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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between the strategic postures and political market orientation profile of two Danish parties. Profile stability at the organisational level is used as a control variable.

The strategic political postures of two Danish parties are derived using a self‐typing study. Based on configuration theory, ideal organisational profiles to implement these studies are juxtaposed with the actual political market orientation profile for each party, gained from two datasets analysed using Partial Least Squares. Member activity levels are used to control for organisational stability.

The self‐typing study revealed that Party A was perceived to follow a relationship builder posture, and Party B a convinced ideologist posture. However, both market orientation profiles resembled the organisational structures of a convinced ideologist. Thus, Party A exhibits a mismatch between strategic orientation and implemented organisational profile, based on configuration theory. The results were generally stable across political activity levels.

The investigation represents an intra‐group analysis, i.e. it is concerned only with two parties in one political system; however, this reflects the oligopolistic character of the vast majority of electoral markets and thus, further research could compare results across political systems. A link with performance variables needs to be established to assess the extent to which the organisational alignment results in competitive advantages for a party.

Whilst there exists a general cohesiveness within parties regarding the overall strategic posture, political managers need to be aware of the subtle differences that can affect the market orientation of different groups within the party.

The study contributes to understanding the concept of market orientation in the political sphere. More specifically, it empirically links political market orientation as an issue of political marketing implementation on the one hand, and strategic postures of parties as a strategic issue on the other, following a configuration theory logic.

This paper aims to conceptualize corporate reference management as a strategic signaling activity in business networks. While research has extensively outlined how firms develop and maintain social capital through business-to-business (B2B) relationships, less is known about how they signal their participation in business networks to develop this social capital. Therefore, this paper conceptualizes B2B references, in particular corporate online references (COR), as a tool through which firms “borrow” attractiveness from their business network. Through the lens of structural social capital theory, COR is shown to capture advantages related to interconnectedness between firms.

The paper reports on a two-step qualitative and quantitative research design. First, the authors undertook a qualitative study that reports on the COR practices of senior business managers. A quantitative study then uses social network analysis (SNA) to audit a digital business network comprising 1,098 firms in a metropolitan area of the UK, referencing to each other through their corporate websites using COR.

The analyses find that COR practices contribute to building structural social capital in networks through strategic signaling. Firms do so by managing B2B references to craft strategic signals, using five steps: requesting, granting, curating, coding and decoding references. While the existing literature on business marketing portrays reference management as a routine and operational management practice, this investigation conceptualizes reference management, in particular COR, as a strategic activity.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to use SNA to represent B2B references in the form of COR as a network, which overlaps with (but is not entirely identical to) the business network. Further, the study re-conceptualizes reference management as a strategic signaling activity that leverages the firm’s participation in business networks to build structural social capital by borrowing attractiveness of prestigious business partners that leverages existing structural social capital. Finally, the paper coins and conceptualizes COR as an exemplar of referencing management and offers propositions for further research.

The key objective of this research is to investigate the relationship between party member activity‐levels and perceptions of their party's political market orientation. Specifically, it aims to scrutinise the differences in the interplay of attitudinal and behavioural aspects of political market orientation.

Using a wide variety of respondent groups within the party, the research draws on an existing conceptualisation of political market orientation and empirically test its relationship with party member activity levels. Three models, plus a baseline model, are developed and data from 1,156 questionnaires are used to investigate a structural equation model using the partial least square method.

While the baseline model exhibits a robust pattern of positive relationships between the attitudinal and behavioural constructs, the comparative analysis of the different models shows that party activity levels have a significant impact on these relationships. The study identified that less active members perceive a wider range of attitudinal concepts to be of significance, compared to active members, politicians and party professionals.

This is one of a few studies empirically investigating the concept of political market orientation. Especially the focus on a wide range of respondents, in line with recent development in the literature on commercial market orientation, provides a nuanced analysis of the varying perception‐patterns of party stakeholders.

The purpose of this paper is to propose and empirically investigate the concept of networking capability (NC) for the management of supplier relationships and their dynamics in order to leverage product innovations. NC in the context of supplier relationships is conceptualized based on dynamic capabilities aimed at relationship initiation, relationship development, and relationship ending. Furthermore, the study tests the interaction of NC with relationship proclivity as an organizational feature, and analyzes latent classes of NC affecting product innovation.

This study brings together prior research on company routines related to inter-firm networking, the dynamic capability approach to strategy, and literature on inter-firm innovation. The study utilizes multiple informant survey data gathered from 156 firms operating in the automotive parts industry in Iran. Data are analyzed with partial least square structural equation modeling, as well as latent class analysis using finite mixture modeling (FIMIX-PLS).

This research provides evidence for the positive influence of NC with respect to supplier relationships on firm product innovation, as well as overall firm performance. Relationship proclivity is shown to amplify this effect. At the same time, the research illustrates that NC may be applied in different combinations in the context of supplier relationship portfolio management. Two mechanisms are tentatively identified: firms using “static optimization” focus mainly on supplier relationship development capabilities, while those using “dynamic optimization” utilize supplier relationship initiation and ending capabilities.

This research focuses on one setting (i.e. the automotive parts industry in Iran). Further studies need to broaden these findings to other industries and countries, specifically those which show a different cultural make-up from Iran. Furthermore, this research indicates the existence of two distinct mechanisms as to how different aspects of NC impact product innovation. While it is reasonable to identify these mechanisms as networking “strategies,” this study does not clarify whether this represents intended strategies by firms or relates to emerging capability patterns.

The study contributes to managerial knowledge by illustrating the need for a dynamic approach with regard to networking-related routines in supplier relationships in the context of product innovation. This study suggests that managers should devote equal attention to strengthening existing supplier relationships as well as to initiating new supplier relationships (e.g. screening for promising partners and signaling firm’s relationship value to attract new counterparts) and managing non-performing supplier relationships (e.g. by developing routines to exit from those supplier relationships).

The paper contributes to a better understanding of dynamic approaches to networking with suppliers and their impact on product innovation from the perspective of the focal firm. It furthermore provides a fine-grained understanding of different latent classes of firms in terms of how they utilize networking capabilities.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a scale for inter-firm market orientation (IMO) based on an original conceptualization by Elg (2008). Building on the MARKOR scale, the IMO scale is introduced to better understand the market orientation efforts that occur within business relationships.

After establishing a conceptualization of IMO, an initial list of scale items is developed by adapting the original MARKOR scale. Several phases of qualitative pre-tests have been conducted with both academic experts and several manufacturer and reseller partner executives to assess the applicability and clarity of the measurement instrument. Using a quantitative survey design, the measurement instrument has been validated by relationship partner managers from both manufacturer and reseller companies.

The results of the analysis reveal that IMO is a second-order formative construct consisting of two first-order reflective constructs termed joint intelligence cooperation and joint customer responsiveness.

The operationalization of IMO suggests to manufacturers and their partners that the market intelligence cooperation efforts between them should be more focused on intelligence about the end users and less on general market trends. Further, the customer responsiveness efforts between the partners tend to be more reactive in nature, unlike the proactive stance in intra-firm market orientation.

The paper extends the notion of focal firms’ market orientation to IMO, which exists between partners in business relationships, and does so by developing a conceptualization and measurement instrument for IMO. This newly developed construct and scale can be used in future research to explore in greater depth the interplay between IMO and firm performance.

The purpose of this paper is to show the role of social networks in mobilizing how actors both impact and are impacted on by their colleagues. It seeks to compare the human resource management (HRM) academic community with two other comparable communities, and to identify those groups that are seen to work closely together.

It is shown how social network analysis (SNA) can be utilized to analyse data in social networks, shedding light on the cliques and networks of people that work together over a period of time. This is based on an analysis of co‐authored papers in the field of HRM between 1990 and 2005.

It is shown how the HRM community has developed over time utilizing various SNA metrics and this community of scholars is shown to be less “dense” than comparable academic networks, being made up of several weakly‐linked subcomponents. The paper also identifies the “ego‐nets” of individuals that are indicative of different publishing strategies.

The paper's contribution lies in the application of SNA to identify how groups interact over time, and how a large network can be systematically analysed to reveal the underlying structure.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the feasibility and usefulness of adapting the concept of “customer value” from commercial marketing for use in the field of political marketing.

A literature review of the field of customer value, and the application of a prominent “means‐end hierarchy” model of customer value to the political context.

From the application of the customer value approach to the political context, it is concluded that an analogous concept of “voter value” can be delineated and is the basis for a promising approach to the development of political marketing strategy.

Several important testable hypotheses emerge from the article concerning the application of “voter value” as a segmentation tool in the field of political marketing.

“Voter value” emerges as a potentially useful tool in political marketing strategy, in particular with respect to shaping political communications messages, and segmenting voter populations.

It is widely acknowledged that “customer value” is an important concept in commercial marketing. This article addresses the important questions of whether and how the concept can be transferred to a different area of marketing.

The purpose of this paper is to gain a deeper understanding of the attributes of effective complaint management in business‐to‐business relationships, and to reveal the underlying benefits that buying organizations are looking for when complaining.

A semi‐standardized qualitative technique called laddering was applied successfully to an online environment with 22 representatives of companies in the manufacturing industry participating.

The resulting hierarchical value map displays 13 attributes which exemplify the complaint resolution management expectations. A total of 14 constructs represent consequences of such resolution activities, while four constructs can be interpreted as values. Take “Quick action” is the most important of the expected attributes and behaviours of complaint resolution management. Four consequences seem to dominate the assessment: Financial benefits, Prevention of future problems, Solution, and Effective resolution handling. “Maintain supplier relationships” appears as a dominant value in the perceptions of respondents, with half of them mentioning this as an end.

Owing to the exploratory nature of the study in general and the scope and size of its sample in particular, the findings are tentative in nature. The study involved a group of representatives of large UK manufacturing companies with complaint handling responsibilities and so the results cannot be generalised.

The findings enrich the existing limited stock of knowledge on complaint management in business relationships by developing a deeper understanding of the attributes that complaining customer companies desire from suppliers, as well as the underlying business logic (i.e. values) for these expectations. The quality of the results also suggests that the laddering questionnaire technique can be transferred effectively to an online environment.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the levels of trust and reliance in different international business markets. The paper aims to obtain empirical evidence regarding the importance of relational aspects (trust) vis‐à‐vis organisational ones (reliance) for building long‐term business relationships.

This is an exploratory study to examine trust and reliance in the manufacturing and construction industries of four countries: UK, India, Pakistan, and Poland. Statistical analysis is based on a data sample of 501 responses collected through a survey of buying and selling relationships.

Although varying across countries, stable relationships with high levels of both trust and reliance exist widely in business markets. Exclusively trust‐based business relationships, i.e. those which are mainly driven by individual‐level aspects, are very rare. However, both trust and reliance are significant for building relationships with long‐term perspectives.

Managers in firms who want to build advantageous and sustainable business relationships need to be able to discern the difference between trust in people on the one hand, and reliance on the partner firms on the other. This research shows that to maintain sustainable relationships, firms should not only focus their relational capabilities on enhancing reliance aspects with their business partners, but also aim to build good levels of trust in the interaction.

There is conflicting evidence of the extent to which business relationships in the UK construction industry are based on trust between closely collaborating parties or alternatively are more adversarial in nature, based on dependence between the parties. This study seeks to provide empirical evidence about the effects of trust and dependence in business relationships in this industry.

A large quantitative survey was conducted with buying firms, resulting in a total of 636 usable responses from 404 firms to test a model using structural equation modelling. The authors test the extent to which trust and dependence act as antecedents to four dimensions identified from the literature as being important determinants of relationship quality: commitment, communication, satisfaction, and long‐term orientation.

The results provide good evidence for the hypotheses in the authors' model: relational characteristics associated with relationship quality are mainly driven by the interpersonal trust between buyers and their suppliers. Interorganisational dependence, evidence of more adversarial relationships, has either no direct impact on relational consequences or at best far less impact than trust.

This research substantiates trust as a key factor influencing relational characteristics associated with relationship quality in the UK construction industry. The findings confirm the earlier work in this industry that trust is an important strategic tool in supplier relationship management.