Michael Ehret

The value added by specific investments: a framework for managing relationships in the context of value networks

Purpose – Economic theories applied to the study of buyer‐seller relationships draw to a large extent on the problems caused by specific investments. This contribution aims to develop a new perspective on specific investments that accounts for their value‐adding character and also to present a transaction‐centred definition of customer relationships.Design/methodology/approach – The contribution draws on a comparative review on literature on business networks and economic theories focused on industrial buying behaviour.Findings – Provides a transaction‐related definition of customer relationships in order to distinguish between different kinds of relationships and provides a framework to how relationship management is able to enhance marketing activities.Practical implications – Specific investments are a powerful tool for differentiating the market offerings of a company. One central implication is for managers to realise on which stage of the market arena such differentiation is likely to be successful:...

Global business services

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the contribution of global business services to improved productivity and economic growth of the world economy, which has gone largely unnoticed in service research. Design/methodology/approach The authors draw on macroeconomic data and industry reports, and link them to the non-ownership-concept in service research and theories of the firm. Findings Business services explain a large share of the growth of the global service economy. The fast growth of business services coincides with shifts from domestic production towards global outsourcing of services. A new wave of global business services are traded across borders and have emerged as important drivers of growth in the world’s service sector. Research limitations/implications This paper advances the understanding of non-ownership services in an increasingly global and specialized post-industrial economy. The paper makes a conceptual contribution supported by descriptive data, but without empirical testing. Originality/value The authors integrate the non-ownership concept and three related economic theories of the firm to explain the role of global business services in driving business performance and the international transformation of service economies.

Unlocking value from machines: business models and the industrial internet of things

ABSTRACT In this article, we argue that the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) offers new opportunities and harbours threats that companies are not able to address with existing business models. Entrepreneurship and Transaction Cost Theories are used to explore the conditions for designing nonownership business models for the emerging IIoT with its implications for sharing uncertain opportunities and downsides, and for transforming these uncertainties into business opportunities. Nonownership contracts are introduced as the basis for business model design and are proposed as an architecture for the productive sharing of uncertainties in IIoT manufacturing networks. The following three main types of IIoT-enabled business models were identified: (1) Provision of manufacturing assets, maintenance and repair, and their operation, (2) innovative information and analytical services that help manufacturing (e.g. based on artificial intelligence (AI), big data, and analytics), and (3) new services targeted at end users (e.g. offering efficient customisation by integrating end users into the manufacturing and supply chain ecosystem).

Creative restruction - how business services drive economic evolution

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to express the widely underestimated role of business services in driving the growth of the service sector, and the increasing specialization and productivity of the economies.Design/methodology/approach – The authors draw on statistical data and industry reports and link them to the non‐ownership‐concept in service research and the theory of the firm.Findings – Business services are the major driver of the service economy. Organizations focus on core competencies and outsource commoditized and non‐core activities in order to free managerial capacity for the entrepreneurial pursuit of opportunities. This in turn drives the specialization and enhanced productivity of economies.Research limitations/implications – This paper advances the non‐ownership discussion in service research and integrates it with economic theories of the firm, including the property rights theory, the resource‐based view and the entrepreneurial theory of the firm. This paper makes a conceptual c...

Self protection vs. opportunity seeking in business buying behavior - an experimental study

Purpose – Theories on industrial buying behavior differ fundamentally with regard to motivation and direction of industrial purchasing decisions. This becomes extremely in the case of new institutional economics, highlighting administrative aspects, and market process theory, focusing on entrepreneurial aspects of buying decisions. This paper aims to challenge these approaches by setting up an experimental design. Decisions of sales and purchasing managers were investigated with respect to their motivation of self‐protection or opportunity seeking.Design/methodology/approach – The contribution is based on an experimental design. The design is based on a prospect theory scenario. Prospect theory states that successful economic agents show a stronger tendency towards self‐protection, whereas under‐performing economic agents are willing to bear greater risks in search for opportunities.Findings – The results suggest that indeed out‐performers show a tendency to risk avoidance and under‐performers are willing...

Customer Integration in Business-to-Business-Marketing

Customer integration is a concept for establishing structures that make customer orientation work. The crucial point is that the customer is the basic source of the values that an enterprise creates. Thus, processes have to be designed to integrate the requirements of the customer into the processes of the supplier. Traditional marketing has to be reconsidered to ensure its successful implementation. Customer integration is both a strategic option for the development of innovative businesses and the centerpiece of modem management concepts.

The common ground of relationships and exchange: towards a contractual foundation of marketing

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to argue for an explicit foundation of market exchange on person‐to‐person relationships as an alternative to the foundation on person‐to‐goods relationship underlying the exchange model inherited from neoclassical economics and classical contract law and used in a large significant share of marketing studies.Design/methodology/approach – The paper provides a unifying theoretical framework to the analysis of transactions and relationships that links institutional approaches from economics, sociology, and law.Findings – Relational contract theory provides a common ground for phenomena studied by both traditional exchange‐based and relationship marketing approaches. Relational contract theory conceives all types of market exchange as based on person‐to‐person relationships and provides an anchor for institutional, social and economic approaches in marketing.Research limitations/implications – The concept of transaction provides a common foundation for the analysis of marke...

Nutzungsprozesse als Ausgangspunkt des Innovationsmanagements

Virtual Reality, Multimedia, Internet — diese Schlagworte aus der derzeitigen Innovationspalette in der Branche der Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien wecken bei dem Betrachter aus der Marketing-Perspektive auserst widerspruchliche Assoziationen: Wie so haufig bei der Einfuhrung neuer Technologien herrscht eine breite Skepsis, nicht nur uber den Sinn oder die befurchteten gesellschaftlichen Folgen dieser Technologien, sondern gerade bezuglich des Nutzens und der Marktattraktivitat der innovativen Angebote. „Technik sucht Anwendung“1, mit diesem Schlagwort wird der fehlende Durchbruch auf den innovativen Kommunikationsmarkten treffend beschrieben. Vor allem die Aussichten des interaktiven Fernsehens2 und einer ganzen Reihe weiterer Datenaustauschdienste3 werden mit immer groseren Fragezeichen versehen. Eine Vielzahl von Wissenschaftlern haben die sich abzeichnenden Nachfrageprobleme nach der Erklarung des Miserfolgs der „totgeborenen Kinder“4 des Innovationsmanagements bereits antizipiert und Modelle zur Erklarung der Akzeptanz von Multi-Media-Angeboten5 entworfen. Die Akzeptanzforschung grundet ihre Aktivitaten dabei auf den meist unausgesprochenen Verdacht, das die beobachtbaren Marketing-Aktivitaten die Integration der Kundenanforderungen in die Unternehmensprozesse nicht bewaltigen und daher die Ursachen im Hinblick auf die Verbesserung der Marketing-Aktivitaten analysiert werden mussen6. Diesem eher pessimistischen Bild stehen verbluffende Erfolge bei der Diffusion neuer Kommunikationstechnologien gegenuber, die kaum auf gezielte Marketing-Aktivitaten zuruckzufuhren sind und scheinbar von einer „unsichtbaren Hand“ gelenkt werden: Im Internet bilden sich User-Groups aus Mitgliedern, denen eher ein technologiefernes bis technologiefeindliches Image nachgesagt wurde7. Konzerne organisieren, ohne vorher erkennbare Marketing-Anstrengungen der Anbieter, nach dem Vorbild des Internets unternehmenseigene Netze, sogenannte Intranets, die meist uber eine Schnittstelle zum Internet verfugen und somit auch der Kommunikation mit Lieferanten und Kunden dienen. Intranet-Anwendungen stellen inzwischen die wichtigsten Kunden der ursprunglich auf das Internet fixierten Hersteller professioneller Netz-Software dar.8 Es ist bereits von der „Killerapplikation“9 die Rede. Online-Dienste, die bis vor kurzem noch zu den „Fragezeichen“-Anwendungen des vorigen Absatzes gehorten, haben durch die Schaffung von Internet-Schnittstellen eine Autobahn zu ihren Kunden gefunden.

High Technology and Economic Development: The BioCity Nottingham Technology Incubator:

The Case Study section of the International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation serves two purposes. First, the case studies presented are concerned with problematical issues that are pertinent to students of entrepreneurship. Thus they constitute appropriate teaching and learning vehicles on a variety of postgraduate and undergraduate programmes. Each case study is accompanied by a set of guidelines for the use of tutors. Second, it is envisaged that those engaged in entrepreneurial activities will find the cases both interesting and useful. Since the 1990s, public policy makers and private investors have been creating bio-incubators with the aim of obtaining a foothold in what many presume is one of the hottest future industries. This case study provides an in-depth picture of the biggest UK-based bio-incubator – BioCity Nottingham. The study outlines the history and regional context of the incubator as well as its service portfolio and a profile of its supported firms. The study provides insights into the formation of biotechnology companies, the role of the regional context in shaping business models and the emergence of a science-based business network. As a major implication, Nottinghams location, remote from the epicentre of both science and venture capital in the UK, favours service-based business models. BioCity provides a fascinating opportunity to become acquainted with local conditions of business incubation.

Customer Integration im industriellen Dienstleistungsmanagement

Die zunehmende Bedeutung der industriellen Dienstleistungen ist eine Folge der verscharften Wettbewerbsbedingungen im Business-to-Business-Bereich. (Vgl. z.B. Engelhardt/Reckenfelderbaumer 1993, S. 265). Auf den industriellen Markten finden sich zahlreiche Beispiele: Im Anlagenbau verlangen die Kunden „zusatzliche“ Dienstleistungen wie Personalschulungen, Managementleistungen der Betriebsfuhrung, Wartung und Instandhaltung sowie Vermarktungshilfen fur die mit der Anlage erstellten Produkte (vgl. Backhaus/Weiber 1993, S. 74–83; Backhaus 1992). Westliche Anbieter von Computerhardware suchen durch den Ausbau der Software- und Servicebereiche ihr Heil vor der japanischen Konkurrenz. Das Wort von der „computerless computer company“ zeigt in uberspitzter Form, wohin die Reise geht (vgl. Henkel 1993, S. 47). In dem Beispiel, das wir in diesem Artikel prasentieren (vgl. Teil 2 dieses Beitrags), sehen sich Anbieter von Computer Aided Engineering Systemen (CAE) steigenden Anforderungen nach integrierten Konzepten fur den optimalen Einsatz der Computer-Hard- und Software in der betrieblichen Wertschopfung gegenubergestellt.