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Discusses factors affecting marketing‐sales co‐ordination requirements at consumers goods firms, what some firms are doing to encourage better interaction between these groups, the strengths and vulnerabilities of these organisational initiatives, and the managerial implications. Reports in a cross‐section of consumer product categories sold through retail and wholesale customers in different classes‐of‐trade.

This paper aims to investigate how various sales personas interacted and played a role in the early growth of Ewing Kauffman’s Marion Laboratories in the 1950s.

The approach taken is a variation of “retrodiagnosis” – wherein modern psychographic personas are used to profile historical actors. After reviewing trends in both the academic and trade literatures related to professional and entrepreneurial selling in complex environments, the foundational sales force at Marion Laboratories active in the 1950s was assessed using the five sales personas proposed in a 2011 Corporate Executive Board (CEB) study: namely, hard-workers, relationship-builders, lone-wolfs, reactive-problem-solvers and challengers.

Individual members of the foundational sales force at Marion Laboratories displayed a number of dominant persona and subdominant persona traits. The relative success and managerial challenges evidenced by individual members of Marion’s foundational sales force are consistent with the CEB sales persona performance patterns. Specifically, those with dominant challenger and lone-wolf personas were especially crucial in driving sales success – to the point that Marion rapidly rose to become the most notable sales force in the American pharmaceutical vertical.

Given that only a single firm was investigated, along with the interpretive and qualitative nature of the study, the findings are not generalizable. Additional studies in a similar vein with similar findings would add further support to the current findings. Theoretical implications related to customer development and effectuation are touched on.

The investigation lends qualitative historical support to the CEB study. The question of optimal-sales-team-persona-mix is worth founder’s consideration.

This is the first study to use contemporary sales personas to investigate a historically significant entrepreneurial sales force.

China’s economy is transforming at a brisk pace. A partially dismantled command economy and introduction of competition have fueled consumer demand for a greater selection of innovative new products in the retail market. The challenge for retail buyers is to adjust their procurement processes to respond to consumer needs in an efficient and effective manner. This study examines factors influencing buyer‐supplier relationships in a transition economy. We present a model to explain the factors driving retail buyer dependence on suppliers. We find that retailer evaluation of supplier credibility mediates the relationship between retailer perceptions of a supplier ability to add value to its business and the ability to achieve its desired goals. In part, this is due to the supplier’s market orientation. Interestingly, guanxi ties have no impact on the retailer perceptions of the supplier credibility, but have a positive affect on retailer dependence on its supplier partners.

Advances in interactive communication will dramatically alter the structure of distribution. Will end users' direct access to on‐line product and purchasing data eliminate the need for many specialty resellers? Will large distributors become more like public warehouses? What is the long‐term potential of “electronic commerce”?

Discusses the ever increasing sophistication of buyers in today′s industrial market and the need for sales people who have an in‐depth knowledge of their customers′ products and are able to liaise effectively between their own manufacturing department and the purchasing agent. Considers the establishment ofsales centres and the use of salespeople as intermediaries, coordinating the company′s sales functions (e.g. R&D, sales support), with their counterparts in the buying organization. concludes that salespeople can be viewed as the “linchpin” of the selling process, before, during and after the contract is completed.

Understand the dynamics of the diabetes supplement market and carry out an industry analysis using Porter’s five force analysis. Understand the challenges faced by a small entrepreneur in setting up distribution channels and examine the channel powers that come into play in the given context. Discuss the merits and demerits of traditional vs online channels. Understand the factors that are important to succeed in a highly competitive diabetes supplement industry (this would include aspects such as value sought by end customer, business-to-business [B2B] buyers, expertise required to handle B2B customers and also the price and salesforce reward approaches). Enumerate the merits and demerits of individual product branding vs an umbrella brand for a company selling over-the-counter (OTC) drugs online. Understand the various considerations for export marketing for OTC drugs.

Sushruth Ayurved Industry (SAI) is a proprietorship firm owned by Girish Banvi who always dreamt of being an entrepreneur. He had set up SAI to produce diabetes supplement by the name “Sugar Knocker” to give wings to his dreams. Notwithstanding competition from corporate players and demands from health-care practitioners, he had to abandon his traditional route to selling his product and open his eyes to online marketing. He believed it could provide him the perfect medium to reach his prospects directly without any middlemen within a cost-effective budget. SAI registered revenue of INR 24m per year, completely attributable to online sales. With a firm footing in the online space, Girish was now exploring physical marketing to expand his audience reach in the B2B market and also add new products to his portfolio. He was also worried about the low capacity utilization of his manufacturing unit, which stood at 20%. With only 30% of the 40 formulations used, there was much scope for expansion. With his plant capacity underused, the time was ripe for Girish to trace his footsteps from where he had begun in the first place.

This case can be used in marketing management course under the marketing strategy module. It can also find use in the elective course on marketing channels, and in sectoral programs such as health-care management or MBA in health care. This case can also be used in the health-care products marketing course.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of the largest shareholder's voting stake on the firm's capital structure decision.

To empirically analyze the influence of the voting stake on leverage, a large sample of 814 exchange-listed firms is applied. The baseline regression analysis is complemented by several robustness tests and a difference-in-difference regression analysis to mitigate endogeneity concerns.

The authors find a negative relationship between the voting stake of the largest shareholder and leverage, consistent with the notion that large, undiversified shareholders have the incentive to reduce risk. Additionally, results reveal that family control has a positive moderating effect, indicating that the negative relationship is less pronounced for family controlled firms.

The authors contribute to the research by suggesting ownership concentration as another determinant of capital structure. Further, the authors add to the literature by showing how the association between ownership concentration and leverage is moderated by family control and that the identity of the largest shareholder is of great importance.

The paper provides important insights to the current debate on the proposal of the European Commission to reintroduce shares with multiple votes as part of the Listing Act. The authors expect the regulation to exacerbate the concentration of voting rights, which results in lower leverage and thus limits corporate growth.

The authors differentiate from previous studies by focusing the largest shareholders' voting stake, instead of using the ownership stake, to assess the impact of ownership concentration on leverage.

This paper aims to analyse the capital structure determining factors of Latin American and US corporations after the crisis of 2008, as a means of comparing theoretical assumptions and empirical results in markets of different efficiency levels.

The study sample comprises 1,091 companies belonging to the six largest economies in Latin America plus the USA, in the years 2009 to 2013. The authors performed a regression with data from a balanced overview, which were obtained by using the criterion of minimum weighted square.

The results demonstrated differences in determining factors of capital structure between companies from Latin America and from the USA. The pecking order theory was mostly observed in Latin American companies and the trade-off theory greater was closely aligned with US firms.

This research brings new contributions to the issue, once the differences and determinative of the debt profile in companies from different economic contexts are compared.

Este artículo analiza los factores determinantes de la estructura de capital de las corporaciones latinoamericanas y estadounidenses después de la crisis de 2008, para comparar los supuestos teóricos y los resultados empíricos en mercados de diferentes niveles de eficiencia.

La muestra del estudio comprende 1.091 empresas pertenecientes a las seis mayores economías de América Latina y Estados Unidos, entre los años 2009 y 2013. Se realizó una regresión con datos de una visión general equilibrada, que se obtuvo utilizando el criterio de cuadrado mínimo ponderado.

Los resultados muestran diferencias en los factores determinantes de la estructura de capital entre empresas de América Latina y de Estados Unidos. La Teoría de la selección jerárquica se observó principalmente en las empresas latinoamericanas y la Teoría del intercambio más cercana estaba estrechamente alineada con las firmas estadounidenses.

Esta investigación aporta nuevas contribuciones al tema, una vez que comparamos las diferencias y determinantes del perfil de la deuda en empresas de diferentes contextos económicos.

Endeudamiento, Intercambio, Asimetría de información, Selección jerárquica, Regresión agrupada

Artículo de investigación

This study analyzes the influence of institutional and macroeconomic factors, in addition to firm-level factors, on the capital structure of listed industrial Latin American (LATAM) companies. The objective is to provide empirical evidence on LATAM firms from (1) the perspective of the traditional trade-off and pecking order theories and (2) from approaches that introduce the impact of institutional and macroeconomic factors into the analysis.

The empirical analysis adopts an econometric methodology using panel data on companies from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru from 2008 to 2018.

The results indicate that, in addition to the firm-level characteristics, the institutional and macroeconomic characteristics of the countries influence the capital structure of LATAM companies.

The study presents some limitations. It is mainly focused on listed companies sourced from only six LATAM countries due to a lack of data. It would be advisable to carry out similar studies with corporate governance factors, family businesses and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The results can serve as a reference for economic agents and professionals, encouraging them to consider the evolution of institutional and macroeconomic variables when making decisions. Academically, our findings verify the validity of conventional theories and the relevance of incorporating external institutional variables into the capital structure framework.

The importance of this research lies in analyzing the capital structure of companies in a little-explored geographic area, LATAM, including institutional and macroeconomic factors and using the new Orbis database.

Este estudio analiza la influencia de los factores institucionales y macroeconómicos, además de los factores a nivel de empresa, en la estructura de capital de las empresas industriales cotizadas latinoamericanas (LATAM). El objetivo es proporcionar evidencia empírica sobre las empresas latinoamericanas desde (1) la perspectiva de las teorías tradicionales trade-off y pecking order, y (2) desde los enfoques que introducen el impacto de los factores institucionales y macroeconómicos en el análisis.

El análisis empírico adopta una metodología econométrica, utilizando datos de panel de empresas de Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, México y Perú, de 2008 a 2018.

Los resultados indican que, además de las características a nivel de empresa, las características institucionales y macroeconómicas de los países influyen en la estructura de capital de las empresas latinoamericanas.

El estudio presenta algunas limitaciones, principalmente se centra en empresas cotizadas provenientes de solo seis países de LATAM, debido a la falta de datos. Sería recomendable realizar estudios similares con factores de gobierno corporativo, con empresas familiares y PYMES.

Los resultados pueden servir de referencia para los agentes económicos y profesionales, animándolos a considerar la evolución de las variables institucionales y macroeconómicas a la hora de tomar decisiones. Académicamente, nuestros hallazgos verifican la validez de las teorías convencionales y la relevancia de incorporar variables institucionales externas en el marco de la estructura de capital.

La importancia de esta investigación radica en analizar la estructura de capital de empresas en un área geográfica poco explorada, LATAM, incluyendo factores institucionales y macroeconómicos y utilizando la nueva base de datos Orbis.