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Project marketing is the specific activity of companies selling projects-to-order. Interpersonal practice is known to be important in this type of marketing. While this interpersonal practice has been little studied, some previous research suggests that changes in the institutional macro environment have affected it. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to study today’s interpersonal practice in project business and how the institutional environment conditions it.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with marketing managers at project-based firms in different business sectors in France and Sweden. Data collection and analysis was informed by grounded theory.

The paper identifies three types of interpersonal practice in project marketing, referred to as the transactional, the work-based and the socializing. Changes in these are explained in relation to the three institutional logics identified in the data: the market institutional logic of business ethics, the corporate institutional logic of rationalization and the family institutional logic of gender equality.

Future studies can continue and broaden this work as it regards how the institutional conditioning of interpersonal practice varies with context.

By clearly categorizing the three types of interpersonal practice and their relative role today, companies can orient the activities of salespeople, business developers and other project marketers.

The paper highlights how business ethics and gender equality have changed interpersonal practices in project marketing.

The paper contributes to the current debate on project marketing by identifying three types of interpersonal practice and by illustrating how institutional logics condition and change these. The paper shows that extra-business activities are needed less than previous research has argued with regard to maintaining customer relationships in-between projects.

The Internet has the potential to alter many aspects of current marketing theory and practice. Most early research studies have focused on the role of the Internet as a promotional tool. More recently, case‐based studies are beginning to emerge on how the Internet may alter the marketing management process. There is a need to compliment these studies with additional quantitative research. This study examines the influence of marketing style on the utilisation of the Internet among small UK manufacturing firms. Insufficient evidence was found to support the view that relationship‐orientated firms, when compared with transactionally‐orientated competitors, exhibit differing perceptions about the nature of online markets. Quantitative differences were identified, however, in relation to use of information management systems and the management of internal organisational processes. The implications of these findings are discussed and proposals made concerning the need for further research.

Over the last decade, considerable emphasis has been placed on the importance of relationship marketing. The re‐orientation of marketing has been at the expense of the traditional approach to marketing, that is transaction marketing (the “4Ps”). However, others conclude that transactional marketing is still relevant and practised concurrently with various types of relational marketing. However, no empirical evidence has been provided to support the proposition of a pluralistic approach to marketing. We, therefore, draw on empirical, qualitative case study evidence from the emerging and transforming international food supply chain that supports the proposition. The paper uses two settings from this context to illustrate that both transactional and relational approaches to marketing are employed concurrently. The first case, at the product origin of the supply chain, is based upon research into relationship marketing in the Danish‐UK dairy supply chain. The second case, at the consumer interface of the supply chain, evolves from a study into an interactive home‐shopping supermarket in New Zealand. The paper considers implications and areas for further research.

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise, discuss and evaluate an emergent marketing philosophy, “transcendental marketing”, and its application in practice.

A conceptual framework is grounded in the literatures of marketing practice and leadership styles, and refined by reference to two case examples.

There is scope, limited at present but promising in the longer term, for moving marketing strategy onwards from the relational and transactional models to one in which the focus is on exchange of values beyond self‐interest between “transcendent marketers” and consumers motivated by “self‐transcendence”.

Since this article is only a first attempt to develop an understanding of this alternative approach to marketing, social and cultural trends in society provide a strong impetus for the further conceptual development of the transcendental marketing concept and assessment of its use and usefulness in the real world.

The proposed conceptual framework provides marketing strategists with a template for a radically different approach to marketing management, which offers the potential for enduring customer loyalty.

This paper contributes a radically new perspective on marketing, supported by empirical examples of two firms that have pioneered it.

This paper aims to investigate how small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) use particular brand communication activities to develop their brands.

As a means to build some understanding about this phenomenon, a “contemporary marketing practices” perspective was used as a theoretical framework to 30 holistic case studies in Mexico. Semi‐structured interviews were carried out with brand owner/managers.

Findings suggest four categories of brand communication activities based on interactional, transactional, and e‐marketing approaches, including “close and personal”, “mass‐personalisation”, “mass”, and “e‐communication” activities.

Many more activities were found in interactional marketing as it appeared to be more suited to SMEs and context. Future research may address key activities for further investigation such as word‐of‐mouth as a key role in SME brand communication.

This study confirms the key participatory role of the brand owner with regard to brand communication activities.

This is one of the first articles that attempts to explain how SME brands use marketing communication tools to interact with their stakeholders for brand development.

The role of managerial assumptions in the formulation of organizational strategies has been well recognized by previous studies, yet in marketing literature, the effect of such imperative on marketing practice choice tends to be ignored. Therefore, this paper aims to empirically investigate how management assumptions fit with the choice of marketing practices, and how such fit affects performance.

A model is developed and tested using survey methodology, and the data are analyzed using the partial least square (PLS) approach.

The results show that different marketing practices were coupled with different frames of reference, resulting in viable matching profiles.

Given the novelty of the approach adopted in this study, conclusions about association and not causation are drawn. In addition, the study is restricted to Qatar which may reduce the generalizability of its findings and conclusions.

The findings will help managers to examine carefully the internal logic of their marketing-related profiling, where coherent variables will enhance performance.

To one’s knowledge, this paper reports a work in an area not previously researched. In addition, this study is one of the rare papers that examines unobserved heterogeneity using the PLS-structural equation modeling (SEM) in the field of marketing.

Looks at the dominance of relationship marketing (RM) in the current marketing debate and challenges some of the notions which appear to have grown up around the concept. In particular looks at a number of aspects of RM, which, despite the rhetoric, remain largely unsubstantiated. Examines the various claims of RM as a “new marketing paradigm”, whether it represents a united and cohesive force and if this is perceived as such by both academics and practitioners. Looks at the economic arguments underlying RM and whether they stand up to rigorous scrutiny and at consumers’ responses to relational strategies. Finally, questions the “satisfaction/loyalty/profit” hypothesis frequently suggested as the underlying model for RM.

The purpose of this research is to explore the nature of virtual tipping in live game streaming from the perspective of tippers.

This qualitative research involved six naturalistic group interviews with 27 young adult game streaming tippers in China.

The research revealed a typology of four virtual tipping exchanges – perfunctory exchange, transactional (commodity) exchange, relational (gift) exchange and hybrid exchange. The most notable finding is hybrid exchange, a synergistic hybrid of transaction and gift-giving.

The authors recommend that both streamers and streaming platforms acknowledge and accommodate both transactional and relational tipping motivations. The authors also recommend platforms to recruit skillful streamers with high emotional intelligence to better convert perfunctory tippers into tippers who tip more generously.

The result of hybrid exchange suggests going beyond the traditional commodity vs gift dichotomy to examine the potential market-gift complementary in a single exchange in the sharing economy.

Despite the abundance of B2B loyalty programs (LPs), the research on their interplay with relationship marketing is scarce. The purpose of this paper is to investigate a LP (a relational practice) on a transactional business market to test if and how a B2B LP affects relationship outcomes.

The study is based on dyadic research in a multi-theory framework. Data were collected from 200 small and medium enterprises that purchase office supplies from a company and merged with the company’s internal records.The formative-reflective measurement model is estimated using structural equation modeling – partial least squares (SEM-PLS).

Relationship quality (RQ) directly affects sales and customer share of wallet. The effect is strengthened by customer activity in a LP. RQ results directly in a longer tenure and willingness to recommend only for members of a LP.

RQ is driven mainly by customer’s evaluation of prior experience with a supplier, while a LP is based on a forward-looking promise of a reward. The results of the study point to the level of customers’ activity in a LP as a boundary condition of the program’s efficacy.

RQ affects both attitudinal and behavioral outcomes but through distinct mechanisms. Once a supplier is a preferred one, LP membership strengthens the attitudinal outcome of a relationship. The effect of RQ on company performance is magnified by the level of customer activity in a LP but not by the membership status.

The theoretical framework integrates transaction costs, relational contract and relational exchange theories to investigate a LP on a transactional market. The study adds to the scant literature on LPs in business-to-business and provides evidence for similarities and differences in comparison to consumer research.

Direct marketing has developed rapidly over the last 15 years owing to technological change and developments in markets and marketing. In 1086 William the Conqueror created the Domesday Book as a record of what each individual owned. The concept developed by George Orwell in his 1984 novel was one of more sinister surveillance by “Big Brother”. Although marketing might not be seen in either light, it is certainly being manifested in at least a parallel manner. Personalised data are increasingly being integrated via data‐fusion to form the next phase of database provision ‐ biographic information. This paper provides a perspective on these developments and raises a variety of marketing and social responsibility issues that are likely to become salient as we move into a new millennium.