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This study examines how informal business networks achieve marketing goals in socially uncertain contexts. Drawing from multiple historical sources, Shangbangs, a type of business network that thrived in pre-1949 China, are analyzed.

The Critical Historical Research Method (CHRM) undergirds a study of Shangbangs’ historicity (i.e. their socio-historically embedded multiplicity, including organizational forms, activities and connotations.

As informal regional, professional, project-based, special-product-based or mixed marketing networks, Shangbangs relied on “flexible specialization” and coupled multiple business needs to market goods and services, business organizations, specific social values and, when necessary, to debrand business rivals.

This analysis extends theories about marketing networks by probing their subtypes, diverse marketing activities, multipronged channels and relationship building with social entities (including underground societies, business associations and guilds) in response to pre-1949 China’s market uncertainties. Substantiating an alternative approach to “flexible specialization” and marketing innovations within the pre-1949 Chinese economy shows how a parallel theoretical framework can complement western-based marketing theories.

This first comprehensive analysis of Shangbangs, an innovative historical Chinese marketing network outside the conventional market-corporate dichotomy, can inform theory building for marketing strategy-making and management conditioned by social contexts.

Attempts to explain the limitations and constraints of government policy makers in the regulation of street vending. Looks at ways that street vendors in Mexico City create alternative forms of regulation that complement and challenge the state’s attempt to impose a “one size fits all’ form of regulation for the national economy. Cites two distinct forms of regulation and how these resppond to the different needs of vendors depending on their ability to negotiate their status with the state. Covers the organizations which the vendors have formed to assist them and question the “Mafia” status applied to these by the establishment.

Neo-liberal “reform” has in many countries shifted services across the boundary between the public and private sector. This policy re-opens the question of what structural and managerial differences, if any, differences of ownership make to healthcare providers. The purpose of this paper is to examine the connections between ownership, organisational structure and managerial regime within an elaboration of Donabedian’s reasoning about organisational structures. Using new data from England, it considers: how do the internal managerial regimes of differently owned healthcare providers differ, or not? In what respects did any such differences arise from differences in ownership or for other reasons?

An observational systematic qualitative comparison of differently owned providers was the strongest feasible research design. The authors systematically compared a maximum variety (by ownership) sample of community health services; out-of-hours primary care; and hospital planned orthopaedics and ophthalmology providers (n=12 cases). The framework of comparison was the ownership theory mentioned above.

The connection between ownership (on the one hand) and organisation structures and managerial regimes (on the other) differed at different organisational levels. Top-level governance structures diverged by organisational ownership and objectives among the case-study organisations. All the case-study organisations irrespective of ownership had hierarchical, bureaucratic structures and managerial regimes for coordinating everyday service production, but to differing extents. In doctor-owned organisations, the doctors’, but not other occupations’, work was controlled and coordinated in a more-or-less democratic, self-governing ways.

This study was empirically limited to just one sector in one country, although within that sector the case-study organisations were typical of their kinds. It focussed on formal structures, omitting to varying extents other technologies of power and the differences in care processes and patient experiences within differently owned organisations.

Type of ownership does appear, overall, to make a difference to at least some important aspects of an organisation’s governance structures and managerial regime. For the broader field of health organisational research, these findings highlight the importance of the owners’ agency in explaining organisational change. The findings also call into question the practice of copying managerial techniques (and “fads”) across the public–private boundary.

Ownership does make important differences to healthcare providers’ top-level governance structures and accountabilities and to work coordination activity, but with different patterns at different organisational levels. These findings have implications for understanding the legitimacy, governance and accountability of healthcare organisations, the distribution and use power within them, and system-wide policy interventions, for instance to improve care coordination and for the correspondingly required foci of healthcare organisational research.

In recent years in Italy, as in the rest of Europe, new and profound changes have occurred in both the economic and political world as a whole. Such transformations in social and economic systems, typical of societies in the phase of transition to industrially advanced economies, have determined the need for the strategic and organization reorientation of Italian companies. Explains the strategic role of human resources in this new scenario, analysing some different models of HRM, the context of industrial relations, the differences between small and large companies in terms of HRM and the level of know‐how (technique and management systems) achieved by personnel managers.

The fields of organizational behavior (OB)/strategy and marketing have taken different paths over the past two decades to understanding organizational learning. OB/strategy has been pre-occupied with theory development and case study illustrations, whereas marketing has taken a highly quantitative path. Although relying on essentially the same foundation theory, the two disciplines have had minimal crossfertilization. Furthermore, both fields tend to blur or usually ignore the distinction between structural and informal knowledge processes. The purpose of the paper is to highlight the distinction between informal and structural knowledge acquisition and dissemination processes and propose new definitions to differentiate them. Future research should bring together cross-disciplinary studies from OB/strategy and marketing to develop an organizational learning framework to test structural knowledge processes alongside informal knowledge processes.

This paper illuminates the distinction between individual and organizational actors in business-to-business markets as well as the coexistence of formal and informal mechanisms of coordination in multinational corporations. The main questions addressed include the following. (1) What factors influence the occurrence of personal contacts of foreign subsidiary managers in industrial multinational corporations? (2) How such personal contacts enable coordination in industrial markets and within multinational firms? The theoretical context of the paper is based on: (1) the interaction approach to industrial markets, (2) the network approach to industrial markets, and (3) the process approach to multinational management. The unit of analysis is the foreign subsidiary manager as the focal actor of a contact network. The paper is empirically focused on Portuguese sales subsidiaries of Finnish multinational corporations, which are managed by either a parent country national (Finnish), a host country national (Portuguese) or a third country national. The paper suggests eight scenarios of individual dependence and uncertainty, which are determined by individual, organizational, and/or market factors. Such scenarios are, in turn, thought to require personal contacts with specific functions. The paper suggests eight interpersonal roles of foreign subsidiary managers, by which the functions of their personal contacts enable inter-firm coordination in industrial markets. In addition, the paper suggests eight propositions on how the functions of their personal contacts enable centralization, formalization, socialization and horizontal communication in multinational corporations.

The present study aimed to provide an understanding of the roles of community-based financial service organizations (i.e. rotating savings and credit associations [ROSCAs] as institutional pillars in facilitating low-income, unbanked consumers’ access to informal financial services).

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 39 low-income, unbanked consumers participating in ROSCAs in Pakistan, where only 21% of adults have a bank account and almost four out of five individuals live on a low income. The obtained data were analyzed using the thematic analysis technique.

ROSCAs’ regulatory, sociocultural and cognitive aspects facilitate low-income, unbanked consumers’ utilization of informal financial services owing to their approachability by, suitability for, and fairness to such consumers. Thus, they promote such consumers’ financial inclusion.

Low-income consumers are mostly unable to access formal financial services due to the existing supply- and demand-side impediments. Understanding ROSCAs’ institutional functioning can help formal financial service providers create more transformative financial services based on the positive institutional aspects of ROSCAs to enhance poor consumers’ financial inclusion and well-being.

The inclusion of low-income, unbanked consumers in formal banking services will help them better control their finances.

Many low-income, unbanked consumers in developing countries utilize informal financial services to meet their basic financial needs, but service researchers have rarely investigated how informal financial institutions function. The present study showed that ROSCAs, as informal institutions, meet low-income, unbanked consumers’ personal, social and financial needs in a befitting manner, which encourages such consumers to use the financial services offered by ROSCAs.

The implementation of control systems allows marketing managers to improve operational decisions and organizational results. This paper aims to identify the relationship between control combinations and organizational results and analyze the relationships between the variables attributed to the marketing managers and with marketing control combinations. Decisions involving marketing control combine formal and informal mechanisms and generate control systems that have a favorable relationship with organizational results.

The paper is based on 301 cross-sectional surveys among marketing managers. The classification procedure based on metric distance was implemented to identify the marketing control combinations. A hierarchical cluster analysis was carried out with perceptions about formal and informal control, to validate the control combination classifications. Finally, a discriminant analysis and ANOVA test were carried out for exploring factors associated with the managers. The data analysis was supported by IBM SPSS Statistics 24 software.

The authors found evidence that, when managers perceive high-control systems, the perception of non-financial and financial results is always better, but the presence of high-clan control also returns optimal results. In addition, the manager's satisfaction levels and work motivation are higher with high control systems than with other control systems.

This study contributes to the existing knowledge by providing a broader empirical basis to extend conceptual frameworks about marketing control combinations that emerge in practice.

企業設置營銷控制系統來進行營銷控制,這可讓市場經理能改善其營運決策和組織成果。本文擬確定控制合併與組織成果的關係;本文亦擬分析涉及市場經理的變數與營銷控制合併的關係。涉及營銷控制的決策會結合正式和非正式的機制,而這些決策會帶來與組織成果有良性關係的控制系統。

本研究乃基於對市場經理進行的301項橫斷調查。研究人員實施基於度量距離的分類程式,來確定營銷控制合併;為了證實有關的控制合併分類是正確的,研究人員就對正式控制和非正式控制的觀感和看法、進行了階層式分群法分析;最後,研究人員進行了判別分析和變異數分析 (ANOVA), 以探索與經理有關聯的因素。有關的數據分析得到IBM公司的SPSS (統計產品與服務解決方案) Statistics 24 (統計軟體) 的支持。

我們證實了、若主管感知高控制的系統,其對非財務結果和財務結果的看法必會較好的,但高社群控制亦會帶來最佳的結果。我們亦證實了高控制系統,較其它控制系統,更能提高主管的滿意程度和工作動機。

本研究提供了一個更廣闊的經驗基礎,以擴展涉及在實踐中出現的營銷控制合併的概念框架,就此,本研究豐富了這方面的知識。

This paper aims to examine the relationship between control mechanisms and marketing performance based on a sample of marketing managers. To that end, this paper focuses on the relationship between the types of controls used in marketing and the market and business results.

This study collected the data through a survey among marketing professionals with experience and decision-making capacity involving marketing budgets and plans, in practical terms a sample of 97 marketing managers and analyzed the data via a structural equation model using Smart PLS 3.

The findings confirm that marketing control mechanisms have a significant impact on business results, demonstrating the relationship of formal controls with market results and the relationship between informal controls with financial results. Likewise, the authors were able to prove that there is a relationship between formal and informal control.

The implementation of the control mechanisms should be based on the development of a detailed evaluation system of the activities carried out by the marketing employees and an analysis of their capabilities and abilities. In addition, managers should integrate formal control decisions into their marketing strategy to improve organizational results.

The results of this study help explain the relationship between marketing control mechanisms and organizational results and allow to understand what the level of influence is that marketing control mechanisms have on market and financial results.

Examinar la relación entre los mecanismos de control y los resultados a partir de una muestra de directores de marketing. Con ese fin, el documento se centra en la relación entre los tipos de controles utilizados en marketing y los resultados de mercado y financieros.

Los datos fueron recolectados a través de una encuesta entre profesionales del marketing con experiencia y capacidad de toma de decisiones sobre presupuestos y planes de marketing. Contando con una muestra de 97 gerentes de marketing. Los datos se analizaron mediante un modelo de ecuación estructural (SEM) utilizando Smart PLS 3.

Se confirma el impacto significativo de los mecanismos de control de marketing sobre los resultados organizacionales, demostrando la relación del control formal con los resultados de mercado, y la relación entre el control informal con los resultados financieros. Asimismo, se pudo comprobar que existe una relación entre el control formal e informal.

Los resultados ayudan a explicar la relación entre los mecanismos de control de marketing y los resultados organizacionales, y permiten comprender cuál es el nivel de influencia que tienen los mecanismos de control de marketing sobre los resultados de mercado y los financieros.

La implementación de los mecanismos de control debe basarse en el desarrollo de un sistema de evaluación detallado de las actividades realizadas por los empleados de marketing y un análisis de sus capacidades y habilidades. Además, los gerentes deben integrar las decisiones de control formal en su estrategia de marketing para mejorar los resultados organizacionales.

Control formal, Control informal, Resultados de mercado, Resultados financieros, Departamento de marketing, Calidad del producto, Cobertura de mercado, Precio relativo, Valor de la marca, Lealtad, Marketing digital

Tipo de artículo – Trabajo de investigacion

基于对营销经理的抽样调查, 研究控制机制与营销业绩之间的关系。为此, 本文着重研究了市场营销中使用的控制类型与市场和经营结果之间的关系。

我们通过对具有涉及营销预算和计划的经验和决策能力的营销专业人员的调查来收集数据, 实际上是对97名营销经理的抽样调查, 并通过使用Smart PLS 3的结构方程模型（SEM）来分析数据。

研究结果证实, 营销控制机制对商业结果有重大影响, 证明了正式控制与市场结果的关系, 以及非正式控制与财务结果的关系。同样, 我们也能够证明正式控制和非正式控制之间存在着关系。

本研究的结果有助于解释营销控制机制与组织结果之间的关系, 使我们能够了解营销控制机制对市场和财务结果的影响程度如何。

控制机制的实施应该建立在对营销员工所进行的活动制定详细的评估体系, 以及对他们的能力和水平进行分析的基础上。此外, 管理者应将正式的控制决策纳入其营销战略, 以提高组织结果。

正式控制；非正式控制；市场结果；财务结果；营销部门；产品质量；市场覆盖率；相对价格；品牌价值；忠诚度；数字营销

纸张类型 – 研究论文