Stephan C. Henneberg and Stefanos Mouzas
This paper explores the value of the final customer in business networks. The preferences of the final customer define the concept of the network customer. The central argument of…
Abstract
This paper explores the value of the final customer in business networks. The preferences of the final customer define the concept of the network customer. The central argument of this paper is that companies within networks of value-creating relationships can act as integrators, which by interlocking limited value perspectives, can approximate an absolute value horizon that includes network customer considerations. Such interlocking activity constitutes a managerial challenge. As such, the interconnecting activity extends companies’ value horizons and can be characterized as a relationship capability, which is managerial knowledge capital that is not residing within isolated organizational actors but within the interrelations between them. Accordingly, such knowledge becomes a significant resource that can be used by both the organizations to improve their network position. By deconstructing the notion of value, this paper demonstrates the need for greater conceptual clarity and operationalization of value in the wider field of marketing, and specifically for business-to-business marketing.
Stephan C. Henneberg, Juani Swart, Peter Naudé, Zhizhong Jiang and Stefanos Mouzas
The purpose of this paper is to show the role of social networks in mobilizing how actors both impact and are impacted on by their colleagues. It seeks to compare the human…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to show the role of social networks in mobilizing how actors both impact and are impacted on by their colleagues. It seeks to compare the human resource management (HRM) academic community with two other comparable communities, and to identify those groups that are seen to work closely together.
Design/methodology/approach
It is shown how social network analysis (SNA) can be utilized to analyse data in social networks, shedding light on the cliques and networks of people that work together over a period of time. This is based on an analysis of co‐authored papers in the field of HRM between 1990 and 2005.
Findings
It is shown how the HRM community has developed over time utilizing various SNA metrics and this community of scholars is shown to be less “dense” than comparable academic networks, being made up of several weakly‐linked subcomponents. The paper also identifies the “ego‐nets” of individuals that are indicative of different publishing strategies.
Originality/value
The paper's contribution lies in the application of SNA to identify how groups interact over time, and how a large network can be systematically analysed to reveal the underlying structure.
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This paper deals with contemporary ways of implementing strategies using the logic of real options. Key objective of the study is to describe and explain how organisations develop…
Abstract
This paper deals with contemporary ways of implementing strategies using the logic of real options. Key objective of the study is to describe and explain how organisations develop and execute the strategies to achieve their objectives. The paper attempts to develop a new view of strategy implementation by utilising the recent advances in the area of real options. Based on empirical observations in manufacturer-retailer networks, the new view does not consider strategy as the ultimate concept of the company’s positioning or direction in the market but as an inventive stream of enacting what is possible for each organisation in its respective network. While organisations react to events as they unfold, implementing strategies takes the form of creating and enacting a number of real options that best reflect the organisations’ competencies and their capacities derived from network membership.
Stefanos Mouzas and Pete Naudé
The aim of this paper is to identify how companies mobilize other companies in their surrounding network to work within the plans they develop.
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to identify how companies mobilize other companies in their surrounding network to work within the plans they develop.
Design/methodology/approach
A conceptual model is developed and its applicability is illustrated by a case study involving a manufacturer‐retailer network within Europe.
Findings
The study identifies five different challenges that managers need to consider when attempting to mobilize other actors in their networks: developing network insight; introducing new business propositions; concluding the deal; developing the social contract; and achieving sustained mobilization.
Research limitations/implications
Although based on a manufacturer‐retailer network, it is believed that the proposed model has far wider managerial implications, achieved through the identification of the different challenges.
Practical implications
The model is explained in some depth, and its practical implications explained via the case study.
Originality/value
The development of a theoretical model of network mobilization based on a network view of business‐to‐business relationships.
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Gareth Veal and Stefanos Mouzas
This paper seeks to give empirical examples of the processes whereby networks learn to collaborate. Specifically, the authors aim to examine efforts to learn to collaborate in…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to give empirical examples of the processes whereby networks learn to collaborate. Specifically, the authors aim to examine efforts to learn to collaborate in response to the challenge of climate change.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses case study research methods to examine concepts previously developed in the literature and propose a conceptual framework of barriers to learning to collaborate.
Findings
Existing research on collaboration over environmental issues highlights the prevalence of cognitive deficiencies, an abundance of conflicts and disputes and the ignorance of exchange opportunities among interdependent actors. Based on a theoretical review and an empirical case study, the authors put forward a framework that involves three stages. The paper proposes that networks learning to collaborate undergo a process of: framing the problem; negotiating; and achieving wise trades.
Practical implications
At all three of the stages given above, there are significant cognitive biases, which can lead to failure to learn to collaborate. The paper gives examples that should help businesses and regulators to understand and avoid in‐built barriers that could lead to a failure of the network to learn to collaborate.
Originality/value
The paper reviews a number of research disciplines linked to collaboration and gives an empirical case study that explores their links. The authors then propose a conceptual framework of barriers to learning to collaborate, which can be used to help guide practitioners. Failure to learn to collaborate can be found in the many contemporary cases of conflicts and disputes; such as in the areas of intellectual property rights, international trade, inter‐firm alliances and vertical marketing systems.
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Stefanos Mouzas, Stephan Henneberg and Peter Naudé
The aim of the paper is to define the role of trust and reliance in business relationships.
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of the paper is to define the role of trust and reliance in business relationships.
Design/methodology/approach
After this paper identifies gaps in the literature, a conceptual model is developed, and its implications analyzed and discussed.
Findings
One of the particularities of trust is its inherent anthropocentricity. As a concept, trust appears to be more applicable at the level of inter‐personal relationships than to inter‐organizational relationships. Business relationships involve both inter‐personal and inter‐organizational relationships. The paper considers a number of other possibilities and argues that there is a need to look at reliance as an incremental intellectual lens on business relationships.
Research limitations/implications
Within a business‐to‐business marketing context, the paper discusses the impact of such a multi‐faceted conceptualization for research in business relationships.
Practical implications
Marketing researchers often neglect the fact that relationships between organizations are based on mutual interests, and attempt to stretch the concept of trust towards inter‐organizational relationships without the necessary theoretical scrutiny.
Originality/value
Applying the concept of trust to personal relationships and reliance to inter‐organizational relationships, the paper introduces a complementary, rational standard that contributes to the calculability in exchange relationships.
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The aim of this paper is to describe and explain how organizations develop and implement marketing action within their surrounding business networks.
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to describe and explain how organizations develop and implement marketing action within their surrounding business networks.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is an empirical case study research that covered periods 1993 to 1998 and 2002 to 2003 in manufacturer‐retailer networks in Germany. A conceptual model is developed and its applicability is illustrated.
Findings
The paper finds that marketing action is seen as an inventive stream of finding and doing what is possible for each organization in its respective network. Whilst organizations react to events as they unfold, marketing action in networks takes the form of creating and exercising a number of options that best reflect organizations' strengths and their capacities derived from network membership.
Research limitations/implications
Although based on marketing episodes related to the development and introduction of new products in a manufacturer‐retailer network, the proposed model has far wider managerial implications. The efficiency of the model is achieved through the reduction into three generative stages of the complexity of marketing action in networks.
Practical implications
The model is explained in some depth, and its practical implications explained via the case study.
Originality/value
The development of a model of marketing action in networks based upon a network/option view of business‐to‐business marketing.
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Stephan C. Henneberg, Stefanos Mouzas and Pete Naudé
There has recently been an increase in interest in the notion of “network pictures” amongst researchers in the field of business‐to‐business marketing. Network pictures are…
Abstract
Purpose
There has recently been an increase in interest in the notion of “network pictures” amongst researchers in the field of business‐to‐business marketing. Network pictures are managers' subjective mental representations of their relevant business environment. They are posited to work as “sense‐making” devices, and consequently shape managerial decisions, actions, and evaluations. However, while interest in this concept has been reported in a range of literature that is here identified and discussed, there has been no attempt to rigorously conceptualise the underlying dimensions of such pictures. This paper aims to address this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on an extensive review of previous work, this study proposes a parsimonious set of interrelated dimensions, and initially tests this approach.
Findings
This article shows the model's face validity, but also argues that not all dimensions are perceived as being equally useful: utilisation of the different dimensions is determined more by what it is that managers wish to represent.
Research limitations/implications
The implications of the concept of network pictures, as well as further research propositions, are discussed.
Originality/value
As researchers develop their interest in network pictures, so one needs to develop one's understanding of what their underlying dimensions are. A parsimonious set of such dimensions is developed and tested.
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Catherine Pardo, Stephan C. Henneberg, Stefanos Mouzas and Peter Naudè
This article aims to build on existing literature on value and proposes new perspectives and facets of relational value in key account management (KAM).
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to build on existing literature on value and proposes new perspectives and facets of relational value in key account management (KAM).
Design/methodology/approach
Building on traditional value perspectives, value in KAM is conceptually deconstructed and linked with strategic value approaches.
Findings
The article finds that a multifaceted key account value perspective includes three different types of value: exchange value, proprietary value, and relational value. Depending on the type of value constellation within a KAM relationship, a number of distinct key account value strategies are presented and discussed.
Originality/value
The article provides an innovative concept of value in strategically important business‐to‐business relationships. Based on this, several strategic implications regarding the management of value are derived which enable further empirical research and a more nuanced managerial approach towards KAM.