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This study aims to map the major research constituents and trends for the Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing (JBIM) during its 34-year history (1986–2019). It also identifies JBIM’s thematic structure and the key factors affecting the impact of its articles.

The Scopus database is used to identify the bibliographic data of JBIM. The most prolific authors, institutions and countries in the journal are analyzed through weighted distributions of articles. The thematic structure of the journal is evaluated by means of bibliographic coupling analysis. The study also examines the factors influencing citations of JBIM articles through regression modeling.

JBIM publishes contributions from around the world, though the most prolific contributors are affiliated with the USA, UK and Finland. Thematic analysis divided JBIM articles into five major themes. Citation analysis reveals that article age, special issue appearance, number of author keywords and number of references are prominent factors explaining an article’s impact.

This study uses data from the Scopus database, and limitations of the database have implications for the findings.

This is the first comprehensive study to identify the thematic structure and the factors affecting citations of JBIM articles.

This paper aims to present a new framework that describes the relationship among market entry order and timing, the advantages accruing to first-movers and late-movers, entry timing premium (ETP), marketing strategy and enduring market performance of the firms. The framework, empirically tested using data from 241 business executives, expands extant research into new territory beyond first- and late-mover advantages in an attempt to reconcile a few streams of research in the area and provides an entry related, strategic assessment tool (ETP) for the managers. Contribution to marketing strategy theory and managerial implications are also presented.

Participants included informants in a firm’s strategic business unit who were the most familiar with a new product’s commercial launch, market condition at launch, competitor offerings, marketing activities and capabilities and eventual integration into or withdrawal from the product’s portfolio. Therefore, for the survey, the study targeted chief executive officers, vice presidents of marketing or sales, product or sales managers, general managers and regional managers. Both preference bias (Narus, 1984) and survivor biases among the respondents were addressed.

The research result of this study reveals two very significant aspects of marketing and marketing strategies. First, the importance of financial, pricing and cost strategies further attests to the fiercely competitive nature of the global market today and the tendency for firms to commoditize most products and services. An effective financial and pricing strategy, coupled with a higher level of ETP, is capable of leading a firm to initial market success in the product-market in which it competes. Both ETP (a positional advantage and resource of the firm) and financial and pricing strategies (a deliberate strategic decision of the management) are important to achieve this goal.

This study is limited in several ways. The effects of entry order and timing on market performance could be dependent on the types of industries and types of product categories involved. However, as the hypotheses were well supported, the “industry specific” factors would provide “fine-tuning” in the future study. Second, the nature of the product (goods or services) may also present varying effects on the relationship studied (for differences between manufacturing and service firms in pioneering advantages, see Song et al., 1999). Services’ intangible nature, difficulty in protecting property rights, high involvement of boundary-spanning employees and customers, high reliance on delivery and quality, and ease of imitation may alter the proposed relationships in the model and the moderating effects. Third, although this study used a “retrospective” protocol approach in the data collection by encouraging respondents to recall market, product and business information, this study is not longitudinal. Lack of longitudinal data in any study involving strategic planning, strategy execution and the long-term effects is no doubt a weakness. In addition, due to peculiarity and complexity with regard to regulation and other aspects in pharmaceutical and other industries, the theory might be limited to a certain extent.

In all, the integrated framework contributes to the understanding of the intricate issues surrounding first-mover advantage, late-mover advantage, entry order and timing and the role of marketing strategy. The framework provides practitioners guidance as to when to enter a product-market to gain advantageous positions and how to maintain that advantage. Firms that use a deliberate late-mover strategy could also benefit from the research finding in mapping out their strategic courses of action.

This study believes that the halo effect surrounding first-mover advantage may have obscured the visions of some researchers and managers, and the pursuit of a silver bullet has led to frenzied interests in becoming a “first-mover” or a deliberate “late-mover”. The theoretical framework, which is substantiated by empirical testing, invalidates the long-held claim that entry of a particular kind (first-movers or late-movers) yields any unique competitive advantage. It is a firms’ careful selection of marketing strategies and careful execution of the strategies through effective operational tactics that would lead to enduring competitive advantage, under an adequate level of ETP.

This study provides a retrospect of Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics (APJML) for the 27-year period between 1993 and 2019.

This study uses the Scopus database to identify the most-cited APJML articles and most prolific authors, institutions and countries in APJML between 1993 and 2019. The study uses bibliometric indicators as well as tools such as bibliographic coupling and science mapping, to analyze the publication and citation structure of APJML. The study provides a temporal analysis of APJML publishing across different periods.

APJML's publication has grown at an average rate of 17% per year, while its citations have grown at an impressive rate of 60%. The contributors to the journal come mainly from the Asia Pacific region, which is not surprising given the journal's scope of publication. Bibliographic coupling of articles reveals that the journal has focused mostly on issues related to market orientation, advertising, marketing research, consumer behavior, customer service, marketing in the digital environment and consumer ethnocentrism. Quantitative research in marketing and consumer ethnocentrism is among the emerging themes in the journal and would benefit from more exploration from scholars.

This study uses data from the Scopus database, whose limitations have implications for the findings. For example, data for the journal's first five issues are not available on Scopus and therefore are not included in the analysis.

This study provides the first overview of APJML's publication and citation trends as well as its thematic structure.

The purpose of this study is to map the development of articles published, citations, and themes of Marketing Intelligence and Planning (MIP) over the 37-year period of 1983–2019.

This study uses the Scopus database to identify the most-cited MIP articles and most-included authors, institutions and countries in MIP. The study uses bibliometric indicators, as well as tools such as bibliographic coupling, performance analysis and science mapping, to analyze the publication and citation structure of MIP. The study provides a temporal analysis of MIP publishing across different time periods.

MIP has an average publication of 43 articles each year, and the number of citations has grown substantially since it started publication. Although contributors to the journal come from around the globe, they most often are affiliated with the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia. Bibliographic coupling of documents reveals that the journal's primary focus has been on issues such as marketing planning, marketing theory, consumer behavior, global marketing, customer relationship management, customer service and branding. Co-authorship analysis reveals that the journal's collaborative network has grown.

This study uses data from the Scopus database, and any limitations of the database have implications for the findings.

First analysis of this kind of papers published in MIP

The purpose of this paper is to propose a virtual forward-buying model that allows for forward buying but reduces the channel cost with no major behavioral change on the part of manufacturers and retailers.

Using simulations, the authors compare the proposed virtual forward-buying model with the traditional forward-buying and everyday-low-price approaches.

The authors find that the proposed model leads to lower overall channel costs that are shared equitably between both the manufacturer and the retailer.

No primary or secondary is used, a situation that is usually very difficult to find in this area.

The paper presents a new method to improve trade promotion efficiencies that does not require a drastic change of habits for either the manufacturer or the retailer; allows the practice of forward buying to continue; and leads to channel cost reductions for both parties.

The paper presents research in an area that is under-researched due to lack of data.

Considers the pluralistic cultures which exist within a nation and outlines the history of previous research into this field. Introduces the concept of embeddedness which means that the society within which a person lives will influence their behaviour. Discusses intracultural differences and presents some research strategies for looking at the ethnic consumer.

With the growth of worldwide e‐commerce, companies are increasingly targeting foreign online consumers. However, there is a dearth of evidence as to whether global consumers prefer to browse and buy from standardized global web sites or web sites adapted to their local cultures. This study provides evidence from five different countries as to whether global consumers prefer local web content or standardized web content. The study also measures how the degree of cultural adaptation on the web affects consumer perception of site effectiveness.

Business managers are constantly faced with the decision to continue or abandon new product development projects. However, this type of decision may not be easy. These decisions are usually prone to bias of managers. Managers are known to escalate their commitment toward failed projects. It is also not easy to identify projects that are suffering from escalation of commitment. The purpose of this paper is to propose an objective escalation identification method.

This paper proposes an objective escalation identification method using data envelopment analysis (DEA). The results from DEA are compared with those of subjective methods of identifying escalation.

The objective estimate of escalation given by DEA was comparable to the subjective estimate of escalation given by the managers in the survey.

DEA is sensitive to outliers and managers should be careful in selecting projects that are to be included for comparison. DEA does not give statistical fit indices as it is an operational research based technique.

DEA is an objective and automatic tool that makes the decision of managers easier. Managers can use this tool by inputting the output and input variables of their projects and then see which ones are escalated, therefore need to be abandoned. As a consequence, escalation of commitment and big losses can be prevented especially in new product development area.

By using the proposed objective approach, escalation of commitment and associated big losses can be prevented especially in new product development area.

Using a large‐scale database of a major business services company, self‐reported usage volume data were compared with actual usage volume. Several business‐related factors were then examined in relation to the survey response bias. Survey response bias was found to be lower for clients that use the services more extensively, had been in business for a longer period of time, and have smaller number of employees. Survey response bias was also found to be lower when the level of involvement with the service (lower level of management in this study) was greater. Such response bias information would be useful for managers when making sales forecasts or market share estimations using survey responses.

The purpose of his paper is to define the role of cyber‐intermediaries based on several theories such as transaction cost analysis, agency, social exchange, and relationship marketing.

This is a conceptual piece that uses arguments from well‐established theories in marketing and management

This paper suggests that cyber‐intermediaries will continue to add value to the producer‐consumer chain, benefiting both the producers and the consumers.

The nature and type of products and services will define the role of the intermediary. They may be more useful in the low cost but frequently purchased product categories.

The paper presents an integration of existing theories to understand the role of cyber‐intermediaries.