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Subject area – Marketing and strategic decision making. Study level/applicability – Undergraduate business and management programmes, particularly with advanced marketing modules; and MBA programmes incorporating strategic management. Case overview – Claudio Bedoya, founder of BioScience (BS) and CEO has decided to launch a new product line, BioMobile (BM), to enter the new telemedicine market. BS is an Argentine company, which develops and commercializes innovative diagnosis equipments since 1995. The BM is a device which sends vital signals (from a patient with a chronic disease) through the mobile phone to a recipient's cell phone (doctor and/or relative).Three market segments, the alternative value propositions and the suggested go-to-markets for each of them are suggested. A debate between Antonio, Claudio's partner and Ydavelis, the marketing manager, highlights the underlying disagreement on which segment to serve and on the choice of value proposition. Expected learning outcomes – The case has been written having a senior classroom in mind. The case works best when used towards the end of the course, as it allows integrating all the concepts discussed in the course as such it assumes that participants have acquired basic concepts of strategic management and marketing management. Thus, it is not in the scope of the case to introduce any new theoretical concepts and no specific reading material is assigned to it:

To apply prior knowledge to an emerging economy setting:

For example: the SWOT analysis, the identification of critical success factors (CSF) for each alternative, segmentation, pricing, or the new product adoption curves.

To calculate the projected revenues with limited data.

To foster critical thinking about a company's strategic planning. Specifically, to be able to identify the underlying business decision: BS needs to decide whether to focus on the B2B/B2C market.

Critically think on the differences between B2B and B2C business models.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the characteristics of actors that allow them to relate to others actors in the system through shared intentionality (orientation) and the nature of the A4A relationship and the results that such interactions bring to the emergent system based on this shared purpose (finality).

The topic is approached by theoretical analysis and conceptual development of three integrative frameworks: the sociological perspective, service-dominant logic and a particular perspective of system thinking: the viable system approach (vSa).

The A4A relationships involve value co-creation based on actors integrating their resources and acting with intentionality to obtain value by providing benefits to other parties and by belonging to the emergent viable system; actor acts for other actors directly involved in the relationship generating positive effects for the whole system in which it is contextualized.

Future empirical research might better support findings.

Many social implications deriving from an augmented role of actors engaged within social relationships in co-creation exchanges. From the title of the paper A4A over on the manuscript describes numerous social inferences of actors in co-creation.

A4A is a relationship formed by actors that interact for the benefit of the whole system in which are involved. They find own benefit from the benefit created for the system in which they live and act. In A4A relationships the value of the single actor comes from the participation to the viability of the whole system.

A large number of researchers and marketing textbooks see business marketing dominantly from the relationship marketing perspective. One can even talk about a “matrimony” of these domains; “RM=BM”. The Contemporary Marketing Practices studies, however, provide clear evidence of the coexistence of various marketing practices but offer no supporting theoretical rationale for these findings. The purpose of this paper is to answer the question whether business marketing and relationship marketing, when broadly defined to include all relational‐interactional perspectives, are necessarily wedded to each other.

A metatheoretical analysis was conducted to identify the contributions and limitations of the current research approaches to business marketing and a configurational approach for marketing (CAM) was developed, providing theoretical explanation for the empirical findings versus relationship dominance dilemma.

The metatheoretical analysis showed that research into business marketing relationships is not monolithic; that each tradition is useful for specific purposes, domains and activities; and that none helps understand why there are multiple ways in which firms relate to their markets. A conceptual CAM framework was developed that allows one to identify possible configurational marketing profiles (i.e. identifying different equivalently valid ways of relating to a business environment).

It is contended that the configuration approach for marketing permits other configurations to co‐exist beyond the RM‐BM matrimony. CAM provides a conceptual framework that can host the “puzzling” empirical results of the contemporary marketing practices studies.

The CAM frame suggests that managers should carefully examine the internal logic of their marketing‐related configuration. Performance should be enhanced if the three elements – managerial frame of reference, organization/environment relationship, marketing mode – are coherent.

The configurational approach for marketing helps one to understand why firms relate to the business marketing environment with a multiplicity of marketing modes, showing that the BM‐RM matrimony is but one possible configuration.

Prior research acknowledges the lack of theorizing of markets within marketing. This paper aims to capture the emerging themes linked to different conceptualizations of the market and provide a language system for theorizing the market.

The paper conducts a bibliometric analysis of 177 articles and 22 keywords and adopts Mele et al.’s (2015) market conceptualization to interpret the results.

The bibliometric analysis detects five thematic clusters: market driving, market exchange, market shaping, market practices and macro-marketing. Based on their degrees of relevance and development, these are arranged into two groups. The analysis of these two language systems shows a shift toward a more comprehensive conversation on how the market is conceptualized. The authors synthesize this shift under the expression “from market driving to market shaping.”

The comparison of the two language systems allows the argument that market is a complex concept and that to understand it necessitates a rich set of terms.

The different ways of conceptualizing the market mean that managers face a choice when analyzing their market situations (what language system to use). This choice will be consequential for their subsequent actions.

This paper contributes to the identification of two rival language systems and narratives: market driving and market shaping.

This paper aims to focus on how the use of new technologies disrupts markets. To date, marketing literature has lacked studies investigating the link between market practices and new technologies. The study adopts the blockchain technology (BcT) context to elicit novel technology-enhanced market practices.

The authors adopt a qualitative multimethod research design to engage in interpretative theorizing. They investigated 77 companies and used the Gioia method for the data coding and analysis.

The study of the adoption of blockchain prompts three technology-enhanced market practices. The latter offers new ways of resourcing by removing constraints and expanding actors’ network and knowledge to integrate resources; sensemaking by expressing new language and assigning novel meaning to represent markets; and legitimizing, by structuring new rules and trusting new mechanisms to institutionalize markets.

The technology-enhanced market practices are distinct from extant market practices as well as related, thus, enriching and complementing them. Therefore, this work expands the understanding of the mechanisms of how markets work.

This study is the first, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to focus on how BcT features affect market practices. BcT market practices entail how actors perform, share and interpret symbols and objects and set rules for how markets should work.

In developing economies, 30% of the gross domestic product on average is undertaken by unregistered businesses. The informal economy leads to high opportunity costs by preventing gains from trade with strangers. To overcome this obstacle, sellers who usually operate in the informal economy should strive to move to formal markets. Current theories are drawn from a view of markets as institutions governed by formal and informal rules. In a nutshell, informal-formal market transitions must be met with a regulative solution. However, the overall results have been disappointing. This failure invites a re-diagnosis of the problem that informal sellers face to act in formal markets and suggesting novel solutions. This paper aims to address this gap.

This is a conceptual paper. The authors adopt MacInnis’s (2011) framework to characterize the approach to theory development.

The authors argue that extant views of formal/informal markets differences address only one of Scott’s (2014) three pillars (regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive). By drawing on Bourdieu’s legacy, the authors propose a cultural-cognitive reading of institutions and suggest it offers a lens to understand the problem as an access challenge, and thus a marketing problem. This perspective allows us to conceptualize informal/formal markets as two distinct institutional fields and argues that all individuals inhabit a particular habitus and contend that moving between markets requires a habitus shift. Thus, acting in formal markets involves bridging a habitus gap. Finally, the authors argue the need for a market-facing intermediary that takes on a market habitus bridging role.

The authors suggest future research efforts could benefit from this new conceptual lens as a means of re-diagnosing other forms of market access that have produced disappointing results.

By looking at differences between formal and informal markets as a habitus gap, the allocation of public funds to support transitions can be better targeted and spent.

The concept of market-facing intermediaries suggests that the beneficiary (e.g. informal seller) and target populations can be different. This insight could catalyze social innovation and trigger novel perspectives to design systemic solutions.

Conceptualizing the formal-informal market transition as a habitus gap suggests new directions to resolve access challenges and a new mediator solution.

The extant service ecosystem literature rarely addresses the dark side of actors’ agency, which hinders further development of the service-dominant (S-D) logic, particularly with regard to understanding service ecosystem dynamics. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to delineate the dark-side facets of actors’ agency that adversely affect actor-to-actor relationships and resource integration, in the context of shaping service ecosystems.

With abductive reasoning, this study seeks to reorient results from prior literature in accordance with empirical findings. The empirical data pertain to 21 firms in Finland, New Zealand, Singapore and Sweden, representing various industries, sizes, international reach, technologies, ownership forms and histories.

The dark side of agency emerges as an actor’s deliberate attempts to influence a service ecosystem to achieve self-interested benefits, despite understanding that these actions inhibit other actors from providing service and can be detrimental to other actors and the ecosystem. The findings also reveal three facets of the dark side: conflict, ambiguity and opportunism. The process of shaping service ecosystems is prone to systematic conflict, ambiguous and opportunistic behaviours occurring between the focal actors’ ecosystem and other ecosystems vying for the same set of resources.

This study advances the S-D logic by addressing the crucial role of agency in a dialectical relationship with institutions and structures. Service-for-service exchanges can take place in asymmetric, ambiguous, opportunistic situations driven by self-interested motives.

Processes aimed at shaping service ecosystems can demonstrate the dark sides of actors’ agency, related to conflict, ambiguity or opportunism. Managers interested in shaping strategies should be prepared for this outcome.

A service ecosystem perspective requires policy makers and regulators to reconsider their role in shaping processes. No “invisible hand” guides markets to equilibrium, so they should be more proactive in shaping ecosystems, rather than merely fixing market failures.

This research offers the first S-D logic-based investigation into the dark side of actors’ agency in shaping service ecosystems.

This chapter adopts the midrange theories schema to expand Pels and Sheth (2017) matrix on business models to serve the low-income consumers (LIC): market adaptation, mission focus, radical innovation, and inclusive ecosystems. To this end, it identifies the underlying general business theories (systems theory and neo-classical economics) and ontological theories (positivism and interpretivist) nested in each of the matrix’s four cells.

Understanding the general theories from which concepts and guidelines are drawn allows a two-way contribution. On one hand, it comprehends which other concepts can be integrated into the LIC literature. Alternatively, it highlights what insights generated from the study of the LIC markets bring to these theories.

This study aims to examine the nature of business‐to‐business marketing practices in two West African nations, Ghana and Ivory Coast, and compare them with marketing practices in another emerging market economy (Argentina) and a developed economy (the USA).

Survey data were collected in both West African nations, Argentina and the USA, using a standard survey instrument used in previous contemporary marketing practice (CMP) studies. Descriptive statistics were used to determine cross‐national differences in intensity of use of various CMP activities in Ghana and the Ivory Coast in comparison with Argentina and the USA. Then, cross‐national differences in various combinations of marketing practices were identified using cluster analysis.

Business‐to‐business marketing practices in West African nations conform with the CMP framework in that firms practise both transactional marketing and relationship marketing simultaneously. However, there are differences in the intensity and scope of business‐to‐business marketing practices in Ghana and the Ivory Coast in comparison with Argentina and the USA. While West African business‐to‐business firms emphasize traditional transactional marketing with some network marketing components, Argentine firms have a greater emphasis on pluralistic marketing and interaction marketing. By contrast, US firms practise pluralistic marketing (transactional, database, interaction, and networking) with some transactional marketing activities. In addition, West African business‐to‐business firms are similar to Argentine firms in that a proportion of firms practise marketing at a low level of intensity and rarely use database marketing. These differences are attributable to the nature of market conditions in West Africa.

The CMP results generalize to West African nations. However, a direct correspondence is unlikely because of the dominance of transactional marketing practice among West African firms. Further research needs to investigate a broader set of institutional environments in order to provide a clear link between CMP and environmental conditions in emerging African markets.

Managers can determine the appropriateness of international benchmarks for West African market conditions.

Linking CMP to market conditions in the paper provides an extension to the validity of the CMP framework.