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The recently developed resource orchestration theory studies the processes by which managers handle resources to create competitive advantages. According to this theory, it is the way that resources interact with each other that results in such advantages. Resource integration, i.e. the alignment, or fit between resources, is one important outcome of resource orchestration processes. This paper aims to develop a scale and outline approaches to measuring such resource integration.

Using a typology of five types of resources derived from value theory, the authors develop a scale for measuring the fit between resource types, i.e. the degree of resource integration. The authors illustrate the method using a case example of an IT company and demonstrate how a variety of statistical methods including hierarchical cluster analysis, structural equation modeling, social network analysis and methods from biostatistics can provide measures of resource integration.

The authors develop a scale and associated measures that can help scholars systematically measure and identify firms with a high or low level of resource integration capability. This makes it possible to investigate further these companies and reconstruct how they support dynamic capabilities, as well as commonalities across firms with high and low levels of this capability.

Existing studies on resource orchestration have failed to provide us with a reliable measurement instrument that can be used both in cross-sectional work, and in repeated or time-series studies, allowing us to assess the degree to which a wider range of resources in an organization are integrated. The authors develop and demonstrate such an instrument.

This paper aims to examine the impact of thinking about an event as an antecedent to subsequent talk about this event with others (i.e. word-of-mouth). Thinking has been a neglected variable in word-of-mouth research, despite the fact that several conceptual arguments indicate that thinking is likely to enhance talking. Here, the thinking–talking association is examined in the context of service encounters.

Data were collected with a critical incident method, and the main variables were measured with questionnaire items.

Thinking about a service encounter – after it has been completed – had a positive influence on subsequent talk to others about the encounter. The association was mediated by the memorability of the service encounter and the extent to which what had happened had been subject to rehearsal with the purpose of telling others about it. In addition, with respect to antecedents of consumer thinking, the results indicate that service encounter incongruity had a special role in why the consumer thinks about encounters after they have been completed.

The findings should be seen in relation to the dominant position of customer satisfaction as an antecedent to word-of-mouth in the existing literature. The present results, however, indicate that satisfaction’s contribution to the variation in talking about the encounter was modest.

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of unsubstantiated claims that a product is “ecological.”

A between-subjects experimental design was used in which the absence versus the presence of an (unsubstantiated) ecological claim regarding a product was a manipulated factor. The design comprised four products, representing non-ingestible/ingestible products and familiar/unfamiliar brands. These two aspects were seen as potentially moderating factors with respect to the impact of ecological claims.

The results show that ecological product claims boosted beliefs that a product is indeed ecological. This influence was not moderated by non-ingestible/ingestible and familiar/unfamiliar product characteristics. Moreover, ecological product claims enhanced conceptually related product beliefs, namely, beliefs that the product is natural, environmentally friendly and healthy. Ecological claims also had a positive impact on the attitude toward the product.

The results imply that influencers who want a receiver to believe that a product is ecological can expect to be successful by merely claiming that a product is ecological.

From a societal point of view, however, and in an era in which “alternative facts” and “post-truths” are becoming the subject of increasing concern, the results are problematic, because they underline that customers can be made to believe in claims even though no supporting evidence is provided.

The results imply that influencers who want a receiver to believe that a product is ecological can expect to be successful by merely claiming that a product is ecological. From a societal point of view, however, and in an era in which “alternative facts” and “post-truths” are becoming the subject of increasing concern, the results are problematic, because they underline that customers can be made to believe in claims even though no supporting evidence is provided.

A detailed conceptualization of how service experiences are transformed into a memory and the circumstances surrounding a memorable experience is not available in the customer experience literature. This paper aims to address this gap using a multi-dimensional framework (memoryscape) to explain memory processes for service experiences.

The paper integrates psychology research, and particularly autobiographical memory, within customer experience management.

The paper proposes a comprehensive, multi-dimensional framework (memoryscape) of memory and highlights managerial implications.

Marketers have yet to fully understand the role of memory in service experience consumption. In today’s service-dominant economy, understanding more about the memoryscape should be a managerial and research priority.

The authors present four managerial priorities for managing customer experience memories.

The authors assimilate theories and empirical research in psychology, particularly autobiographical memory, to propose an integrated conceptual framework of the service memory process (memoryscape), to provide insights for managers looking to create memorable customer experiences.

How service evaluations are influenced by the complexity of the service delivery process has not been adequately studied. Therefore, this study investigates three types of service processes: a hotel stay, a day conference and a restaurant visit, which represent different levels of complexity. Cumulative satisfaction was measured for each service attribute and their subattributes along the path of the service process. In addition, overall satisfaction, service quality, disconfirmation of expectations and likelihood to recommend and return were measured after completion of the service delivery. Both similar and dissimilar patterns of overall and cumulative evaluations were found across the three processes. In terms of the relative importance of process attributes and subattributes, both common and core attributes across the three processes exhibited similar importances.

It is evident that, in many countries, banking is in the process of significant structural change. Deregulation in the 1980s has led to increased competition among banks. By mimetic strategic behaviour banks have tried to expand credit volume. Among other factors, a lack of controls, perverse incentives and a changing internal bank culture have led to a severe crisis in Nordic banking systems. Reports a study of how this banking behaviour came about, conducted in a large Swedish bank in jeopardy. Several loan‐granting processes were studied by generating unrestricted verbal material from participant bank officers. By abstracting qualitative aspects (variables) from these materials, different underlying evaluative structures were elicited depending on which persons were being evaluated. Based on the evidence found, forwards suggestions to improve the personality assessments of loan decision officers.

In 1982 two books published in Sweden suggested a network perspective on markets and marketing. The purpose of this paper is to explain the emergence in Sweden of the network perspective.

Provides an examination of research in industrial marketing and related fields during the 1970s and the roles of the societal and academic contexts for the research.

Close relations between academic research and business was particularly crucial since it provided access to industry on all organisational levels and business relevance of the research. Three areas of research seem to have been especially important in the development: supplier‐customer interaction, strategy and organisation of the firm and the interconnectedness between markets. The emergence of the network perspective is seen as a result of a conceptual compromise between a group engaged in dyadic business relationship research and another group that had a wider systems interdependence view on markets. The paper shows that the development can be regarded as a discovery process.

The study is limited to the development in Sweden during the 1970s and leading to the publication of two books that suggested a network perspective. A result of the paper is that the development during the period is only the first phase in the discovery of market networks. This suggests that analysis of the later development may be fruitful.

The study demonstrates the roots of the network perspective on markets and marketing and contributes to the understanding of the development of new paradigms in general.

Values have become a subject of growing interest, and are now generally accepted as an important factor in marketing research. However, value research that relies solely on a simple first‐order value paradigm, faces certain conceptual difficulties. By using a radically different formal value theory in a new approach to values, a method for measuring inherent product values directly as perceived by buyer groups is developed. The discriminatory power of this method has been tested on seven small samples of two product classes and two different models of the same brands. Clear discriminatory results were generated between product classes and brands but slight differences only were found between models of the same brand.

The delivery of quality in goods and services has recently become a marketing priority. Marketers of services experience difficulty in understanding and controlling quality. Although a few academic researchers have attempted to define and model quality, serious conceptual and methodological difficulties remain. Argues for a formal value approach to service quality, modelling it as a satisfaction process incorporating an implicit matching of two value‐based constructs: ideal standard and experienced outcome. During this match a negative cognitive bias occurs. Therefore, only negative disconfirmation determines satisfaction. The proposed model was tested in three hotel service encounters in Sweden and found reasonable support.

Notes relationship marketing’s need for an overarching theory, suggesting the use of a formal value construct to meet this need. Points out that a broad, generic theory of value is needed and suggests that humanistic philosophy provides such a theory. Looks at various factors such as the basic tenets of formal value and what lies beyond service quality research, suggesting an increased focus on relationships. Underlines the importance of value backgrounds in keeping transactions together as relationship entities.