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This study empirically explores one of the important channel issues – the relationship between various channel support given to channel partners and the perceived (by managers) goal‐orientation of a firm. Results from an emerging market, India, indicate that perceived orientation towards both profitability and market share is not associated with any of the channel support considered. Growth orientation however is strongly associated with most of the channel support activities – both business (e.g., business advice, pricing and ordering assistance, and personnel training) as well as marketing (advertising support, sales promotional material, and inventory management assistance) oriented activities. In contrast, perceived sales volume orientation is only associated with advertising support and business advice, however, the relationship is negative. These findings have interesting implications for channel management and channel motivation.

Despite the noticeable gains in agricultural productivity in the last decade, people are still dying from starvation and malnutrition. While part of the problem is inadequate food supplies at the national level, nutrition problems relate to physical and economic access to food. The key to improving access to food for the rural and urban poor consumers in developing countries lies in reforming the food distribution or marketing system. The objective of this paper is to define food marketing system parameters, delineate the imperatives of marketing system reform, and recommend actionable managerial strategies for their reform.

Reports the findings of a national study which addresses the question: why do some salesforces perform much better than others? Features an in‐depth presentation of the results pertaining to the teamwork factor and recommends managerial actions to take. Relates the key findings, examines the measures used to determine salesforce performance, and identifies teamwork variables constituting the dominant strategies which result in increasing salesforce effectiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to present taxonomy of marketing strategy concepts and integrative frameworks that differentiate and integrate its formulation and implementation processes.

The paper is conceptual based on a review of academic literature on marketing strategy chronicled in major marketing journals January 1990‐April 2006. We present selected references classified by key marketing strategy topics for further pursuit by interested readers. Also, the paper reflects our experience and views based on practices chronicled in corporate case studies and trade journals.

The literature casts marketing strategy formulation and implementation in the context of strategic planning and marketing strategy process models. The focus of the strategic planning model is on achieving corporate financial objectives through the implementation of product, pricing, promotion, and place (distribution) programs. The focus of the marketing strategy process model is on the formulation of segmentation, targeting, differentiation, and positioning strategies to create, communicate, and deliver the value to the customer resulting in gaining customer satisfaction and loyalty; i.e. marketing objectives.

The propositions and frameworks constitute guidelines useful in the process of marketing strategy formulations and implementation by practitioners and establish bases for academic researchers to test concept validity, examine concept differences, and explore concept relationships.

This paper advances propositions that clearly differentiate, but interrelate, marketing strategy formulation and implementation processes and recast the strategic planning financial‐oriented model and the marketing strategy process models into a set of frameworks to demonstrate that: the road to healthy financial results must first be paved by sound marketing strategies; explicitly state and underscore the role of branding and organizational strategies in mediating formulated marketing strategy into actionable marketing programs; and broaden the concept of firm orientation to reflect its role in mediating corporate strategy into a set of functional strategies including marketing.

The purpose of this paper is to explore empirically how a distributor's trust in a supplier and its use of control mechanisms affect the values it gains from the relationship.

Factor analysis and a structural equation model were used to test the framework in a sample of 251 distributors in the household appliances industry in China.

The findings show that a distributor's honesty trust in a supplier enhances the direct value gained through the use of both contract and relational norms, but hinders and promotes the indirect value gained through the use of contract and relational norms respectively. A distributor's benevolence trust promotes the direct and indirect value gained through the use of relational norms, but impedes the direct value and enhances the indirect value gained through the use of contracts.

A distributor's trust in a supplier may involve competence trust besides honesty trust and benevolence trust. Hence, the framework can be further studied in the situations where the distributor's trust in the supplier's competence is considered. Moreover, the sample of the empirical study only comes from the household appliances industry, and research in future may be extended to include multiple industries.

The paper may help distributors choose and use the proper control mechanism as well as foster a suitable kind of trust in suppliers to realize the objectives of maximizing the relationship value.

The results permit an in‐depth look into the effects of trust and control mechanisms on the relational values in a channel relationship context.

This monograph progresses from a consideration of definitional issues to the development of a conceptual model for marketing‐logistics interaction and finally to a discussion of the issues of implementation of the model within the context of marketing strategy. Thus, following an introduction, Part II begins with definition of the field and examines the position of physical distribution in relation to marketing. Part III discusses the relationship of physical distribution and macro‐marketing, and is thus concerned about the social, aggregative goals of logistics systems, including the costs of distribution. Part IV continues this argument, examining specifically the influence of physical distribution on channel structure. Part V then focuses on the assumptions underlying the customer service function, asking how physical distribution can influence final demand in the market place. Part VI presents a conceptual model of marketing‐logistics demand stimulation. The operational issues concerned with its implementation are shown in Part VII; and a summary of the relevant points is presented in Part VIII. The concern has been not with presenting either new computational models nor empirical data but with presenting a new perspective on the marketing‐logistics interface. There is a need to reduce the barriers between these fields and to present more useful ways for co‐operation.

A trend has been developing in the United States towards the use of vertical marketing systems. Of the many types of vertical marketing systems, franchising has become one of the most dominant. This is evidenced, in part, by the nearly one‐third of retail sales in 1973 that were through franchised retailers (US Department of Commerce, 1974). The success of the franchise form of distribution hinges upon franchisors and franchisees both contributing skills and resources, frequently however franchisees and franchisors become dissatisfied with the other's contributions and actions. This dis‐satisfaction in some cases leads to substantial friction. Although it is not clear that conflict (friction) will always decrease channel efficiency it is probably safe to assume that continued conflict would be dysfunctional in a franchise channel. It is therefore the purpose of this article to discuss and empirically test several propositions about the franchisee's satisfaction with his franchisor.

Using the supermarket technology in Hong Kong as an example, the article shows that the transference of the retail technology from one market to another is highly dependent on the socio‐cultural environment. In effecting an international transfer a retailer may have to be satisfied with an incomplete transfer, proceed in a gradual, evolutionary process and maintain an adaptive interaction with the environment.

A survey of Fortune 500 vice‐presidents of marketing and planning reveals their views of the business environment in 1995 along with their expected changes in corporate and marketing strategy. These perspectives can serve as a catalyst to other executives for thinking about future business environments as well as possible corporate responses to the shape of the future. Whether the predictions of the organizational managers we surveyed materialize or not, their views are worthy of careful scrutiny by any organization that takes strategic planning as a serious and important exercise in plotting a firm's future.

Start‐up Driver's Mart applies the latest management ideas to a much maligned business.