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Considering the emergence of e-commerce platforms and their integration into marketing channels, this paper aims to investigate how artificial intelligence (AI) resources – both technological and human – possessed by e-commerce platforms can enhance their channel power by acquiring market-based assets (relational and intellectual).

Based on resource-based theory and resource orchestration theory, the authors developed a framework tested using survey data gathered from the sellers, which incorporated six key variables: the e-commerce platform’s AI technology resources and human resources, rational and intellectual market-based assets, intraplatform competition and channel power. The analyses are performed using the regression analysis technique.

The empirical findings indicate that both technological and human AI resources are crucial in building channel power. In addition, market-based assets serve as a mediator in this relationship, while intraplatform competition moderates the effect of intellectual market-based assets on channel power negatively.

This study contributes to the existing literature by exploring how e-commerce platforms’ AI resources affect their channel power. The results offer valuable guidance to managers and researchers on optimizing AI resources to improve channel power.

This study examines the role and relative impact of market orientation, product orientation and relationship orientation on new product launch performance, investigating product advantage and market-based assets as alternative mediating mechanisms, which link these strategic orientations to launch performance.

Survey data from the pharmaceutical industry are used to test hypotheses in the research model using partial least squares modeling.

Findings show that while each examined strategic orientation relates positively to launch performance, their performance effects and related mechanisms vary significantly. Results demonstrate a firm’s relationship orientation is the strongest predictor of launch performance, and accumulated market-based assets represent an alternative relational mediator besides product advantage linking firms’ orientations and launch performance.

The empirical study is based on cross-sectional data collected in one specific industry sector. The authors encourage researchers to confirm the key findings in different industry and other contextual settings.

New product launch can be effectively managed as a relational activity. Firms benefit from paying explicit attention to strategic orientations and relationships. Especially, top management should foster a relationship-oriented organizational culture, develop relational competences and fully use the firm’s accumulated market-based assets for increased launch performance.

The study extends knowledge on the role of strategic orientations in launch performance by highlighting the significance of relationship orientations and providing novel knowledge on the key mediating mechanisms between strategic orientations and launch performance.

A potential weakness of marketing in the strategy dialogue has been a tendency on the part of marketing scholars to stay with outmoded frameworks. As the economy is decreasingly influenced by industrial value creation and increasingly influenced by knowledge creation and dissemination, the role of marketing in value creation and thus in strategy is accentuated. Synthesizing current literature regarding the environmental changes and the underlying foundations for value creation affected by these changes, and contrasting them to traditional, industrial value creation, an argument for the central role of marketing in the knowledge economy is provided and examples support the new value creation‐marketing link.

Companies in all industries are searching for new sources of competitive advantage since the competition in their marketplace is becoming increasingly intensive. The resource-based view of the firm explains the sources of sustainable competitive advantages. From a resource-based view perspective, relational based assets (i.e., the assets resulting from firm contacts in the marketplace) enable competitive advantage. The relational based assets examined in this work are brand image and corporate reputation, as components of brand equity, and customer value. This paper explores how they create value. Despite the relatively large amount of literature describing the benefits of firms in having strong brand equity and delivering customer value, no research validated the linkage of brand equity components, brand image, and corporate reputation, simultaneously in the customer value–customer loyalty chain. This work presents a model of testing these relationships in consumer goods, in a business-to-business context. The results demonstrate the differential roles of brand image and corporate reputation on perceived quality, customer value, and customer loyalty. Brand image influences the perception of quality of the products and the additional services, whereas corporate reputation actions beyond brand image, estimating the customer value and customer loyalty. The effects of corporate reputation are also validated on different samples. The results demonstrate the importance of managing brand equity facets, brand image, and corporate reputation since their differential impacts on perceived quality, customer value, and customer loyalty. The results also demonstrate that companies should not limit to invest only in brand image. Maintaining and enhancing corporate reputation can have a stronger impact on customer value and customer loyalty, and can create differential competitive advantage.

The most recent literature on competitive advantage views brand equity as a relational market‐based asset because it arises from the relationships that consumers have with brands. Given the fact that trust is viewed as the corner‐stone, as well as one of the most desirable qualities in any relationship, the objective of this study is to analyze the importance of brand trust in the development of brand equity. Specifically, the paper examines the relationships network in which brand trust is embedded.

A quantitative methodology was adopted. The data are based on a survey conducted in a region in the south‐eastern part of Spain, resulting in 271 surveys.

The findings reveal that brand trust is rooted in the result of past experience with the brand, and it is also positively associated with brand loyalty, which in turn maintains a positive relationship with brand equity. Furthermore, the results suggest that, although brand trust does not play a full mediating role as suggested by Morgan and Hunt, it contributes to a better explanation of brand equity.

These results have significant implications. The fact that brand equity is best explained when brand trust is taken into account reinforces the idea that brand equity is a relational market‐based asset. Therefore, branding literature may be enriched through the integration with the literature on the resource‐based‐view of the firm. From a practical point of view, companies must build brand trust in order to enjoy the substantial competitive and economic advantages provided by brand equity as a relational, market‐based asset.

This paper focuses on the role of manufacturer brands for resellers within retail channels. This topic is important because of the strategic value of manufacturer brands and the increasing influence of resellers within channels of distribution. Much of the branding research emphasizes a customer-brand knowledge perspective; however, emerging perspectives suggest that brands are also relevant to other stakeholders including resellers. In contrast, channels research recognizes the manufacturer sources of market power, but does not consider the impact of manufacturer “push and pull” strategies within channels. Existing theoretical frameworks, therefore, do not address the reseller perspective of the brand. As a result, the research approach is a multi-method design, consisting of two phases. The first phase involves in-depth interviews, allowing the development of a conceptual framework. In the second phase, a survey of supermarket buyers on brands in several product categories tests this framework. Structural equation modeling analyzes the survey responses and tests the hypotheses. The structural model shows very good fit to the data with good construct validity, reliability, and stability. The findings show that manufacturer support, brand equity, and customer demand reflect the manufacturer brand benefits to resellers. A key contribution of this research is the development of a validated scale on manufacturer brand benefits from the point of view of a reseller. This research shows that the resources that relate to the brand, not just the brand name itself, create value for resellers in channel relationships.

The purpose of this study is to examine how the deployment of market-based resources influence trade show (TS) organizers’ performance effectiveness as measured with exhibitor and visitor attendance levels. To this end, the study synthesizes several market-based resources including TS longevity, TS webpage interactivity, industry association support, exhibition duration and exhibition area, and investigates how their deployments affect TS attendance levels.

A cross-sectional dataset was compiled on 79 TSs by searching a variety of online sources. Organizers’ performance effectiveness was measured using TS attendance levels. The extent to which organizers deployed market-based resources was likewise quantified using hard data. A series of regression models was estimated to isolate the effect of the market-based resources on TS attendance levels.

The results demonstrate the existence of positive relationships between market-based resources and TS attendance levels which are characterized by diminishing returns. More specifically, the authors found that as the amount of the deployment of the market-based resources increases, their incremental contributions to TS attendance levels become smaller.

The findings offer comprehensive managerial insights about how organizers can improve their attendance levels by carefully deploying market-based resources.

The few available works that try to address the question of why some TSs are well attended while others are not rely on the opinions of exhibitors and visitors. This study attempts to address the same question from the organizers perspective, and, in so doing, it contributes to the spares literature on TS management from the organizers perspective.

The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the impact of incumbents’ defensive strategies, specifically price-cut and capacity expansion, on new entrants’ (NEs) exit decisions and examine the moderating role of incumbents’ relational market-based assets (RMBAs).

Drawing upon real options theory, an empirical study using logistic regression is conducted on a rich, multi-market data set of NE exits between 1997 and 2019 in the U.S. airline industry.

Contrary to intuitive expectation, the results show that cutting prices in response to entry reduces NEs’ likelihood of market exit. However, when incumbents possess strong RMBAs, using a price cut proves to be effective in pushing NEs out of a market. Moreover, an NEs’ exit likelihood is higher when incumbents expand capacities in response to entry.

In this study, market exit is defined as a complete withdrawal from the market and operationalized as a binary variable. Future research could examine different degrees of downscaling by NEs while remaining in the market.

This research demonstrates the opposing effects of price-cut and capacity expansion and the crucial role of RMBAs and advises managers to be cautious and consider trade-offs when implementing their defensive strategies to push NEs out of their markets.

This study contributes to the literature by examining the impact of incumbents’ defensive strategies, price-cut and capacity expansion, side by side and exploring the moderating role of RMBAs. Extant research has focused on antecedents of defensive strategies, whereas the consequences are the focus of this research.

The provision of value, as a marketing issue, is receiving increasing attention from managers and scholars. This attention, in combination with strong calls for better quantification and stronger measures in marketing, has lead to increased interest in the assessment, quantified where possible, of the provision of value through buyer–seller relationships. This paper identifies dimensions of value provision through relationships in business markets with specific emphasis on the intangible aspects of value, which are important to long-term competitive advantage. The provision of value to the seller is the prime focus in this paper. The paper discusses the meaning of both tangible and intangible relationship value and the interplay between them and notes the importance of assessing the intangible part of the value, particularly the part which derives from the human aspects of the relationship. Despite their importance, the human aspects of relationships and their contribution to value is a sparse topic among researchers. The paper compares and evaluates potentially useful relationship and value conceptualizations. The paper discusses studies of relationship value and then outlines the results of a recent line of empirical research into the provision of value by a buyer to a seller that utilizes a framework synthesized from the intellectual capital literature. This recent research conceptualizes the potential for a seller's relationship with a buyer to provide intangible value to the seller in terms of, first, the resources available in the buyer and second, the capabilities of the buyer's boundary personnel to aid in facilitating the flow of those resources to the seller. The paper also includes the softer human aspects in the dimensions of value. These latter aspects are important to a full assessment of value. The paper concludes with a discussion of aspects of intangible relationship value that need further elucidation and will thus provide opportunities for future research.

A fundamental proposition in marketing strategy is that a market orientation is positively related to firm performance. However, the mechanisms of this relationship have yet to be explored in detail, especially in service industries where intangible assets are relatively more important. This paper addresses this issue by proposing a model that identifies important intermediate variables between a market orientation and increased firm value. The model posits that a market orientation guides investment in market‐based assets and other asset types, that these assets may be levered to create a competitive advantage and value for customers, and that this results in loyalty and easier customer attraction. Quicker and more extensive market penetration, shorter sales cycles, and decreased marketing and sales costs enhance the cash flow of a market‐oriented firm. This may be recognised in higher valuations, which ultimately translate into higher share prices and wealth creation for the owners of the firm.