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Marketing channels are changing dramatically as the world economy becomes networked. Buyers who are likely to only have limited insight into a wholesaler's sourcing decisions may be uncertain about product and/or service quality. This paper aims to show that a credible quality signal provided by the wholesaler, the wholesale brand, can effectively reduce buyer uncertainty.

Using structural equation modelling methodology in the context of 569 buyers across 52 locations of a home improvement wholesaler the authors investigate the key mediating role of transaction costs for the effect of wholesale brand knowledge on buyer loyalty.

The results suggest that wholesaler brand knowledge effectively reduces ex‐post transaction costs incurred by the buyer. These lower quality control costs and price verification efforts increase buyer loyalty. Interestingly, however, the data show that this bonding effect of the wholesale brand may not affect buyer search costs.

The research on the role of supplier brands for supply network management is an early effort. Clearly more research is needed to fully explore the role of wholesale brand knowledge for wholesaler selection.

The findings are important to marketing channel managers because they provide a viable alternative to ever‐increasing relationship marketing costs. They suggest that a close wholesaler‐retailer relationship may not be necessary to realize the benefits of a trusting exchange environment. In fact, they show that high wholesale brand knowledge may act as a substitute and reduce uncertainty effectively.

This paper is the first to introduce a transaction cost perspective on the relationship between wholesale brand knowledge and wholesale loyalty. It demonstrates how wholesale brand knowledge can reduce uncertainty in the wholesaler‐retailer dyad and substitute for more costly relationship building efforts.

Building on the resource-based view of the firm the purpose of this paper is to study the intangible resources available for social ventures, and presents a typology of growth strategies based on the intangible resources possessed by those enterprises.

This research applies a multiple case study technique for ten social enterprises in Egypt listed on Ashoka and Schwab Foundation websites. The research employs a purposive sampling technique. Data triangulation is used based on reports, websites, and interviews with social entrepreneurs and employees.

The study has three main findings: describing the intangible resources needed by social ventures to grow; detailing the growth strategies adopted by social ventures and corresponding funding mechanisms; explaining how intangible resources affect the selection of growth strategies, and how these interact with the context to produce expected outcomes. Overall, a typology for growth strategies of social ventures is presented.

This paper is an original attempt to advance research on social enterprises in relation to the RBV and the domain of venture growth and impact scale-up.

This research is beneficial for social ventures and venture philanthropists who wish to learn about the specific resources important for venture growth, and understand the suitable strategies and context for organizational growth and impact scale-up.

This research is one of the few attempts to study and explain the types of intangible resources in social ventures and the role of different resource bundles in deciding social venture growth strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce librarians who are not necessarily music specialists to four books on a subset of American popular song literature (“the American songbook” or “standards”), all of which assume some degree of musical literacy on the reader's part. This assumption sets these books apart from most writing on the subject, and the paper suggest reasons why this is the case.

The books are grouped into pairs. The first two books are by a single author whose previous scholarship may make his interest in the American songbook seem surprising. In the other pair the second book is both a continuation of the first and a response to it. In both pairs the earlier book breaks new ground.

All four books should be regarded as essential parts of a library's music literature collection. The first book discussed is more technical than the others, but its pioneering status makes it a landmark.

The author's research indicates that the oldest of the books considered was not discussed in scholarly journals until many years after its publication, while the most recent appears to have received only glancing consideration in peer‐reviewed literature.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the category‐level differences of both risk perception and brand loyalty effects on consumer proneness towards buying private label brands (PLBs).

This paper extends the work of Batra and Sinha by also examining the PLB effects of brand loyalty and price‐quality by product category using a mall‐intercept survey.

The results indicate that quality variability, price consciousness, price‐quality association and brand loyalty influence consumer proneness to buy PLBs. In addition, income, education and household size are moderators of PLB purchasing.

This research confirms the importance of price consciousness and quality variability on PLB purchasing. The importance of these determinants depends on both the product category and the PLB market share within the category.

Retailers and manufacturers need to consider the effects of PLB in relation to the product category. For retailers, the value of a PLB is less relevant in some categories but appealing to the price conscious consumer is important. Manufacturers should note in some categories that brand loyalty is important but not as much as price consciousness. Customer income is still an important determinant of PLB purchasing.

The paper shows that it is important to consider product category differences which make it more difficult to generalize about PLB purchasing.

Activity‐based costing is widely used in managerial accounting as a cost measurement instrument. Accounting practices can differ widely between countries. Recognizing differences and similarities in seemingly identical practices between countries provides the opportunity for improvement and allows us to draw managerial implications in light of the increasing internationalization of companies. This paper compares US and German activity‐based costing. The paper establishes differences based on purpose, cost concepts, construction and cost allocation, and quantity and quality of cost information. It then proceeds by using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to formulate propositions concerning the acceptability of the systems by managerial accountants in the USA and Germany.

Service companies in high tech sectors frequently implement decentralized decision architectures in their innovation processes to improve responsiveness under extremely dynamic and uncertain business conditions. As a corollary to the empowerment of decision makers at the product management level, the success of new service development projects depends increasingly on individual managers’ information processing and decision‐making performance. This article investigates antecedents of decision‐making effectiveness in high tech NSD projects, and report on a case study performed in the mobile telecommunication services industry. NSD managers’ unique task conditions are articulated, and antecedents and moderators of effective decision making are identified in a study of four innovation projects. A theoretical framework integrates the findings. The study reveals the crucial role of decision makers’ flexible use of various cognitive strategies, their proactive attitude, and their capability to mentally represent various interfaces between service, customer, technology and firm. Managerial implications and suggestions for further research are provided.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the simultaneous effects of country of origin (COO) and corporate reputation on initial trust in a transition economy, and to compare these effects across two service industries. The model broadens COO research by incorporating initial trust as a key driver of success in the context of services internationalization. Design/methodology/approach – Poland is the transition economy studied. A total of 184 respondents evaluated different service combinations (high vs low reputation/home country vs foreign country) in two different service categories (high risk vs low risk). Relationships between constructs are tested, employing a between‐subject experimental design. Findings – Both reputation and the risk level of service have a significant main effect on initial trust. Furthermore, results indicate a highly significant interaction effect: a positive COO effect leads to a higher level of initial trust only in the case of a risky service. Research limitations/implications – As with all laboratory studies, external validity is limited. Further research should focus on other instruments for gaining initial trust (e.g. warranties), especially in the case of a negative COO image. Practical implications – International marketers of services must carefully consider COO information as a means of building initial trust. Positive effects only apply in the case of high‐risk services. Originality/value – A major contribution is the introduction of initial trust as an important mediator in COO‐related international service marketing literature. As a second contribution, COO effects were compared across different service categories with respect to perceived risk. Furthermore, investigating COO effects in transition economies is of particular interest, as such markets are gaining attraction for international service providers.

The purpose of this study is to deepen understanding of the effects of using social media technologies to acquire technological knowledge and organizational learning competences, of technological knowledge competences on organizational learning and finally of organizational learning on organizational performance.

The study was performed by analyzing data from a sample of 197 technology firms located in Spain. The hypotheses were tested using a structural equations model with the program LISREL 8.80.

This study’s conceptual framework is grounded in complexity theory – along with dynamic capabilities theory, which complements the resource-based view. The study contributes to the literature by proposing a model that reflects empirically how business ecosystems that use social media technologies enable the development of interorganizational and social collaboration networks that encourage learning and development of technological knowledge competences.

It would be interesting for future studies to consider other elements to conceptualize and measure social media technologies, including (among others) significance of the various tools used and strategic integration. The model might also analyze other sectors and another combination of variables.

The results of this study have several managerial implications: developing social media technologies and interorganizational social collaboration networks not only enables the organizational learning process but also encourages technological knowledge competences. Through innovation processes, use of social media technologies also contributes to strengthening companies’ strategic positioning, which ultimately helps to improve firms’ organizational performance.

Since social media technologies drive information systems in contemporary society (because they enable interaction with numerous agents), the authors highlight the use of complexity theory to develop a conceptual framework.

The study also deepens understanding of the connections by which new experiential learning contributes to the generation of coevolutionary adaptive business ecosystems and digital strategies that enable development of interorganizational and social collaborative networks through technological knowledge competences. Only after examining the impact of social media technologies on organizational performance in prior literature, did the authors underscore that both quantity and frequency of social media technology use are positively related to improvement in knowledge processes that lead to employees’ creation and acquisition of new metaknowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss recent developments in neuroscientific methods and demonstrate its potential for the service field. This work is a call to action for more service researchers to adopt promising and increasingly accessible neuro-tools that allow the service field to benefit from neuroscience theories and insights.

The paper synthesizes key literature from a variety of domains (e.g. neuroscience, consumer neuroscience and organizational neuroscience) to provide an in-depth background to start applying neuro-tools. Specifically, this paper outlines the most important neuro-tools today and discusses their theoretical and empirical value.

To date, the use of neuro-tools in the service field is limited. This is surprising given the great potential they hold to advance service research. To stimulate the use of neuro-tools in the service area, the authors provide a roadmap to enable neuroscientific service studies and conclude with a discussion on promising areas (e.g. service experience and servicescape) ripe for neuroscientific input.

The paper offers service researchers a starting point to understand the potential benefits of adopting the neuroscientific method and shows their complementarity with traditional service research methods like surveys, experiments and qualitative research. In addition, this paper may also help reviewers and editors to better assess the quality of neuro-studies in service.