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The puropse of this paper is to understand the components of Vroom's expectancy theory; to create or develop a public library customer motivation model using Vroom's expectancy theory; to suggest appropriate public library services marketing mindset which public libraries can employ to enhance customers’ perceived expectancy and instrumentality of public library services to motivate customers to use public library services more frequently based on the proposed public library customer motivation model; and to suggest appropriate public library services marketing strategies to motivate customers to use public library services more frequently based on the proposed public library customer motivation model.

Research paper based on expectancy theory.

Customer‐centered mindset is the most important factor to motivate public library customers. Furthermore, the suggested marketing strategies can be also achieved through a customer‐centered marketing mindset. In conclusion, public libraries should continuously focus on the recognition of customers’ needs and deliver long‐term value to customers.

There were few studies that focused on library users’ motivations for using library products and services. In addition, there was a lack of developed theory in library and information science field.

In industrial buyer–supplier relationships, being an attractive customer has been found to result in superior supplier performance. However, there is a limited understanding of how these benefits transfer to the public domain. This study aims to explore the influence of customer attractiveness on supplier resource mobilization efforts toward the public sector.

A qualitative approach was used, focusing on in-depth interviews with 23 informants from 3 critical and complex supplier markets. The data were processed using inductive coding and thematic analysis.

The findings indicate that customer attractiveness in the public sector influences suppliers’ mobilization efforts on several dimensions. In addition to stimulating competition in the tender phase, customer attractiveness can yield important benefits to quality, supply stability and innovation during the business relationship. It appears imperative for the public sector to improve its standings with suppliers to both mitigate the apparent risk of sub-par treatment and to unlock the preferential supplier treatment associated with being an attractive customer.

Receiving increased mobilization from suppliers will result in better use of public money and help improve resilience and innovation in public procurement.

This study extends the research on customer attractiveness in the public sector by being the first to explore the range and nature of its influence on supplier mobilization efforts.

This paper aims to address the crucial interactions that a start-up enacts with actors from the public sphere in a context of medical technologies. The public actor commonly plays multiple roles, ranging from co-developers and financiers to large-scale users, which are all pivotal to the development and survival of the new venture. The paper investigates the possible “dark sides” of a start-up’s marriage with a public partner, departing from three specific roles the public sphere can assume in relation to a start-up: as a development partner, as a financer and as a customer.

The study builds on an in-depth empirical case study of a Swedish med-tech startup company.

The authors find the financing role to be least problematic, whereas the customer role is the most problematic in that it provides numerous barriers to the possible development and growth of a start-up firm striving to get new customers in a public setting. Examples of the most prominent barriers found are regulations, complex decision-making processes and assessment elements of med-tech products that are outside the control of the startup firm, hence issues that cannot be handled within inter-organizational relationships.

The study builds on 27 in-depth interviews, which were undertaken during 2005-2013, thus contributing detailed data about a start-up’s many and crucial interactions with different public actors. Departing from three different roles, a public partner can adopt in relation to a start-up, (development, co-financer and customer) provides results with managerial implications for start-up’s and policy implications for health-care policy.

This paper aims to measure the cost of procurement because public procurement procedures prescribed by legislation not only enhance transparency and competition but also entail certain transaction costs for both customers and suppliers.

These costs are important to the efficiency of the procurement system. However, very few previous studies have focused on estimating procurement costs. This paper proposes a methodology for public procurement cost evaluation.

This paper shows how procurement costs can be calculated using a formalized survey of public customers. This methodology was tested with a representative group of public customers operating in one region of the Russian Federation.

The authors formulate the policy implications of this paper, as they relate to the improvement of public procurement regulations and argue that this methodological approach can be applied in other developing and transitioning economies.

Buyer–supplier relationships in public procurement have garnered increasing attention in research, yet studies on the perspective of suppliers on public procurement have remained limited. This research takes the perspective of suppliers and aims to investigate the innovativeness of suppliers and the impact of supply chain ambidexterity strategies on their perceptions about public procurement in terms of innovation enablers and customer attractiveness.

This research draws from a survey of 137 suppliers to the public sector in Finland and applies PLS-path modeling to test its hypotheses.

The findings reveal that the ambidexterity strategy of suppliers in the supply chain influences how they perceive the innovation enablers and customer attractiveness of public organizations since processes of public procurement do not support these strategies fully. Supplier innovativeness has an influence on the perceived innovation enablers of public procurement, which, in turn, influences customer attractiveness.

The innovativeness and strategies of suppliers for the supply chain have an impact on how attractive they perceive public procurement. The findings of this research provide insights on why the customer attractiveness of public procurement may not be high enough to secure the competition in their bidding processes.

The study’s contribution adds to the field of buyer–supplier relationships and customer attractiveness in public procurement by showing the importance of innovation enablers and highlighting the impact of supplier's ambidexterity in the supply chain on their perceptions about public procurement.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how a seller can use interactions to respond to public procurement needs for innovation when the buying side is restricted by public procurement regulations.

The authors collected data using qualitative semi-structured interviews of different empirical examples, in which private–public interactions of four different high-technological products are studied. Two products belong to the defence industry and two to the civil industry.

The findings point to three types of innovations in public procurement: product, service and business model. The empirical examples further indicate, as suggested in previous studies, that innovation is hindered by regulations that limit interaction between suppliers and the public. In addition, the empirical examples indicate that firms mobilize actors in their network when the buyer is restricted in regard to interaction. The findings also add to the IMP literature by comparing interactions in the three types of innovations in the public procurement context.

Public procurement is an area where innovations are lagging behind, compared with private procurement. Research points to limited interaction between actors as an obstacle to innovation in public sector collaborations. This paper extends the literature on how organizations interact in the setting of public procurement. The authors identify demand and supply triggers for three types of innovations: product, service and business model innovation.

When public employees demonstrate ambidexterity in serving customers, through efficiently providing customers with current public services as well as exploring ways to create more, new public service solutions for customers, they may activate customers’ co-creating value with the public organization. The purpose of this research is to examine the role of public employees’ individual ambidexterity in promoting customer value co-creation. This research also seeks to investigate the levers behind individual ambidexterity, including ambidextrous leadership as an antecedent and public service motivation (PSM) as an enhancer for the leadership effect.

Public employees from public legal service agencies and customer companies they had served have been invited to participate and provide data for this research. The data collated have been analyzed using multilevel structural equation modeling approach.

Ambidextrous leadership was positively associated with frontline public employees’ individual ambidexterity. This positive association was enhanced by PSM among frontline public employees. In turn, frontline public employees’ individual ambidexterity demonstrated a positive link with customer value co-creation through the mediation mechanisms of customer–employee identification and customer–organization identification.

This research extends and marks the convergence between ambidexterity and customer value co-creation research streams.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the associated customer acquisition costs of public libraries. The intention of the paper is to develop awareness of the hidden costs associated with customer acquisition, and develop assessment tools or models to effectively manage the resources associated with customer acquisition to aid library administrators in strategic budgeting and planning.

The paper is prepared through review of the library and business literature associated with customer acquisitions. No definitive data on customer turnover rates or models of assessing customer acquisitions cost are identified in the review of the literature.

While not identified or managed systematically, the calculation of customer acquisition costs, customer turnover rates, and the effective management of associated customer acquisition cost is strategically imperative for public libraries. Public libraries generally do not track customer turnover or the associated costs of acquiring new or replacement customers that come about due to this turnover. There is not a definitive estimate of customer turnover in public libraries, so exact costs determination will vary by public library system. Public libraries can reduce their customer acquisition costs through the retention of current customers with high quality service and in effectively managing the customer acquisition process in the strategic budgeting and planning processes of the library.

Libraries that can effectively acquire new or replacement customers and manage the costs of this process will more effectively utilize resources and maximize customer value for the library. This paper proposes several cost assessment calculations to help guide library administrators in making strategic decisions.

Several studies on corporate reputation have proposed a customer‐based approach for assessing corporate reputation. Other studies proposed examining corporate reputation from the perspective of other primary stakeholder groups such as employees, investors or suppliers. Hence this paper aims to examine corporate reputation by considering both the customer's and the non‐customer's views.

This study was applied to the US wireless telecommunications industry. A random sample of 1,088 respondents composed of 518 customers and 570 representing the non‐customers, was generated for this study. The sample was randomly distributed by age, gender, income, education and geographic location.

The findings of this study revealed that the formation of perceptions about corporate reputation differ between customers and non‐customers. The dimension of emotional appeal is specific to the customer group and the dimension of vision and leadership is specific to the non‐customer group. Finally, social and environmental responsibility was not a significant element in forming the perceptions about corporate reputation for both customers and non‐customers.

The study does not incorporate the effect of variables such as change in price or service quality nor take the impact of mergers and acquisitions into consideration.

This study helped to identify the primary and secondary elements for managing a company's reputation.

This study contributes to the literature on corporate reputation by determining how customers and non‐customers form their perceptions. The model provides a comprehensive assessment on how perceptions about corporate reputation are formed and what are the subsequent outcomes of those perceptions.

In industrial procurement, the concept of supplier satisfaction has gained increasing attention. Satisfied suppliers have been found to provide better prices, more innovations and priority in bottleneck situations. This paper aims to analyses in how far the concept of supplier satisfaction can be transferred to the public procurement domain.

Two large quantitative data sets are compared, one from a sample of suppliers evaluating their industrial clients, the other from a public customer being evaluated by its suppliers.

The same criteria which explain supplier satisfaction with its customer, which are relevant in the private and industrial case also hold true for the public case, namely, growth opportunity, profitability, relational behaviour and operative excellence are important criteria for distinction. Only relational behaviour by the customer scored significantly higher in the public sample, indicating that this is more an influencing factor for public organisations.

Showing the relevance of supplier satisfaction also for the public domain paves the way to further research better understanding how to measure satisfaction and how to increase suppliers’ satisfaction.

Buying organisations are asked to apply a form of “upstream marketing”, in which they actively try to promote their organisation with their suppliers and increase its attractiveness. This is a new way to get access to better services from suppliers.

Analysing supplier satisfaction, on the one hand, allows to improve public purchasing acts, which generate social benefits in better using public money. On the other hand, caring for the well-being of suppliers is per se contributing to a socially more desirable world.

Supplier satisfaction is a new concept in the public procurement domain. This is the first paper to introduce this approach.