Search results

The purpose of this editorial is to provide an overview of content and process of development of the five papers collected in this special issue on collaboration and storying.

This guest editorial discusses the five papers in terms of their contribution both to debates on the utility of stories as data and forms of knowledge as well as to developing understandings of the research and practice of collaboration. Findings – The special issue integrates aspects of research, issues of research and connects with implications for practice.

Readers are provided with an overview of the utility of stories as data, different levels of conceptualization of stories and the kinds of insights that can flow from this form of research.

If stories can create promising practices, what does talk of “collaboration” mean in the context of what would appear to be market‐based inter‐firm relationships (IFRs)? How do managers trying to cope in industrial sectors make sense of supply chain relationships? This empirically driven paper attempts to shed some light on these issues.

The stories collected here show how a subtle analysis of actors’ “network theories” revealed within the language of IFRs can facilitate the study of collaboration. Discourse analysis of interview material is used to illustrate how managers draw upon a series of interpretive repertoires in order to make sense of IFRs within three contrasting “supply chains” or “marketing channels”.

Managerial accounts, often in the form of “micro‐stories”, illustrate how these participants argue persuasively for a “landscape” of next possible actions. This is a landscape that, despite being moulded in part by ideas of network partnerships and “relationship marketing”, is more strongly shaped by notions of chains and marketplaces. The paper argues that the discursively constructed network theories of managers constrain their thoughts and actions as they attempt to manage relationships in supply chain contexts. Ultimately, participants appear to forego the opportunities promised by collaborative partnerships; instead their accounts suggest that they retain a world‐view dominated by a competitive market orientation.

Studies that reflect a better understanding of such stories of the marketplace may enable researchers to disseminate findings that help practitioners make more sense of the tensions inherent in inter‐firm collaborations.

The decline of inter‐firm relationships remains an important, although little studied, topic within the channel management literature. Existing research on the topic tends to be fragmentary and largely occupied with the cataloguing of switching incentives and deterrents. This aim of this paper is to articulate a more comprehensive explanation of the process of decline.

With special emphasis on those channels spanning international borders, this paper outlines a mediational model of termination propensity which exploits the tension between the switching and opportunity costs of maintaining the status quo. Specifically, the study examines how switching motivators and deterrents interact to tip the balance towards, or away from, the inclination to terminate.

Two significant outcomes are achieved. First, it is proposed that the switching motivators identified in the literature are mediated through clients' satisfaction with their intermediary's current and anticipated performance. Significantly, it is shown that changes in the market, organisational and relational contexts can alter clients' perceptions independently of any changes in actual intermediary performance. Second, and in contrast with the direct links espoused in previous studies, switching costs are predicted to moderate the link between client satisfaction and termination propensity.

In contrast with past approaches examining a single cause of decline, this study develops propositions outlining a comprehensive, mediational explanation of termination propensity.

The central question of this study is whether the implementation of the marketing concept boosts organizational performance in developing economies. A subsidiary aim is to identify those antecedents that influence the formation of market orientation (MO) and marketing practice (MP).

Interview data were collected from a sample of 57 exporter manufacturers located in central China.

Although there is a link between MP and overall business performance, no such link exists for Narver and Slater's concept of MO. In general, MP was found to be a superior predictor of business performance. This study also found that the most significant antecedents to MO for developing country firms were customers and markets located outside the home market.

Marketing‐minded managers in developing economies encounter a number of institutional and environmental obstacles to collecting useful market intelligence. In such cases, the development of a MO will be inevitably hindered and it will be preferable to focus instead on boosting MP, which has a clearer link with performance. As the economy matures, customers and competitors located in export markets may provide useful MO‐enhancing intelligence.

As an exploratory study, this study has value as a first step towards integrating the two MO and MP research streams in the context of marketing in developing economies. The study's findings reinforce the idea of the marketing concept as a universal construct when measured in terms of specific business activities.

There are few who would not agree that in the classroom situation it is valuable to obtain information on the effectiveness of instruction. By asking questions and noting various cues such as attentiveness, the teacher can identify misunderstandings and rectify them, expand on points and, where necessary, adopt alternative strategies, thus tailoring his presentation to the needs of the group.

We all indulge in assessing other people, whether they be our friends, colleagues, superiors or subordinates. Soon after meeting someone for the first time you will probably have made some ort of assessment of the sort of person he is, his competencies, weaknesses and potential.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the ways in which narratives of collaborations tagged as successful may be constructed around common characterizations of participants, in order to provide insights to the ways in which stories may be constructed as vehicles for the adoption or adaptation of good or promising practices.

Qualitative interview data from three collaborative situations are analysed through a narrative‐centred procedure with a particular focus on micro‐stories.

The paper provides a set of recurring characterizations observed within narratives of successful collaboration and their employment within the stories offered by collaborating partners. It also suggests the relationship that these characterizations might have to the stimulation or retardation of good collaborative practices.

The paper is derived from interviews in the UK context and extrapolation to other contexts seems plausible but should be conducted cautiously and with reflection.

The particular style of narrative analysis conducted in this work has not been employed to the consideration of collaborative accounts and the characterizations derived may have utility as anchoring elements in stories of collaboration, helpful in both the elicitation and interpretation of such accounts.

Recent studies conducted in the USA and the UK have shown evidence of a relationship between market orientation and company performance. The overall aim of the research reported in this paper was to build on this limited body of literature by considering the evidence from another, non‐Western, business environment, namely Hong Kong. In addition, this study sought to clarify the distinction, not often made in the literature, between a market‐ and a marketing‐orientation. Data from 73 textiles and garments manufacturers were collected using an instrument based on Narver and Slater’s (1990) scale. Consistent with previous findings in Western cultures, the results of this study are suggestive of a relationship between market orientation and company performance. However, surveyed firms exhibited a much higher marketing orientation suggesting that it is possible to be effective at implementing the marketing function without possessing a market‐oriented organisational culture.