in the university libraries and indicates that the university leadership, the library manager, and the professional staff play a key role in affecting change in the university libraries. Highlights that change management and staff development go hand in hand. The paper points to the fact that evaluation and review processes of the universities for accreditation, grading, and certification also help to a great extent to facilitate and manage change. The university libraries may adopt the work culture of the corporate sector for building their collections, managing their finances, training their staff, upgrading their technologies, ameliorating their operations, but for rendering their services they must ensure humanism in practice.

Problem areas identified and strategies tested provide an important input to the university librarians for effectively managing change in the university libraries.

This paper examines how market orientation and competence of knowledge reinforce the innovation and in turn improve the business performance.

This research applied research design with quantitative approach based on positivism philosophy, that is, research aimed to test the theory and data which is general to produce findings that are special through hypothesis test. This study was supplemented by field studies as a necessary source of data in the form of trends, attitudes, opinions, perceptions of owners, managers or senior employees of SMEs in the textile industry in Bali, related to the variables used in this study.

(1) Market orientation influences business performance, (2) competence of knowledge moderates the influence of market orientation on business performance, (3) innovation moderates the influence of market orientation on business performance.

(1) Novelty of this research is developing the concept of competence of knowledge associated with business performance in which this relationship has not yet been expressed. (2) Building the concept of innovation development of small-scale industry based on the market orientation. (3) Developing the concept of innovative development of small and medium enterprises of textile industry based on competence of knowledge. (4) Investigating the concept of market orientation and competence of knowledge in an integrated and holistic way to strengthen the innovation and business performance of SMEs of the textile industry in Bali.

Sustainability reports (SRs) could be viewed as organisational measurements of sustainability performance. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how well SRs are measuring and communicating sustainability and how reporting could be assessed and improved by presenting a maturity grid based on quality management principles.

Quality management students have assessed publicly available SRs. A total of 55 student assessments have been analysed by the author and used to indicate how understandable reports are. Quality management principles and input from the student assessments have been used to propose a maturity grid for sustainability reporting quality.

The indication is that SRs are not easy to interpret. The word sustainability aspect used should be replaced with impact on vital stakeholder needs. Guidelines for analysing reports could be improved by using process focus to clearly describe scope of reporting as the entire value chain.

Results are limited to assessing how sustainability is measured. How sustainable the organisations are is not assessed. The research is ongoing, and the proposed matrix is preliminary needing validation and further modification.

The proposed maturity grid for sustainability reporting forms a good basis for further development of SRs and the critical review of them.

Results indicate a need to report sustainability in the entire value chain and to focus more on vital stakeholder needs such as poverty and climate change.

The paper discusses a field of synergies between quality and sustainability management, which is important but still sparingly researched.

This paper aims to study the definition and formation of Skunk Works and how it may present itself as a viable theoretical alternative to other mainstream concepts of collective/corporate entrepreneurships, while dissecting some of the prevalent misconceptions of the extant literature regarding the application of Skunk Works.

This is a literature-based conceptual study that compares and differentiates various forms of group entrepreneurships as discussed in the academic debate.

This study shows how Skunk Works differs from other forms of collective/corporate entrepreneurship through its seven dimensions (isolation, customer needs, focus, planning, trusted project manager, cross-functional teams and leveraging overlaps) while challenging the dominant extant contenders of collective/corporate entrepreneurship.

Skunk Works remains a sustainable form of entrepreneurship, and it is still viable to consider it as a practical construct for smaller as well as larger organisations as a means of solving complicated innovative tasks requiring a multidisciplinary team with expert competence in a relatively quicker period of time.

Organisations may take greater initiatives towards assembling entrepreneurial teams in the Skunk Work tradition.

As a means of understanding collective/corporate entrepreneurship, this study dissects some of the original fundamental cornerstones of Skunk Works entrepreneurship in an effort to present it as a viable alternative construct to the dominant construct of entrepreneurial orientation as well as other extant constructs.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a detail review of the social selling literature and to offer future research needs. Social selling has gained the attention of sales researchers. Rather than merely a new tool, social selling redefines the traditional sales process. However, the literature is spread across topics of social media and sales, social customer relationship management, salesforce automation and social selling, and does not provide an agreed-upon definition or tested construct for implementation.

The paper presents a comprehensive literature review of social selling and all related terminology.

The authors propose a social selling framework that includes personal branding, information exchange, networking and social listening to define and outline the construct while suggesting the antecedents and outcomes to guide future research. Findings from a literature review include outlining key theories used in social selling research.

This review offers a conceptual framework of social selling, including both antecedents and outcomes, to inform future research and guide academics and practitioners.

The nation of Hungary has been a model of a transforming socialist state. Yet recently Hungary has followed the trend in other transforming Eastern European countries by electing a socialist parliament majority (Economist, 1994). This vote may be a reflection of how the Hungarian people feel about the reforms which are impacting their social welfare. Market and economic reforms are linked in a cycle where an improving economic environment should help firms adopt a philosophy of directing resources to meet the needs of the customers. In return, when the customer feels that their needs are being met, they are more likely to vote into control those who will allow the free market to meet their needs. Hungarian firms adoption of a market orientation, or a focus on meeting the needs of the customer, is a vital link in that nation's movement to free market reform.

This article looks at how certain companies within the UK meat, poultry and cheese packaging and processing industries have achieved success within the new market environment created in the aftermath of the BSE crisis. The study utilises a postal questionnaire sent to 50 companies in these industries and identified three sets of industry key success factors or strategies: focus on the customer, focus on value added, focus on pursuing improvements. The strategies identified within those areas can provide such organisations with basic policies which can improve the probability of emerging as successful in a changing environment.