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Organizational learning in inter‐firm exchange relationships poses a double‐edged sword. On one hand, inter‐firm learning is a desirable extension of organizational learning, developing a firm’s knowledge base, and providing fresh insights into strategies, markets, and relationships. On the other hand, inter‐firm learning can lead to unintended and undesirable skills transfer, resulting in the potential dilution of competitive advantage. This risk can be exacerbated by disparities in inter‐firm learning, resulting in uneven distribution of benefits and risks in the collaborative relationship. This paper articulates these two different views on inter‐firm learning, and second, develops a framework for the role of governance in regulating knowledge transfer. In particular, appropriate governance mechanisms must be crafted which match the learning intentions of the partners, the type of knowledge sought, and the designed duration for the collaboration, so as to maximize the benefits of learning while minimizing the risks. Implications for strategy and future research are offered.

The purpose of this chapter is fivefold. First, it highlights that, despite apparent progress, business in general, and marketing in particular, has made little impact upon environmental sustainability. Second, it offers four explanations for the persistent challenges that contribute to this lack of meaningful progress. Third, it presents two theoretical lenses (i.e., assemblage theory and socio-ecological systems theory) for viewing environmental sustainability from new perspectives. Fourth, it offers a mid-range theory, biomimicry, to bridge the gap between these higher-level theories and managerial decisions on the ground. Finally, it offers implications and ideas for future research based on these persistent challenges and new perspectives.

Our paper is theoretical in focus. We offer a conceptual analysis of persistent challenges facing business efforts in environmental sustainability and suggest useful lenses to integrate marketing decisions more closely with our natural environment.

We present biomimicry as an actionable framework that seeks inspiration from nature and also explicitly grounds marketing decisions in the natural world.

Our paper draws attention to the challenges facing firms seeking to achieve better performance in environmental sustainability. In addition, it offers a set of fresh theoretical perspectives as well as future issues for scholarly research in this domain.

Our work is designed to be provocative; it articulates reasons why business efforts in environmental sustainability do not scale to meaningful impact upon our planet and explores theoretical lenses by which those efforts could be more impactful.

Brand managers in packaged goods firms are under pressure to increase or maintain high sales promotion spending at the expense of media advertising. This study investigates the antecedents and outcomes of brand managers’ advertising and sales promotion budget allocations by adopting a bounded rationality perspective. Based on survey data collected from 165 brand managers in the USA, higher advertising (vs sales promotion) allocations are associated with: single, relatively high priced brands in the early phases of the product life cycle; and more experienced brand managers who are subject to less retail influence. Also, brands with higher budget allocations to advertising, relative to sales promotion, tend to have more favorable consumer attitudes, stronger brand equity, and higher market share increases and profits. Managerial implications and areas for future study are discussed.

This article aims to propose a continuum of strategic engagement approaches to base‐of‐the‐pyramid (BOP) markets ranging from non‐profit and government aid to corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs and social entrepreneurship. A framework is presented to identify which approach to serving the BOP market makes the most sense under certain conditions, depending on availability of consumer resources to participate in the initiative, the infrastructure available for the initiative to leverage, and whether the focus of the initiative is to be self‐sustaining over time.

This is a conceptual article based on literature review and synthesis.

Eight different approaches to engage with BOP markets are recommended under different combinations of three underlying conditions: consumer resources, infrastructure availability and self‐sustainability goals.

The paper presents a continuum of strategic engagement approaches to BOP markets.

This article develops a framework that helps clients and service providers make better decisions about whether and when to outsource, and on the appropriate type of outsourcing arrangement.

The paper is conceptual in nature.

Companies must align the governance of business functions to the underlying needs, resources, and desired outcomes. Simple procurement may suffice for acquiring standard business services such as cafeteria catering. When economies of scale exist and when transfer of explicit, codified knowledge is involved, straight‐forward transactional “lift and shift” IT and BP outsourcing arrangements will yield cost savings and efficiency. When transfer of know‐how is more tacit, and the goal is to add value to the client's customers beyond cost efficiency, longer‐term strategic outsourcing is appropriate. Finally, when there are risks to expropriation of proprietary knowledge and capital invested, transformational outsourcing is best.

The client and service provider need to ensure they do not overcommit resources in the case of transactional outsourcing while being prepared to invest adequately in strategic and transformational outsourcing. The framework helps to answer the question of when transformational outsourcing arrangements are appropriate. It also makes explicit the various risks involved, so that appropriate governance can effectively address the risks.

Many authors have written about the pitfalls of outsourcing including rushing through the initiative and not having a formal governance program. To address these, our framework advocates a comprehensive review of the entire array of possibilities, from in‐house development to simple procurement of services in the open market, as alternatives to outsourcing.

While external partnerships between different organizations have received a great deal of recent attention, the phenomenon of internal partnering between units of the same organization has not yet been addressed in the literature. Internal partnerships promise many of the same benefits as external arrangements, yet present a different set of problems and constraints for managers. This paper examines internal relationships between libraries and information services units in U.S. institutions of higher education. Hypothesized conditions for improved performance are developed based on existing literature on external partnering. The matched pairs are then compared and correlations with perceived performance of the relationship are presented to test the hypotheses.