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The purpose of this paper is to address the following research question: What are the perceptions of professionals and consumers regarding the antecedents of client referrals in the financial advice sector?

A total of 61 qualitative interviews were conducted, with the following three key groups: independent financial advisers (IFAs; 20 interviews), clients of IFAs (26 interviews) and consumers who manage their own financial affairs and do not use the services of an IFA (15 interviews).

The financial advisers interviewed believe that client referrals are important to their business success, that they can influence clients to become ambassadors who will consciously seek out new clients and that excellent service will motivate clients to provide referrals. However, the interviews with the clients painted a different picture. While advisers believe that they can influence client referral behavior, the clients did not believe that they were influenced by the adviser to make referrals.

The sampling method was non-random and relied on the professional contacts of the principal researcher as a starting point, from which a network of contacts was established to identify interviewees. The study casts doubt on the ability of professional service providers to influence client referral behavior. This novel finding deserves further research investigation.

There is clearly scope for greater measurement in connection with referrals in professional service businesses. The propensity for clients to refer should be included as a metric in the performance measurement of professional service providers, in addition to standard financial measures. This would encourage the service provider to consider referrals during client interactions.

The study reports on a substantial qualitative study involving both professional service providers and their clients. While the providers believe that client referrals are critical to their business success, the evidence collected provides little or no support for this belief. Clients report they are not motivated to refer. Advisers do not explicitly measure referrals. The reality of referrals seems not to match the mythology.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the significance of culture generally, and Arab culture in particular, for the development of trust in business-to-business (B2B) banking relationships.

Qualitative fieldwork was employed, gathering in-depth interview data from bankers and their business clients in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In total, 80 relationships between bankers and business clients were investigated.

The development of trusting relationships between bankers and clients is affected by the cultural origins of the relationship partners. Strongly held religious beliefs, and loyalty to family, tribe and nation, lead to strong affect-based trust between bankers and clients from Arab culture. Cognitive-based trust is more characteristic of UAE banker/client relationships that involve partners from outside the Arab world.

The study was conducted in the UAE. Additional tests in other Arab countries would be valuable. The qualitative nature of the study means that statistical generalizations cannot be drawn.

The cultural origins of banking relationship managers are of considerable importance when seeking to develop relationships of trust with business banking clients in the Arab world.

This substantial, qualitative study of banker relationships with business clients throws considerable light on the importance of culture as an antecedent to trust in B2B banking relationships.

The authors explore the market agora and the shaping of markets as controversies over the meaning and practices related to sustainability evolved. This study aims to explore what happened in a market-oriented policy regime, which aimed to address sustainability in farming and food, to assess the impact of the policy on the vegetable sector in England and to consider whether the market-oriented policy regime created a more sustainable food system for Britain.

The authors examined policy documents – agenda setting reports, policy frameworks and operational plans – and conducted interviews with experts – including policymakers, agronomists and the growers themselves, from across this heterogeneous production sector.

The authors found that while controversy over the meaning of sustainability impacted on the evolution of food policy and grower business practices, market conceptualisations remained in a doxic mode – naturalised and beyond dispute throughout the market agora.

This is a study of a single sub-sector of the fruit and vegetable sector in a single European country and over a particular period of time. It presents a detailed, authentic representation of that sub-sector in context and diverse information sources were used to gain a variety of perspectives. However, it is acknowledged that this is a limited, qualitative study involving relatively few key informant interviews.

The authors’ explanation suggests that market doxa limited how policymakers and market agora understood the economic challenges and the solutions that could be deployed for English vegetable growers, a sector so pivotal for sustainability. The authors propose that ideas from industrial marketing can be used to reignite controversy, challenge market doxa, and in doing so create space for progress in creating sustainable markets.

The authors deploy an approach advocated by Blanchet and Depeyre (2016) and use controversy to explore the evolution of policy for sustainability and market shaping in the English vegetable sector agora. In doing so the authors create a novel explanation of why policy, which aimed to usher in a sustainable market, fell short of its aims and contribute to an under-researched area examining policy for sustainability in a B2B context.

The paper aims to contribute to the wider adoption of simulation games in marketing teaching. The purposes of the research reported here are to understand marketing students' perceptions of the learning achieved from the use of simulation games, and marketing lecturers' perceptions of the barriers to increased use of simulation games.

A structured questionnaire was administered to 137 final‐year marketing undergraduates studying at two British universities and eight semi‐structured interviews were conducted with marketing lecturers currently using simulation games in their marketing teaching.

Students perceive the simulation game to be a highly effective learning method, delivering valuable knowledge and skills. In addition, students find the game to be an enjoyable learning approach. Lecturers are enthusiastic about this learning method, but note some barriers to adoption; particularly cost, the steep learning curve, and the difficulty of finding unbiased advice about suitable games to deliver desired learning outcomes.

Limitations are that the empirical base for the quantitative study was only two universities in the UK, and the questionnaire concerned only student perceptions of their learning, not an objective assessment of actual learning. It is recommended that the study be extended to a wider sample of universities, and that the approach be widened to include an assessment of the measurable learning outcomes achieved rather than just student perceptions.

The degree of student enthusiasm for simulation games is striking. Lecturers also find the method very engaging, but acknowledge that there are important barriers to more widespread simulation game adoption.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how and why business firms, both as suppliers and as customers, make specific adaptations to their products and processes to meet the particular requirements of another firm with which they are transacting business.

The paper is based on qualitative interviews with key decision makers in international services business‐to‐business organisations.

The results show that adaptations cover many areas within a company, and that the explicit costs and benefits of adaptations were calculated only to a limited extent. The paper shows that most of the suppliers investigated make adaptations to meet market and customer requirements, whereas customers make adaptations following an explicit relationship management approach.

Specific adaptation by one firm for another in the context of long‐term buyer‐seller relationships is an everyday fact of life and clearly of importance to the understanding of business marketing strategy. This aspect of business‐to‐business marketing deserves greater research attention.

Managers often have a narrow view of adaptation as the alteration of tangible factors, in particular the product or the production process. By taking a broader view of adaptations – to include personnel/human resources, behavioural and organisational structure changes – managers would open up a wider repertoire of strategies for relationship management, to the benefit of their firms.

Although adaptations are important for competitive success in business‐to‐business markets, the main types of adaptations, their costs and benefits, and the motivation of companies to make adaptations, have been subject to relatively little research, a gap, which this paper seeks to address.

This article reports on three related empirical studies of the relevance of academic research to management practice in the field of business‐to‐business marketing. These studies comprise a survey of 58 academic researchers, a qualitative study of ten marketing practitioners, and a qualitative study of eight academic researchers. Academic researchers in the field of business‐to‐business marketing believe that their work is of interest, potential value, and relevance to practitioners, and aspire to make a contribution to management practice. Practitioners claim not to be interested in academic research, and are more favourably disposed towards consultants, who they see as more responsive to, and understanding of, business pressures. It seems clear that although academics would like to get closer to practitioners, they are inhibited by institutional factors, such as academic reward systems and the “publish or perish” culture. Mechanisms for improving the degree of cooperation between researchers and practitioners are explored.

Concern has been expressed by business and marketing scholars that academic research in these fields should be made more relevant to managers. In this paper the focus in on the views of marketing managers concerning the relevance of academic research to them. The empirical context of the work is business‐to‐business marketing. The experienced marketing practitioners interviewed knew very little about the current state of academic research in marketing, and considered that academic researchers did not understand the realities of business life and could not communicate effectively with managers. Marketing practitioners prefer to work with consultants, whom they consider understand business realities better and are more effective communicators. The paper discusses the barriers that marketing academies will have to overcome if they are to make their research more relevant to practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to report the views of UK marketing educators about critical issues in teaching and learning of university‐level marketing education, and to compare these views with the views of other stakeholder groups.

An online survey was administered to members of the UK Academy of Marketing; 51 completed, usable questionnaires were returned.

Respondents believe that teaching international students, plagiarism and providing feedback to students are the three top‐priority issues in teaching and learning. Perhaps surprisingly, e‐learning and the use of virtual learning environments are considered to be relatively low‐priority issues.

The low‐response rate is a limitation of the study. The study detected some interesting similarities and differences of opinion between marketing academics and deans of business schools, between pre‐ and post‐1992 universities, and between professors/readers and those in lecturing positions. Notably, the lack of agreement between marketing educators and deans over the importance of relating research to teaching (educators allocate this greater importance) and e‐learning (deans allocate this greater importance) suggests areas for careful consideration in the development of teaching and learning policies.

The paper is unique in examining the views of university‐level marketing educators about teaching and learning issues. University marketing educators are an important stakeholder in the marketing education process.