The aim of this commentary is to encourage service researchers to reflect on the state of the field as it pertains to the academia–industry intersection. The author puts forth a…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this commentary is to encourage service researchers to reflect on the state of the field as it pertains to the academia–industry intersection. The author puts forth a call to action to continue the work of the field’s founders in developing the foundations of the field and to carry the models and frameworks of the field deeper into industry practice.
Design/methodology/approach
Personal reflections and in-depth interviews.
Findings
The services discipline is based on foundational theories, models and frameworks developed, in part, as a response to needs expressed by industry. The development of these frameworks has not progressed to the level and format needed by industry, and the field is increasingly operating in silos. Resultantly, the services marketing domain has not developed its foundations to the level of depth needed to answer the call for “assistance” made by Shostack (1977).
Research limitations/implications
The author encourages researchers to build a next set of paradigmatic foundations that broaden the field as a truly interdisciplinary endeavor and deepen its impact in industry. To accomplish these goals, it will be necessary to question original theoretical frameworks and show situations in which they require modification.
Originality/value
This work suggests that researchers may be overemphasizing the silo aspects of the field and underestimating the lack of completeness of the service science field.
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Donald W. Jackson, Thomas Hollmann and Andrew S. Gallan
The purpose of this article is to explore career development programs for the sales force including benefits, implementation and managerial implications.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to explore career development programs for the sales force including benefits, implementation and managerial implications.
Design/methodology/approach
Career development programs are viewed through a conceptual model consisting of assessment, direction and development.
Findings
This paper provides a comprehensive list of the benefits of a career development program for sales forces.
Practical implications
The conceptual model can serve as a checklist for sales managers to evaluate, add to or modify their programs. The conceptual model also provides a framework for tying together many disparate areas of career development that have been handled separately or ignored in the sales management literature.
Originality/value
This paper provides a comprehensive conceptual model of career development that has not been present in the sales management literature. This should be useful to sales managers in evaluating their own career development efforts. The framework should also be useful to sales management scholars who teach and do research in this area.
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Andreas Eggert, Wolfgang Ulaga and Sabine Hollmann
Business marketers increasingly pursue greater shares of their customers' business. While the merits of such a strategy are straightforward from a supplier perspective, this paper…
Abstract
Purpose
Business marketers increasingly pursue greater shares of their customers' business. While the merits of such a strategy are straightforward from a supplier perspective, this paper aims to explore its consequences from the customer's point‐of‐view.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on resource‐dependence theory, value and dependence are established as fundamental characteristics of buyer‐seller relationships. Data envelopment analysis is used as a benchmarking tool to integrate these characteristics into a common efficiency score indicating the customer‐perceived attractiveness of a sourcing relationship. A post‐DEA‐regression‐analysis explores the link between sourcing attractiveness and relative customer share.
Findings
This research suggests a quadratic relationship between sourcing attractiveness and relative customer share. The perceived level of sourcing attractiveness improves until the local maximum is reached and declines beyond a relative customer share of 61.33 per cent.
Research limitations/implications
Additional fraction of variability (R2) in sourcing attractiveness explained by customer share displays a modest, yet substantial, level. Studies on customer share in comparable contexts found similarly low levels.
Practical implications
Sourcing attractiveness provides an interesting metric for assisting managers in their decision‐making. Instead of comparing supplier relationships across the board, the proposed approach allows to compare relationships against their best‐in‐class benchmark. Findings suggest that the vast majority of supplier relationships still offers avenues for further improving the existing supply bases. Pushing the share of customer beyond its optimum level, however, will have negative consequences for the customer‐perceived attractiveness of the sourcing relationship.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to a better understanding of the consequences of customer share marketing from the customer's perspective.
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Olubukola Tokede, Adam Ayinla and Sam Wamuziri
The robust appraisal of exploration drilling concepts is essential for establishing the economic viability of a prospective recovery field. This study evaluates the different…
Abstract
The robust appraisal of exploration drilling concepts is essential for establishing the economic viability of a prospective recovery field. This study evaluates the different concept selection methods that were considered for drilling operations at the Trym field in Norway. The construction of drilling rigs is a capital-intensive process, and it involves high levels of economic risk. These risks can be broadly categorised as aleatoric (i.e. those related to chance) and epistemic (i.e. those related to knowledge). Evaluating risks in the investment appraisal process tends to be a complicated process. Project risks are evaluated using Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) and are based on the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP). MCS provides a useful means of evaluating variabilities (i.e. aleatoric risks) in oil drilling operations. However, many of the economic risks in oil drilling processes are unanticipated, and, in some cases, are not readily expressible in quantitative values. The fuzzy AHP is therefore used to appraise the qualitatively defined indirect revenues comprising risks that affect future flexibilities, schedule certainty and health and safety performance. Both the Monte Carlo technique and the fuzzy AHP technique found that a cumulative revenue variation of up to 30% is possible in any of the considered drilling options. The fuzzy AHP technique estimates that the chances of profitability being less than NOK 1 billion over a five-year period is 0.5%, while the Monte Carlo technique estimates suggest a more conservative proportion of 10%. Overall, the fuzzy AHP technique is easy to use and flexible, and it demonstrates increased robustness and improved predictability.
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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…
Abstract
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.
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Through a survey of 200 employees working in five of the thirty establishments analysed in previous research about the microeconomic effects of reducing the working time (Cahier…
Abstract
Through a survey of 200 employees working in five of the thirty establishments analysed in previous research about the microeconomic effects of reducing the working time (Cahier 25), the consequences on employees of such a reduction can be assessed; and relevant attitudes and aspirations better known.
Giancarlo Pereira, Nektarios Tzempelikos, Luiz Reni Trento, Carlos Renato Trento, Miriam Borchardt and Claudia Viviane Viegas
The purpose of this paper is to explore top managers’ role in key account management.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore top managers’ role in key account management.
Design/methodology/approach
The possible actions that could be performed by a top manager were investigated in 12 case studies. These actions were grouped into key account managers and teams, culture, engagement and knowledge, organizational structure/conditions and customers and markets.
Findings
Top managers (TMs) informally evaluate teams and key account (KA) managers, stimulate a culture that favors the information’s prospection, persuade managers to reduce their resistance and improve organizational structure/conditions by inducing internal and external questioning. They also contact key customers’ top managers to check on the changes required or to persuade them to change requirements, accept a higher price or redirect an unattractive order to competitors. They approve revisions on the key customers list, discuss with the key account manager how to redirect an unattractive opportunity to competitors and try to improve gains even in attractive orders.
Research limitations/implications
Additional research beyond the provided exploratory study is needed to generalize the results. The findings contribute to improving the understanding of how TMs get involved in key account management, buyer–supplier relationship improvement and increasing company profitability. They also unveil top managers’ role in internal culture creation and team engagement.
Originality/value
When managing their KAs, TMs seem to be sceptical, curious and pragmatic with their subordinates, as well as with the customers or competitors.
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Taciana Mareth, Antônio Márcio Tavares Thomé, Luiz Felipe Scavarda and Fernando Luiz Cyrino Oliveira
This systematic literature review integrates the findings of existing studies regarding technical efficiency (TE) in dairy farms. The purpose of this paper is to offer a research…
Abstract
Purpose
This systematic literature review integrates the findings of existing studies regarding technical efficiency (TE) in dairy farms. The purpose of this paper is to offer a research framework that assembles TE descriptors, a classification of previous literature that provides the basis for the synthesis and research agenda.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper systematically reviews 86 survey research studies using rigorous and reproducible procedures. The review is applied to published survey research.
Findings
The framework relates context, inputs, outputs and metrics of TE. There is no agreement among the authors on the context and determinants of TE. The main determinants of TE are geographical location, farm size, investments in veterinary care, feeding and milking practice, TE model estimation techniques, public policy, and management-related variables. This paper offers ten propositions for future research on the controversial results on the determinants of TE. The authors also explore the reasons for the discrepant results based on the Debreu-Farrell’s definition of TE, the contingency theory and the resource-based view of the firm, elucidating the literature and serving as a basis for future investigation. Implications for dairy farmers and researchers close the review.
Originality/value
Meta-analysis and meta-regression studies were long at the forefront of reviews in the TE of dairy farms. This paper offers a novel qualitative research synthesis with frameworks and the classification of previous literature and a research agenda, which provides a new and different perspective for analysis, by innovating over the available quantitative procedures to combine statistical results.
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This study aims to examine the emotional components of brand hate and the variation of emotions across different levels of brand hate.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the emotional components of brand hate and the variation of emotions across different levels of brand hate.
Design/methodology/approach
Study 1 uses in-depth interviews and data triangulation. Studies 2-5 make use of quantitative methods to test and validate the multidimensional structure of brand hate and the variation of its composing emotions.
Findings
Study 1 suggests that brand hate is a multidimensional construct comprised of anger-, sadness- and fear-related emotions; possible antecedents and consequences are discussed. The quantitative results from Studies 2-5 confirm the findings in Study 1. A three-factor scale consisting of nine items is developed. The proposed model is tested among different samples and is compared with the currently available brand hate models. In addition, the findings show that emotions weigh differently for different brand hate levels.
Research limitations/implications
This study contributes to the brand hate literature and provides a structure to understand brand hate more thoroughly.
Practical implications
Companies can benefit from the research through a better knowledge of brand hate. Managers can use the multidimensional measurement to detect brand hate and better cope with it.
Originality/value
This study is among the first few attempts to examine the multidimensionality of brand hate and to investigate the variation of emotions in different brand hate levels. This study contributes to a more precise description of the brand hate construct and improves understanding of consumer-brand relationships.
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Liting Zhang, Yadi Li, Ning Sun and Yan Ning
Cost contingency is widely employed to address project risks. This systematic literature review aims to develop a framework for understanding risks in project cost contingency…
Abstract
Purpose
Cost contingency is widely employed to address project risks. This systematic literature review aims to develop a framework for understanding risks in project cost contingency estimation.
Design/methodology/approach
A systematic literature review of 859 abstracts and 67 full articles was conducted using a framework synthesis method.
Findings
The study establishes a six-element risk framework for project cost contingency estimation, encompassing event, consequence, uncertainty, probability, knowledge, and mitigation. Twelve risk dimensions in the project cost contingency estimation are further developed.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the project management literature by constructing a framework for understanding risks in project cost contingency estimation. This framework provides guidance for enhancing the accuracy of project cost contingency estimation.