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Despite increased emphasis on customer or market orientation over the past several decades, there is considerable evidence that many customer service practices have created a “Janus face” situation in which stated marketing philosophy often differs from practice. This paper aims to explore those issues in marketing practice.

This paper develops a typology of “new age” practices in customer service that seem to serve to annoy, alienate and even potentially harm consumers. Consumer-coping mechanisms for dealing with such practices are then discussed, arguing that the practices themselves are not in the best long-term interests of the firm. This paper concludes with suggestions for how firms can avoid a “Janus face” situation and better serve today’s educated consumers.

Too many of today’s ostensibly “marketing”-oriented companies are more concerned with selling and much less concerned with retention or real relationships. Unfortunately, even if companies are doing many things correctly, this does not sound like behavior that should exist in the so-called “marketing era” in the 21st century.

The negative implication of extolling service excellence while delivering the opposite to customers is undesirable. Research that addresses the service challenges that firms face in this fast-changing marketing environment is crucial to advancing academic knowledge.

As marketing moves into 2020 and beyond, it is critical to correct these service issues and problems. Companies cannot really afford to drive away customers in the dynamic age of relationship marketing fueled by rapidly advancing technological change.

This paper presents a typology of “new age” customer service problems.

Off-label drug prescribing by healthcare providers is a growing practice. Yet, the US Food and Drug Administration bans the marketing of drugs for off-label uses. In recent years, legal challenges by the pharmaceutical industry have chipped away government restrictions on off-label drug promotion. Although the changing legal landscape has been discussed, this paper aims to examine how key stakeholders and policy-makers might interact to provide a more transparent marketing environment for off-label drug discussions in the patient–provider relationship.

Drawing on a variety of sources, the authors assess the current marketing landscape of off-label drugs and some of the issues that challenge the healthcare provider–patient relationship. The authors then examine opportunities to improve the off-label promotion environment and the relevant decision-making theories that key stakeholders need to consider when formulating marketing efforts and policies.

The authors suggest that fewer restrictions on truthful, non-misleading off-label drug promotion provide an opportunity to improve drug knowledge and, importantly, healthcare provider and consumer decision-making. Key stakeholders should consider, among other solutions, criteria for defining truthful information on off-label drugs, alternative methods of approval of off-label uses and ubiquitous icons to identify off-label prescribing to all stakeholders.

Rather than rehash the legal landscape of off-label drug promotion, this paper focuses on how the healthcare provider–patient relationship is impacted and how stakeholders can improve information flow in this changing environment.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the gap in the literature as well as investigate how the combination of internal marketing or innovation investments with new product introductions influences alliance type choices. Most research on marketing–innovation resource allocation decisions has focused on trade-offs in internal investments such as advertising versus research and development. Absent from this discussion is whether firms offset a weakness internally by reaching outside the boundaries of the firm through alliances. As a result, managers lack a clear understanding of the potential for complementarity using internal–external approaches to a market.

This paper draws on the resource-based view of the firm, using a longitudinal secondary data set and a choice model.

The authors find that firms that internally emphasize either marketing or innovation maintain the same approach externally with respect to alliance type choices. Thus, efforts to complement internal marketing (innovation) resource investments with innovation (marketing) alliances are not seen. However, the interaction of new product introductions with internal resource investments does result in a complementary firm approach.

The authors bridge a gap in the resource investment literature by exploring how the internal decisions impact the external alliance choices. The authors draw on longitudinal data and show that the action of making the choice is important, as it impacts future resource decisions. The authors explore the interaction between new production introductions and internal firm investments on alliance type choice. Given that new product introductions are a key to longer-term firm success, examining these relationships enhances the managerial impact.

This paper aims to explore the ways in which gender and feminism are practised in professional military education (PME), which is viewed as an atypical higher education institution, by focusing on the practice and discourse of female academics.

The paper uses a case study approach using participant observation and semi‐structured interviews. The authors' qualitative analysis is informed by feminist research methods.

The authors identified a number of key areas around which resistance and accommodation to gender norms are produced: the visual, the vocal and collective action. Analysis of these revealed the everyday practices of academic identities, the gendering of knowledge, and feminist interventions. The authors found that the practices and debates of academic women in PME reflect the wider debates in academia.

PME and its relationship with gender and feminism have rarely been studied. This paper begins that task. The findings of this atypical case also add to the growing body of research on identity, gender, and feminism in academia, as well as to women working in male‐dominated institutions.

Profitability considerations lead service providers to terminate service contracts with low-value customers. However, customers targeted by service contract terminations often take revenge through negative word-of-mouth (NWOM). Presently, it is unclear how service contract termination initiatives prevent this harmful side effect. The purpose of this study is to compare the effectiveness of common service contract termination initiatives for reducing NWOM of customers whose service contracts are being cancelled. The study results provide guidance for minimizing the downside of service contract termination.

This study distinguishes between service contract termination initiatives common in practice (preannouncement, explanation, financial compensation, apology and support in finding an alternative provider). Drawing on a multi-industry survey of 245 customers who have experienced service contract terminations in real life, the authors estimate regression models to link perceived service contract termination initiatives to NWOM.

All else equal, only preannouncement and support in finding an alternative are effective to reduce NWOM. This study also shows that the right choice of service contract termination initiatives depends on the context of the termination. Making a preannouncement, offering an explanation and providing support in finding an alternative are more effective in reducing NWOM when these actions are aligned with the contextual factors of relationship duration and competitive intensity.

This study shows that service contract termination needs to address several aspects of the service termination experience. The key implication for future research is that it matters in terms of NWOM how service contract terminations are performed.

This research identifies the service contract termination initiatives that are most effective to reduce NWOM after service contract termination in general and under consideration of the moderating roles of relationship duration and competitive intensity.

While most related studies have considered customer responses to the cancellation of other customers’ contracts, this study contributes to the scarce literature on the undesirable customer responses (such as NWOM) to the termination of their own contract. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first study in this emerging stream of research that accounts for the effects of process- and outcome-oriented contract termination initiatives on NWOM. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is also the first study to account for moderators of the effect of contract termination initiatives on NWOM, namely, relationship duration and competitive intensity.

This paper aims to present an integrated view of the literature published on all aspects and facets of competence in supply chain management (SCM) and furthermore provides a framework for classifying and analyzing literature to facilitate further study, practice and research.

A systematic literature review identified 98 peer-reviewed scientific journal publications on the subject of competence in SCM.

This review identifies and classifies the key content of the subject based on whose competence (level of analysis) and the type of competence (competence element), resulting in a framework that brings together aspects at the individual and organizational level, and of the functional, relational, managerial and behavioral elements of competence from the SCM literature. It furthermore displays the timeliness and wide-ranging character of the subject, as presented by the evolutionary timeline and the main research streams.

Although competence in SCM is a key to business success, the subject is ambiguous and an explicit need exists for more research. This paper provides a foundation for future examination of and theory building in this subject. It also alerts researchers to complementary studies outside of their own “customary” domains.

This paper can support managers in their pursuit to secure competence in SCM and thereby improve outcomes on both individual and organizational level. It can furthermore assist in the development of relevant programs and training sessions.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this work represents the first systematic literature review on the subject of competence in SCM. In addition, it proposes a taxonomy for mapping and evaluating research on this subject.

While the performance benefits of relational resources and managerial ambidexterity have been widely discussed in coopetition literature, there is only limited evidence that illustrates the underlying relationships between these relational resources and managerial ambidexterity. Against this background, this paper aims to investigate how managerial ambidexterity moderates the innovation ambidexterity effects of relational resources (i.e. reciprocal investments and complementary resources).

This study forwards various hypotheses that are grounded within the theoretical tenets of the relational view and the dynamic capabilities perspective. To test the hypotheses, this study uses survey data provided by 313 firms that pursue horizontal coopetition relationships.

The research findings offer important insights in that while reciprocal investments lead to innovation ambidexterity, complementary resources do not result in such benefits. Additionally, managerial ambidexterity complements the relational resources to develop innovation ambidexterity if and only if both managerial exploration and exploitation are applied simultaneously.

As opposed to widely-held beliefs, this study finds that firms' use of complementary resources is not likely to lead to innovation ambidexterity even though such resources can help in developing strong relationships. In addition, although often overlooked, managerial ambidexterity plays a vital role in transforming relational resources into useful innovations for firms involved in coopetition relationships. It is crucial for firms that their managers balance their ambidextrous activities of exploration and exploitation so as to develop innovation ambidexterity.