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The contingency approach and its relevance to theory building and research in marketing is described. The approach is delineated and its theoretical foundations traced. Several established contingency theories within the management discipline are outlined and the research they have stimulated on related topics in marketing are highlighted. An assessment of the current state of the contingency approach in marketing literature is then provided.

Much has been written on the effect of fast-moving business environments on organizational and supply chain (SC) management. Yet, empirical findings on the effect of changing external and internal contingencies on today’s globalized agrifood SC networks and performance are still fragmented into different organizational instruments, with some conflicting results remaining unexplained. This study aims to address these deficiencies by providing a comprehensive research framework to investigate how SC external and internal contingencies jointly influence organizational SC network structures and agrifood performance across mutually dependent tiers.

Using partial least squares structural equation modeling, the so-called “contingency–netchain–performance” framework, based on contingent resource-based theory and the netchain approach, was empirically tested on data obtained from a standardized survey of 405 artisanal producers and 238 processors in the Nigerian shrimp sector.

The results provide statistical evidence that supports the path dependency of firm performance from the interplay of vertical, horizontal and lateral relationships and, primordially, from both external and internal contingencies. The findings show that the contingency paradigm of fit among small-scale food producers and processors cuts across tiers and uncover a tendency to adopt relational governance and tighter network structures that result in an organic organization as the best-fitting structure.

The paper presents a new research framework that offers comprehensive empirical explanations for the joint influence of SC external and internal contingencies on organizational SC network structures and performance across mutually dependent agrifood tiers. This study’s conceptual, practical and policy implications for SC management provide a nascent and flexible basis on which to identify the best-fitting organizational strategies that maximize firm performance across agrifood SC tiers characterized by changing business environments.

The purpose of this study is to reconcile the positive, non-significant and even negative effects of guanxi on firm performance from two aspects. First, it explores the linear and curvilinear relationships between guanxi and distinct performance dimensions. Second, it examines the moderating effects of both exchange-related behavioral risk (reflected by contract enforcement in this study) and market-related environmental risk (reflected by market turbulence in this study) on the above relationship.

Based on data for 206 samples collected from distributors of house furnishings, computers and their components, a moderated regression is used to test the hypotheses.

The empirical test generally supports the conceptual model and demonstrates three findings. First, guanxi has a linear, positive effect on financial performance and an inverted U-shaped effect on strategic performance. Second, contract enforcement decreases the effect of guanxi on financial performance and enhances its effect on strategic performance. Third, market turbulence enhances the effect of guanxi on financial performance and weakens its effect on strategic performance.

First, this study collects data only from China. Future studies should collect data from other emerging markets to allow for either model validation or cross-country comparisons. Second, the data come only from buyers, and suppliers’ viewpoints are not included. Third, in addition to contract enforcement and market turbulence, other important contingencies should be considered in the guanxi–performance link.

The results provide important implications for managers to manage guanxi in an emerging economy. Managers should be very clear about their primary goal (i.e. pursuing short-term financial revenue or long-term strategic targets); next, they should understand how to match guanxi with various levels of contract enforcement and market turbulence to achieve that goal.

First, prior research has documented guanxi’s role in channel relationships, but it has not achieved consistent conclusions. Second, although existing studies have analyzed the contingencies of guanxi at the firm level, market level and institutional level, another important contingency “the dyadic relationship condition” is rarely considered. Third, although the extant research has realized the value of guanxi contingent on various market conditions, conflicting views exist. This study contributes by addressing these issues.

Based on the widely held view that influence is exercised power, and in light of the suitability of power theory to studies of marketing's relative influence within the firm, this paper seeks to explore marketing's level of influence from a power perspective. The paper proposes and empirically tests a model in which the marketing function's four key types of power (bureaucratic power, critical contingencies power, network power, and psychological power) act as antecedents to marketing's influence within the firm. The model also aims to consider the contingency effect of market turbulence.

The study employs data drawn from a sample of senior managers in medium and large manufacturing firms. The model is tested using hierarchical ordinary least squares regression analysis.

The findings provide support for a link between all types of power and marketing's influence, with the exception of psychological power. Market turbulence is also found to strengthen the positive link between marketing's critical contingencies power and marketing's level of influence.

The study identifies and discusses power mechanisms that may be employed by marketing subunits to maintain or strengthen their influence within the firm.

Empirical evidence has shown that strong marketing functions are still needed, yet are slowly disappearing. This study approaches the question of how marketing departments can protect or regain their influence by adopting a power perspective. The findings suggest that marketing departments can tap into different types of power to further their influence. The study discusses the key theoretical and managerial implications and proposes some directions for future research.

Though academic research into the marketing/ entrepreneurship interface is of only relatively recent origin, it would seem that the basic principles of marketing appear to be equally valuable to both large and small firms. This article provides a critical review of the research into the role and process of marketing in small firms and attempts to classify the existing studies. In so doing, it identifies four approaches, namely the stages/growth model; the management styles model; the marketing as a management function model and the contingency model. From this, it concludes that in order to advance the theory of small business marketing a theoretical framework integrating the contingency approach and the process model appears to hold the greatest potential.

The aim of this study is to investigate the differential effects of pure and creative imitation on customer equity and the moderating roles of market contingency (i.e. competition intensity) and institutional contingency (i.e. enforcement inefficiency).

A lab experiment with 181 subjects and a survey of both senior and middle managers from 149 pharmaceutical firms in China were conducted.

Pure imitation decreases customer equity, but creative imitation increases it. Competition intensity attenuates the negative effect of pure imitation and the positive effect of creative imitation, whereas enforcement inefficiency only attenuates the negative effect of pure imitation.

The findings have significant implications for managers seeking to implement product imitation strategies in emerging economies. They can help managers understand the effects of two kinds of imitation strategies on customer equity. Furthermore, this shows that product imitation strategies should be aligned with various market and institutional contingencies to achieve better performance.

The authors distinguished between pure and creative imitation. Whereas previous studies have investigated the effects of pure and creative imitation on financial and market performance, the focus was on their differential effects on customer equity and the moderating roles of environmental contingencies at the market and institutional levels.

Multimarket competition is an area of competitive dynamics focused on studying situations where firms compete against each other simultaneously in more than one market. The intensity of competition depends on the aggressiveness and the market contingencies, influencing the competitive strategies. Particularly, the purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of multimarket competition and market contingencies on innovation.

An exploratory qualitative approach using the Grounded Theory is applied with conceptual purposes. The data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews and additional observations with senior strategies and decision-makers. The paper follows an extensive narrative to understand decision-taking processes on competitive strategy with the support of analytical software. The paper was performed in the automotive components industry making seats in two different countries to acknowledge the influence of market contingencies.

The results suggest that multimarket competition does not reduce the level of aggressiveness, but it offers a background that favors opportunities for companies and new business in circumstances of crisis associated to innovation. Depending on the market contingencies, strategies can foster a higher technological innovation, in those cases of high development in the industry, or diversification, when the development is lower.

This paper contributes to enrich multimarket competition theory with the study of innovation strategies in different market conditions, a topic not much explored in multimarket literature. Additionally, it suggests implications for managers attending to different market contingencies.

Prior research on interfirm collaborations has demonstrated that trust and contract are two central governance mechanisms that influence a firm’s knowledge sharing decision and the subsequent effect on performance. However, we know little about how effective these mechanisms are in different market conditions and levels of organizational innovativeness. This study aims to advance the literature on interfirm knowledge sharing by exploring these contingencies and by providing an alternative explanation of the contradictory effects of knowledge sharing on firm performance.

The authors collected 156 firms’ relationships with their suppliers in two batches from 300 firms in the 2017 list of Statistics in the Zhejiang province in China. The authors used unstructured interviews and formal questionnaires to collect data from these firms.

Market turbulence served as a boundary condition for the effect of interfirm trust and formal contracts on knowledge sharing. Both interfirm trust and formal contracts, as governance mechanisms, are effective in raising interfirm knowledge sharing only when the firms operate in high turbulent markets. On the contrary, knowledge sharing negatively affected firm performance when firms exhibit low organizational innovativeness. Moreover, a three-way interaction among market turbulence, organizational innovativeness and knowledge sharing revealed that when market turbulence and organizational innovativeness were both low, interfirm knowledge sharing was detrimental to firm performance.

Based on the results, this study recommends managers consider external (market turbulence) and internal (organizational innovativeness) when firms decide to share knowledge and benefit from such activities.

This study extends prior research on the determinant of knowledge sharing and clarifies the inconsistent findings of knowledge sharing on firm performance. Thus, strategic organizational leaders need to pay attention to when they need to share information with suppliers to best benefit from those collaborations.

The aim of this study is to examine the impact of the fit between product-service strategy and sensing capability on novelty, and the potential moderating impact of contextual factors (i.e. technological and market turbulence) on novelty.

In line with the aim of the study, a quantitative approach is adopted and a multi-item scale survey is designed to collect primary data. Using a mixed mode survey, a total number of 491 questionnaires are collected from a sample of UK-based telecommunications firms. Multiple regression is used to test the hypotheses and predict the outcomes.

The results support the positive contribution of a contingency approach to the study of the impact of the fit between product-service strategy and sensing dynamic capability on novelty. The results also partially confirm the reinforcing impact of technological and market turbulence on novelty.

This study extends research on product-service strategy and sensing capability by adopting a contingency view, which intends to serve two purposes: to complement the existing reductionistic explanations and to explore how the relationship between product-service strategy and sensing capability could create novelty as well as the degree to which this relationship could be moderated in light of the external contextual factors.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an overarching unifying theory where first-mover advantages are a conditional effect, not a main effect. By offering a closer look at how the firm, market and product characteristics influence the supply and demand of innovations, this research furthers our understanding of the advantages and disadvantages for first movers.

This paper explores first-mover advantages as a conditional effect. Adopting a contingency perspective, the authors review the literature in marketing, strategic management, innovation and entrepreneurship to offer a conceptual framework putting innovation success at the core of first-mover advantages. The authors develop an inventory of propositions specifying how first-mover advantages depend on various firm features, market characteristics and product properties through their effects on the success of innovations.

A conceptual framework centered around innovation success yields testable hypotheses that are coherent with extant research on first-mover advantages and reconcile the seemingly contradictory evidence in that body of work.

This research provides managers with the opportunity to think about one of the most important decisions, i.e. time of entry, not as a linear finite decision, but instead as a flow with the innovations and potential for their success in mind.

This paper distinguishes itself from the existing literature with its focus on innovation within a contingency perspective for first-mover advantages.