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Business-to-business marketing research deals with a variety of topics which require different qualitative and quantitative research approaches. Although there may be situations where either a qualitative or a quantitative approach is sufficient, in many cases it is necessary to combine qualitative and quantitative techniques in order to gain all information necessary for decision making. This paper illustrates the integration of qualitative and quantitative research approaches on the basis of a marketing research project for innovative sewer systems.

The purpose of this study is to enhance the understanding of the complete process of framing and implementing operational excellence in the pharmaceutical industry to ensure higher regulatory compliance.

A literature search was conducted using preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses guidelines. Strategies were set with different keywords and certain assessment criteria for the inclusion and exclusion of articles. A total of 46 articles were considered for a full review.

This study describes the impact of implementing operational excellence in day-to-day operations and the driving forces to achieve the same. Seven commonly used enablers are described can be used in combination to develop and validate an assessment model. Case studies are summarized to schematize operational excellence programs for the scope of their industry.

This study is limited to Indian pharmaceutical manufacturers. It is implied toward small-scale manufacturers. It can be further extended to manufacturers from other regions.

This study guides quality assurance managers, regulatory agencies and other top management to implement operational excellence to ensure higher regulatory compliance. It guides to develop a roadmap to operational excellence in their scope. This study is applicable to any manufacturing industry bound to comply with pharmaceutical regulatory standards.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, at the time of publication, there are regulatory guidelines and some articles on various key enablers to achieve operational excellence. There is no published systematic review on achieving regulatory compliance by using operational excellence.

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.

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to investigate the supplier's view on supplier‐initiated relationship dissolution due to lack of customer profitability. Design/methodology/approach – The research is focused on inter‐organisational buyer‐seller relationships. An exploratory study in the German mechanical engineering industry was conducted to provide insights into the usage of customer valuation techniques and the preponderance of unprofitable customer relationships, and to identify various ways of managing unprofitable customer relationships by means of cluster analysis. Findings – The study shows that many companies in the industry lack knowledge and use of customer valuation techniques. Three clusters of supplying firms are identified that differ in their willingness to end unprofitable customer relationships. Research limitations/implications – Provides an exploratory study into a neglected aspect of relationship marketing characterised by a low response rate. The sample contained companies from one major German industry, limiting the applicability of its findings. The main implications are that unprofitable customer relationships are a common feature of industrial markets, which merits further investigation. Respondents were shown to have a range of different views and approaches to such relationships. Research on customer valuation needs to focus on the implementation barriers of valuation methods. Practical implications – Study results stress the importance of developing and implementing customer valuation methods, the relevance of unprofitable relationships, and suppliers' decision making concerning such precarious relationships. It is a useful source of information and impartial advice for managers involved with customer management. Originality/value – The paper leads to a more thorough understanding of relationship marketing and provides empirical data on a neglected field of marketing research, as prior work did not consider the supplier's view on dissolution management in detail.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how soft lean practices moderate the performance effects of hard lean practices. The authors provide new evidence from the pharmaceutical industry, which is characterized by a highly regulated and technical environment and has been largely uncharted in the lean literature.

Based on a review of the literature, the authors define a set of soft and hard lean practices. The authors test the hypotheses using factor analysis and moderated hierarchical linear regression on a unique dataset containing survey data and real performance measures of 351 pharmaceutical plants.

The results show that soft lean practices can be both enabling and constraining. When management engages in performance measurement, visualisation and employee empowerment the relationship between hard lean practices and performance is positively moderated. On the other hand, when managers emphasise goal setting and work standardisation the performance outcomes are reduced.

Effective lean managers build organisational commitment by motivating other employees to implement lean. They use performance measurement, visualisation and employee empowerment to focus on the “why”. Less effective managers engage in commanding and micro-management. Such managers focus on the “what” by using practices like goal setting and work standardisation.

This article contributes to the literature on lean management by empirically testing the moderator-variable interaction effects between soft and hard lean practices. In addition, it adds new evidence from the important pharmaceutical industry.

Country image (CI) has been one of the most studied topics in international business, marketing, and consumer behaviour of the past five decades. Nevertheless, there has been no critical assessment of this field of research. The purpose of this paper is to understand the status and evolution of CI research.

The authors review 554 articles published in academic journals over 35 years. The authors examine publication, authorship, and research procedure trends in these articles as an empirical and quantitative assessment of the field. The authors identify weaknesses and strengths, and the authors address disconcerting and encouraging trends.

The authors find a number of laudatory trends: CI research is becoming less US-centric, more theory driven, more sophisticated in methodology, evaluating more diverse product categories, and making use of multiple cue studies. There are, however, two major methodological concerns: poor replication and questionable generalizability of findings. The authors also noted the influence of CI articles has been decreasing, as well as their rate of publication in top tier journals.

Since the authors present data that reflect actual practices in the field and how such practices have changed across time, the authors believe the study is of substantial value to CI researchers, journal editors, and instructors whose curriculum includes CI. The critical assessment and subsequent recommendations are accordingly empirically justified.

The study aims to assess the moderating role of celebrity characteristics in the relationship between celebrity endorsement and telecommunication companies’ reputation.

Analysis of results was based on 700 customers in the telecommunication sector. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to check for validity and reliability of the observed items. A hierarchical regression model was estimated to test the various hypotheses set for the study.

The study finds that celebrity endorsement in itself had no significant effect on the reputation of telecommunication companies. Celebrity attractiveness, likeability and trustworthiness had a direct effect (positive) on the reputation of telecommunication companies and positively moderated the effect of celebrity endorsement on telecommunication company reputation. Celebrity expertise had no direct effect on telecommunication company reputation but positively moderated the effect of celebrity endorsement and telecommunication company reputation.

This study was purely quantitative. Future study could consider a mixed approach and include senior management members of the telecom firms for an in-depth interview.

In signing on celebrities as brand ambassadors, management must pay particular attention to celebrity attractiveness, likeability and trustworthiness. This would be more rewarding to the firms.

The study adds to the little empirical knowledge available on celebrity endorsement in sub-Saharan Africa and telecommunication sector in particular.

The internet has gained enormous importance as an advertising medium. At the same time, the question of marketing accountability has become one of the top areas of research for researchers and practitioners who aim at optimal marketing budget allocations. This paper aims to show that national culture has an impact on how consumer behavior is influenced by online advertising.

The paper compares the effectiveness of internet advertising in the USA and France by analyzing a real data sample with more than 1.2 million transactions using partial least squares and structural equation modeling.

It is found that on‐demand channels have a stronger effect on short‐term success than push‐channels and that this effect is strongly moderated by the culture. It is recommended that spending and efforts in the various advertising channels be adjusted to reflect the product offered and the customers to whom it is offered, as customers in both countries should be targeted by advertising in different ways. The channel effectiveness of affiliate price comparison sites and search engines has significantly different impacts on customer behavior in the USA and France.

Until now, most companies have utilized a suboptimal allocation of resources to advertising channels because of missing and misleading data. Focusing on this problem, the paper suggests that advertisers apply the methodology to identify the total effect of clicks in each advertising channel. Combining these total effects with the associated costs allows practitioners to optimize their online advertising spending.

This paper proposes and tests a set of measures to operationalize customer value in a business-to-business context. A classification of 13 drivers encapsulating the two dimensions of customer perceived value, benefit, and sacrifice is suggested which can act as the basis for the measurement of customer perceived value relevant to most business-to-business environments involving products, services, and relationships. First, the construct is circumscribed by raising five theoretical questions; then, it is conceptualized in terms of two dimensions, benefit and sacrifice, and 13 product-, service- and relationship-related drivers. Operational indicators are developed for each driver and tested with 209 organizational customers. An evaluation of the measurement properties within an analysis of covariance structure framework reveals that the operational measures developed satisfy to a high degree the criteria for unidimensionality, reliability and validity. Results suggest that 13 drivers underpin an understanding of the customer's value requirements in a business exchange.