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What is the scope of brokerage network to be considered in thinking strategically? Given the value of bridging structural holes, is there value to being affiliated with people or organizations that bridge structural holes? The answer is “no” according to performance associations with manager networks, which raises a question about the consistency of network theory across micro to macro levels of analysis. The purpose here is to align manager evidence with corresponding macro evidence on the supplier and customer networks around four-digit manufacturing industries in the 1987 and 1992 benchmark input–output tables. In contrast to the manager evidence, about 24% of the industry-structure effect on industry performance can be attributed to structure beyond the industry's own buying and selling, to networks around the industry's suppliers and customers. However, the industry evidence is not qualitatively distinct from the manager evidence so much as it describes a more extreme business environment.

This study explores the importance of application search engine (ASE) technology in the omni-channel strategy. For this purpose, this chapter firstly explains the concepts of the omni-channel and the search engines and the importance of them. Then, omni-channel in the framework of ASEs is discussed. Finally, recommendations for further researches are presented.

Customers in business-to-business markets are sellers of goods and services on their own. Thus, business-to-business suppliers may exert an influence on their customers’ buying decisions when performing marketing activities toward the customers of the customers by employing the concept of “multistage marketing”. Multi-stage marketing involves all sales-related measures which are aimed at the subsequent market stages (“customers of the customer”) which follow one or several primary customers in order to influence the buying behavior of these primary customers. Although the positive impacts of such activities are known, business-to-business companies often exclude the customers further along in the downstream supply chain from their marketing plans. But in a business-to-business context, the demand is always derived from buying decisions made further down the supply chain. The primary customers buy products or services because they want to use them – directly or indirectly – for either the production or the sale of other goods and services. Hence, derived demand, which can be traced to the end-user's primary demand, can be seen as the basis of multistage marketing.

The most common form of multistage marketing is ingredient (co-)branding, which occurs when a marketer providing an ingredient or component to an OEM advertises the ingredient to the customer of the assembled product. In addition to ingredient branding, this chapter identifies several other forms of multistage marketing and examines the underlying dimensions and processes of the phenomenon. The design of a marketing strategy using the concept of multistage marketing and its preconditions are discussed on a theoretical basis and are illustrated through concrete examples. The chapter provides a number of best practice examples in order to elucidate the issues concerning multistage marketing and its application in a company's marketing strategy serving business-to-business markets.

This essay examines a common assertion among middle-class shoppers in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, that place of manufacture, rather than brand markers, largely determines the quality of goods. For shoppers in Ho Chi Minh City, unity of place, people, raw materials, and trade secrets at the source – a corporation’s home country – is essential to the production of high quality goods. This stands in contrast to the brand logic through which corporations outsource their production presumably without compromising product quality. By privileging production sites over brands, shoppers in Ho Chi Minh City interpret the recent increase of famous foreign brand name goods in Vietnam as an increase of domestic, rather than foreign goods.

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze public relations management in a group of Ecuadorian organizations to propose recommendations that contribute to the advancement of their sustainability processes. This study is based on the contemporary theories of corporate social responsibility by Garriga and Melé (2004), the public relations models by Grunig and Hunt (2000), and the evolutionary vision of the collaboration continuum for sustainability by Austin (2005). Based on these approaches, the authors proposed four evolutionary contexts through which the organizations move based on their sustainability and communications endeavors. A questionnaire was created to identify the theoretical orientation of an organization’s sustainability processes and public relations model. The questionnaire was applied in 16 large-sized Ecuadorian organizations involved in different economic activities. It was observed that in some cases, sustainability and public relations activities converge in the same evolutionary context while in others they do not. Thus, four possible scenarios and recommendations are presented. The questionnaire can be applied in future research to propose new conclusions or recommendations. Communications professionals can access an instrument to diagnose the communications function within their organizations and receive guidance on how they can contribute to the advancement of the sustainability process.

This article considers real options approaches through the lens of firm's resource reallocation processes. It explores some potential drivers and consequences of mismatches between initial resource allocation logics and subsequent reallocation realities, highlighting a process of rational escalation in the presence of sunk costs. It also presents a new perspective on the traditional stage-gate process, and considers some recent empirical evidence on the efficiency of resource reallocation processes in organizations.

In part because of the complexity and large risks involved, branding plays an important role in business-to-business (B2B) markets. Although marketers of B2B brands must do many of the things that marketers of any kind of product or service must do, six guidelines that are more unique to B2B settings can be defined.

First, the entire organization should understand and support branding and brand management. Employees at all levels and in all departments must have a complete, up-to-date understanding of the vision for the brand and their role. A brand mantra – a short three- to five-word summary of the essence of a brand – can help with this vertical and horizontal alignment.

Second, a corporate branding strategy should be adopted if possible with a well-defined brand hierarchy. Ideally, sub-brands would be created that combined a well-known and highly credible corporate brand name with descriptive product modifiers.

Third, to avoid falling into a commoditization trap, sufficient differentiation must be established to justify price premiums. To sustain that premium, it may be necessary to “frame” value perceptions to ensure that customers appreciate a brand's differences. Fourth, one often overlooked means of differentiation is to link brands to relevant non-product-related brand associations related to customer service, well-respected customers, or clients, etc.

Fifth, emotional associations related to a sense of security, social or peer approval, and self respect can also be linked to the brand and serve as sources of brand equity. Finally, customers must be carefully segmented both within and across companies and tailored marketing programs developed for these different segments.

Adopting these six guidelines will increase the likelihood of creating a strong B2B brand, reaping all the benefits that such an achievement entails.

Business history has long been recognized as providing an important dimension to international-business (IB) studies. Much of this historical work has focused on mapping historical growth patterns of multinational enterprises (MNEs) but there is also a growing literature on the long-term impact of MNE investment on host economies, and this paper reviews this research. The focus is primarily on developing-country host economies, and more broadly on the global distribution of wealth and poverty. The article suggests three major arguments. First, it is necessary to take a long-time horizon when assessing impact on host economies. Second, it is necessary to incorporate societal and cultural impacts alongside more traditional measures of economic impact. Third, there is weak historical evidence that MNE’s have had a substantial positive impact over the long run on the development of host developing economies. A hypothesis is suggested that, given adequate domestic growth-supporting institutions and human-capital development, developing countries achieve more sustained development from excluding foreign-owned MNEs rather than hosting them.