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In today′s competitive environment technology plays an important role. Diffusion theory offers useful insights into how to manage and market products based on new technology most effectively. However, the current diffusion model leaves much unsaid with regards to the adoption and diffusion of innovations among organizations owing to the fact that relevant research findings have not been incorporated in the diffusion model. Integrates these findings into the diffusion model.

This research investigates (1) the share of new product development (NPD) research services in market research (MR) companies’ turnover, (2) MR companies’ awareness and use of NPD tools and the modifications made to these NPD tools, and (3) MR company managers’ perceptions of the influence of client use of commissioned NPD research on client NPD performance. The results from a sample of 35 Dutch and Belgium MR companies show that NPD research is a major growth area. MR companies mainly use qualitative research and focus on marketing‐mix and product optimization services. A moderate awareness and use of NPD tools exists, although major differences between tools exist. In over 75 percent of all cases MR companies have adjusted the NPD tools they use. Especially customization and standardization of the tools have taken place. Analyzing the relationship between the level of use of commissioned NPD research and client NPD performance, no significant main effect is found. However, a positive effect exists between the use of MR companies’ services and NPD performance for firms that specifically aim to solve NPD problems and/or increase their NPD success.

This study aims to investigate the effects of two types of expertise (self-service technology and service type) on the disconfirmation of customers’ expectations and the use-related outcomes of technology-based self-service (TBSS).

This empirical study pertains to the mandatory use of a national public transport chip card in The Netherlands based on a sample of 267 users of this TBSS.

The findings show that technology experts experienced a less positive disconfirmation of expectations and reported less positive evaluations of the new self-service than technology novices. Technology experts also showed lower intentions to engage in positive word-of-mouth than technology novices. The evaluation of the self-service by technology novices is more positive for those that are service experts as compared to service novices, while the evaluation by technology experts is more negative for those that are service experts as compared to service novices.

This study provides insight into how different types and levels of customer expertise affect individuals’ assessments of a TBSS upon its mandatory use.

For marketing managers and public policy-makers, understanding the multifaceted role of customer expertise enables more effective market segmentation and targeting, thus improving implementation of TBSS.

This research suggests that customers’ technology and service expertise have some counter-intuitive effects on TBSS use-related outcomes.

Notes that the literature on personal selling and advising on services stresses the importance of analysing the actual client‐adviser interaction process. Explores this process of interaction in a mortgage setting by observing 42 conversations between advisers and 26 clients. The exact content and characteristics of interactions were recorded and coded using a category system based on consultative selling. The results show vast differences between advisers in their selling approach. In most cases, the sequence of problem‐solving phases that advisers employed differed from those of the ideal model. Advisers generally did not probe for the wishes of clients but instead started by presenting alternative product solutions, a typical feature of a hard selling approach. Demonstrates the effectiveness of direct observation for the study of client‐server interaction in financial services.

In the mainstream normative pricing literature, value assessment is virtually non-existent. Although the resource-based literature recognizes that pricing is a competence, value-informed pricing practices are still weakly grounded in theory. The purpose of this paper is to strengthen the theoretical grounds of such pricing practices.

The paper applies the emerging service-dominant logic of marketing to pricing. More specifically, it apples the ten foundational premises of service-dominant logic to pricing and it places pricing in the frameworks of one of the major building blocks of service-dominant logic, namely the resource-advantage theory of competition.

From a service-dominant perspective, price is the reward for the application of specialized knowledge and skills. Pricing is an operant resource, or competence, that assesses customer value, applies it in multi-dimensional price propositions, and implements it in processes of co-creating prices with customers. Value-informed pricing is the central pricing practice within such competences.

Prices vary among others between “good” and “bad”, firms generate competitive advantage not only through value creation, but also through pricing. Learning is key to develop pricing competences.

This paper is the first to ground value-informed pricing at high levels of abstraction in general marketing theory.

In a world where corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a meaningful trend valued by firm stakeholders, it is still not clear how the marketing department integrates corporate-level social responsibility strategy into its departmental activities i.e. socially responsible marketing activities (SRMA) and whether such activities can benefit the department. Using legitimacy as the underlying theoretical explanation, this paper aims to study two instrumental returns from SRMA at the marketing department level, i.e. marketing department’s performance – impact outside the firm on multiple marketing-related outcomes and influence within the firm – the power of the marketing department compared to other departments.

Three studies were performed. Study 1 is a survey that offers a validated measure of SRMA and examines its relationship with the focal outcome variables. Study 2 is also a survey that investigates the mediating role of the marketing department’s legitimacy and the moderating role of customers’ interest in social responsibility and uses actual sales data of firms. Study 3 is an experiment that examines the main findings in a controlled setting using participants other than marketing executives i.e. chief executive officers.

Study 1 shows that SRMA is different than the closely related variable socially responsible business strategy and is positively related to the marketing department’s performance and influence within the firm. Study 2 complements these findings by demonstrating these impacts are mediated by the marketing department’s legitimacy and strengthened with higher customers’ interest in social responsibility. Study 3 sets the causality between the focal variables and the mediating role of legitimacy.

This work extends the study of firm-level CSR to the department- and implementation-level, in the context of marketing departments. It reveals the underlying mechanism driving the positive impact of SRMA, i.e. legitimacy, and identifies a moderating condition, i.e. customers’ interest in social responsibility. It further extends research on the role of the marketing department and its contribution to firm performance.

Marketers can benefit from the reported findings by understanding when and how CSR-related, domain-specific activities that feature the traditional responsibilities of marketing, including market research, customer relationship management and the product, promotions, price and place (4Ps) may be reshaped to include a broader set of stakeholders and a socially responsible angle and thereby generate more legitimacy and impact – inside and outside the firm.

This study provides a novel perspective on how marketing departments evaluate CSR in their daily activities where such engagement vests increasing returns to the marketing department and underpins the successful implementation of CSR.