Search results

This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/EUM0000000000347. When citing the article, please cite: Jule B. Gassenheimer, Jay U. Sterling, Robert A. Robicheaux, (1989), “Long-term Channel Member Relationships”, International Journal of Physical Distribution & Materials Management, Vol. 19 Iss: 12, pp. 15 - 28.

This paper aims to examine the direct and interactive effects of community engagement and economic value on customers’ trust in, and commitment to, the retailer. This paper also examines the extent to which these variables, in turn, drive desirable behavioral outcomes in the form of positive word of mouth communications and share of customer.

Study results are derived from a cross-sectional survey of 1,757 respondents.

The authors find that retailer community engagement positively impacts word of mouth and share of customer indirectly through commitment and trust. As hypothesized, the results support a suppressing interaction between community engagement and economic value on trust. Contrary to the hypothesis, the interactive effects on commitment are positive.

The study uses cross-sectional, single-sourced data. Incorporating secondary data or using experiments would reinforce these findings. This research is limited to local community engagement, future studies could broaden the focus to strategies that benefit communities outside the local area.

Study results indicate that managers can indeed build stronger customer relationships through community engagement as customers are more apt to be trusting of and committed to retailers perceived to be more actively engaged in the community. These findings are particularly important considering that community engagement is typically less expensive than other marketing strategies. Community investments are inexpensive initiatives that retailers can leverage to generate a big impact in the hearts and minds of their customers.

While it seems logical to assume that community engagement will benefit retailers in the form of stronger customer relationships, the authors empirically validate this assumption. The finding that community engagement simultaneously serves as both an antecedent and moderator is novel, albeit counterintuitive in the sense that the variable negatively moderates the economic value-trust relationship while positively moderating the economic value-commitment relationship. Taken in their totality, these findings indicate that community engagement serves to simultaneously drive stronger customer relationships while also differentially affecting the way customers arrive at their assessments.

The ability to nurture marketing channel relations is essential to long‐term corporate survival. This study empirically investigates how and why relationships between manufacturers and dealers in the office systems/furniture industry develop and how and why these relationships are maintained. The results demonstrate the benefits of considering the actions and reactions of channel partners when developing tactical and strategic marketing plans. These findings emphasise the importance of mutual dependency, behaviour and financial performance in creating effective working environments.

The distribution of freight in most urban areas is characterised by high concentrations of truck activity in central business districts (CBD's). In this context, the movement of freight from suppliers, to resellers to ultimate customers is typically performed by a very large number of small carriers who duplicate each other's paths with partially filled trucks while each is in the process of picking up and delivering a large number of very small shipments. In many communities, this distribution structure results in unnecessarily high levels of congestion, pollution and energy consumption, as well as high distribution costs which are passed on to consumers in higher product costs. Several decades ago, business organisations responded to these pressures and initiated shippers' associations and freight forwarder operations to achieve the economies of consolidated shipments. Since 1942, however, the growth in the number of freight forwarders has been drastically curtailed.

There has been a steady increase in the amount of research and theorising in the area of interorganisational research, especially with regard to buyer‐seller arrangements in marketing channels (Andersen and Narus 1990, Bergen et.al., 1992, Boyle et.al., 1992). Alternative interorganisational governance models, such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, and sole‐sourcing are the reality of modern business management (Borys and Jemison 1989, Buckley and Casson 1988), and so interfirm governance has become a strategic management issue. The much‐cited work of Porter (1985, 1991) has focused on the optimal linkage of interfirm activities, and regards the planning and governance of interfirm relations as an important competitive strategic issue, a point reiterated by Heide (1994). The issue of channel relationships has been one of concern for both practitioners and academics, and theories such as those of transaction cost analysis (TCA), agency theory, and relational norms have on the one hand shed much light on the problems, and on the other provided a fruitful backdrop to much empirical research. Less attention has been given to the effects of time on these notions, both in the literature and in empirical research. In this article we provide an overview of the theories, and attempt an integration. The purpose of this article is to focus on transaction cost economics (TCE) and relational exchange theory to provide an overview of the areas of interorganisational research where relationships play a role. A number of areas where the theories diverge and converge are outlined. More importantly, we endeavour to bring the effects of time into consideration, and to develop propositions for further research.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

This paper studies the role of personal selling and the salesforce as an information source and the impact potential information gaps in a downstream business chain can have. It offers a conceptual model of information gaps in an on‐licence wine business channel and suggests areas necessitating further research.

Previous research in the area of distributor performance proposed different scales, mostly in western, developed country context. These studies also lacked the consideration of dynamic interaction between variables, which determine the distributor’s performance. This paper proposes a composite Distributor Performance Index (DPI) to evaluate distributors’ performance based on at the “Enables” and “Results”, taking a system dynamics approach. The model results have been discussed and validated, in business marketing channel. The context of this study is India, an emerging market.

Brokers must realise that the promotional and logistical services they provide wholesalers help to determine the wholesaler's satisfaction with them. Although the results of the research presented in this article clearly show that high quality performance of both types of services is important, logistical services play a more important role in determining wholesaler satisfaction. Consequently, manufacturers must realise that brokers are an important link in the physical distribution channel and can help deliver high customer satisfaction via superior physical distribution service.

This paper explores from a US perspective two size‐related issues that may motivate aspiring franchisees to consider multi‐unit franchising as a superior alternative to the traditional single‐unit approach. First, one of the reasons for multi‐unit franchising might be the enhanced influence opportunity upon the franchisor’s decision making that arises from owning multiple outlets. Second, a potential franchisee may be interested in engaging in multi‐unit franchising in the anticipation of scale efficiencies, i.e. efficiencies that arise because of the size of the operation. The managerial relevance of the discovered issues and their potential for future research is outlined.