Anthony K. Asare

The Role of Channel Orientation in B2B Technology Adoption

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop an in‐depth understanding of the issues that organizations consider and experience when making the decision to adopt B2B technologies.Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses a qualitative approach to collect and analyze data. In‐depth interviews were conducted to help generate new themes, and ideas about B2B technology adoption. After the data were collected, the authors used an elaborate multi‐stage process to code, analyze, and interpret the data generated from the interviews.Findings – The main theme that emerged out of this study is that an organizations response to requests from its trading partner to adopt B2B technologies is highly influenced by its marketing channel orientation. The study identifies three types of marketing channel orientations that can influence a firms technology adoption decision and demonstrates how each of these orientations influence a firms responses and attitudes towards B2B technology adoption.Originality/value – T...

Developing sales force relationalism: The role of distributive and procedural justice.

Sales force justice perceptions can play an important role in the development of relational norms or relationalism; however, little research has explored the linkages between justice and the development of sales force relationalism. The relational justice model—that is, neutrality, trust, and respect—was tested with regard to direct effects on sales force perceptions of distributive and procedural justice, and in, subsequently, manager–sales force relationalism. The findings, from a sample of business-to-business salespeople, support the hypothesized relationships between the constructs in the relational model and distributive and procedural justice. Neutrality, trust, and respect significantly and positively affect both distributive and procedural justice, which directly affects the development of sales force relationalism. The results have implications for sales force management and future research endeavors.

B2B technology adoption in customer driven supply chains

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to develop and propose a comprehensive framework that identifies the factors that influence a company’s decision to adopt business to business (B2B) technologies. Design/methodology/approach – The authors review the literature regarding technology adoption from multiple disciplines including: Supply Chain Management, Logistics, Sociology, Information Systems, Marketing and Economics. A synthesis of the review provides the foundation for developing a comprehensive model of inter-firm technology adoption. Findings – The review and synthesis finds inconsistencies in the theoretical models and constructs used in previous studies of inter-firm technology adoption. The comprehensive framework presented identifies four major categories of antecedents to technology adoption: characteristics of a technology, organizational factors, external factors and relationships. The presented model focuses attention on the inclusion of relational factors that affect the adoption of B2B...

The State of Research Methods in Personal Selling and Sales Management Literature

This study examines the state of research methods in the personal selling and sales management (SALES) literature and assesses the trends and changes in these methods that have taken place in recent decades. The authors examine the research methods described by 1,346 sales articles published in 15 prominent journals over a 29-year period (1980–2008). They compare articles published in Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management with the aggregate of sales articles published in other journals as well as with articles published in Industrial Marketing Management to reveal any common trends or differences. The results indicate some important shifts in the use of research methods in SALES literature as well as significant differences in the research methods published across different research outlets. This paper outlines the implications of the findings and offers suggestions for how the discipline might improve its use of various research tools.

“A ROSE, by any other name”…: relationship typology and performance measurement in supply chains

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to develop a comprehensive framework of supply chain performance that includes relationship, operational, strategic and economic performance measures. Design/methodology/approach – The literature regarding inter-organizational performance including: supply chain management, logistics and marketing performance measures is reviewed. A synthesis of the review provides the foundation for developing a comprehensive model of supply chain management performance. Findings – The review and synthesis finds that supply chain performance focuses primarily on operational and economic performance measures while paying less attention to relational and strategic performance measures. The comprehensive framework identifies four major categories of supply chain performance measures: relational; operational; strategic; and economic – hence the name ROSE. Originality/value – This comprehensive framework identifies four types of supply chain measures that can be used as a guiding framework b...

The value relevance of brand equity, intellectual capital and intellectual capital management capability

Building upon the marketing literature of brand equity (BA), marketing–finance interface, strategy literature regarding intellectual capital (IC), and resource-based theories, this research develops a conceptual framework which links various assets, capabilities and firm value. This research studies three types of market-based assets and capability: BA, IC and intellectual capital management capability (ICMC). Various statistical techniques were used to measure the constructs in the research model, such as data envelopment analysis, structural equation modeling and factor explanatory financial model. Stock return response modeling was used to test the research hypotheses. On the basis of a sample of US semiconductor companies, this study shows that IC and ICMC capability are associated with firm value. The findings offer a variety of theoretical contributions to marketing–finance interface research stream, and provide actionable insights on management resource-allocation decisions.

A FRAMEWORK FOR SOCIAL RESPONSIBLE RETAILING (SRR) BUSINESS PRACTICES

The role of retailers in the practice of social responsible initiatives has been overlooked in the literature. This paper develops a framework for analysis of Social Responsible Retailing (SRR) by focusing on retailing business practices across the supply chain to the end consumer and among the internal and external stakeholders of the retail landscape. The framework is presented as a starting point to develop the concept of SRR and focuses on the potential role retailers can play in developing and coordinating social responsible business practices.

The effects of value appropriation strategies in channels on intangible firm value

This study aims to examine the role of channel strategies in value appropriation and their effects on firm value with the consideration of situational factors.,An empirical study with secondary data is conducted in the context of public franchised channels. The authors use Entrepreneur Franchise Top 500 (2012) as the sampling frame and merge the data from three sources to create the final data set. A set of models are built to test the hypotheses in a hierarchical manner.,Value appropriation provides a solid rationale to link marketing channel strategies to firm value. Channel integration is an effective strategy driving intangible firm value. The influence of channel compression on intangible firm value depends on its interaction with other marketing environmental variables.,First, the sample size in this study is relatively small though these samples show high representativeness. Second, the empirical analysis in this study focuses on the franchised channels because of data availability.,Managers should consider the role of value appropriation when developing new channel strategies. A channel strategy deserves firm-level attention and resources because of its relevance to firm value. Managers should examine channel environment carefully and deploy internal resources to augment the potential of value appropriation strategies in channels.,This study is among the first to investigate the value relevance of marketing channel strategies from a value appropriation perspective. It identifies profit appropriation and resource appropriation as two mechanisms of value appropriation in marketing channels and uses these two processes to link channel integration and channel compression strategies with firm value.

Interorganizational drivers of channel performance: a meta-analytic structural model

Purpose This meta-analysis aims to explore the true effect sizes of major channel performance drivers from different theoretical perspectives and how these true effects are organized in a theoretically integrated structural analysis to predict performance. Design/methodology/approach First, it offers a quantitative summary on the drivers of channel performance through pairwise correlation analysis. Second, it tests an integrative framework of various performance drivers based on the relational view by using structural equation modeling. Last, it examines the potential moderation on the effects of performance drivers. Findings The synthesized effects of various channel performance drivers confirm the effectiveness of underlying theoretical perspectives of channel performance. The relational view is effective to identify immediate interorganizational drivers of channel performance. The contexts and methods of performance assessment have impact on the appraisal of performance drivers. Research limitations/im...

Drivers of franchisor growth: a meta-analysis

Purpose This study aims to help resolve some of the inconsistencies of the relationships between franchisor growth and its drivers in prior literature. Design/methodology/approach First, this study provides a meta-analysis with bivariate correlation analysis and moderation analysis. It then offers an additional analysis of secondary data to shed further light on the relationship between franchisor growth and its drivers. Findings This study confirms the diverse nature of the relationship between the various measures of growth and drivers. It finds that proportion of outlets franchised and brand reputation have the strongest relationships with geographic dispersion; age and proportion of outlets franchised have the strongest relationships with outlet growth rate; and size has the strongest relationship with the number of new outlets. In addition, these multiple relationships are moderated by all three research characteristics that this study investigates, including data source, time frame and industry context. Research limitations/implications This meta-analysis merely offers an examination of the most commonly studied drivers and not a complete review of all potentially important variables. It calls for further research that examines the factors that lead to franchisor growth and performance in general. Practical implications Managers of young franchisors do not need to rush to expand their business across a wide range of geographic regions. Young franchisors instead should focus initially on gaining maturity, developing their business concept, building an attractive track record and improving their brand reputation. Beyond a strong brand and well-developed business concept, franchisors can attract potential franchisees by reassuring them and making them feel secure about their investment. Originality/value This study includes a bivariate analysis that was used to conduct a meta-analysis and also an empirical analysis of secondary data. By conducting the secondary data analysis, we were able to examine the extent to which the meta-analysis results of this study could be extended beyond the time period for papers included in the meta-analysis.