European Journal of Marketing

Stephen Brown

doi: 10.1108/03090560510623235pmid: N/A

Purpose – The purpose of this commentary is to summarise developments in the science of serendipity and urge marketers to pay more attention to the incorrigible incalculability of commercial life. Design/methodology/approach – Explains how luck is a crucial component of business success and argues, citing examples of Shelby D. Hunt and Ted Levitt, among others, that it is perhaps time to abandon our fixation with customer focus and start taking serendipity seriously Findings – Fortune, clearly, favours the brand. Indeed, the history of management in general and marketing in particular reveals that serendipity plays a significant part in the commercial equation. Originality/value – Highlights the latter day advances in the science of serendipity.

Felix T. Mavondo; Jacqueline Chimhanzi; Jillian Stewart

doi: 10.1108/03090560510623244pmid: N/A

Purpose – The paper investigates the relationships among learning orientation (LO), market orientation (MO), human resource practices (HRPs) and innovation and their association with organisational performance. The aim is to show that HRPs and innovation are important mechanisms for transmitting the benefit of LO and MO into performance outcomes. Design/methodology/approach – Building on extensive literature, a model of the relationships is developed and empirically tested using survey data collected from 220 businesses. Data are analysed through structural equation modelling and/or path modelling. The primary aim is to assess direct, indirect and total effects of LO and MO on performance outcomes through HRPs and innovation (conceptualised as administrative, process and product innovation) as mediators. The study carefully traces the effects of each variable to distinguish between indirect effects and mediated effects. Findings – HRPs are a major mechanism for transmitting the benefits of LO and MO. In some models this is even more important than innovation. The results also suggest that LO should be viewed as exploration while MO is the interface between exploration and exploitation and, finally, HRPs and innovation must be viewed as exploitation or implementation issues. Practical implications – The study suggests that marketers should include HRPs in models of LO, MO, and innovation to enhance the explanations of these to organisational performance. This study suggests HRPs and innovation are important mediators. Originality/value – The paper suggests that marketers need to consider the impact of HRPs on achievement of marketing goals and organisational performance.

Leo Y.M. Sin; Alan C.B. Tse; Frederick H.K. Yim

doi: 10.1108/03090560510623253pmid: N/A

Purpose – To develop a reliable and valid measuring scale for customer relationship management (CRM). Design/methodology/approach – A series of studies were conducted for the development and validation of multiple measures for the dimensions of CRM. Once the dimensions of CRM were identified, data from study 1 ( n =150 business executives attending a part‐time MBA program) were used to select items based on factor analysis. Then, confirmatory factor analyses was used on data obtained from a mail survey of Hong Kong financial firms in study 2 ( n =215) to examine factor structure, as well as to provide evidence of dimensionality, scale reliability and validity. Finally, in study 3, data from 276 business executives attending a seminar on CRM were used to test the scale generalizability of CRM measures in various industries. Findings – A reliable and valid scale was developed to measure the four dimensions of CRM: key customer focus, CRM organization, knowledge management and technology‐based CRM. Research limitations/implications – Since this study was conducted in Hong Kong only, the generalizability of the CRM scale has to be tested in other countries. In addition, cross‐sectional data were used in this study. Future studies should collect time‐series data for the testing of the causal relationship between CRM and business performance. Practical implications – The findings validate the long‐held belief that CRM is a critical success factor for business performance. Firms wishing to improve their relationships with customers need constantly to monitor their behavioral and internal processes. The proposed scale in this study could be used as a diagnostic tool to identity areas where specific improvements are needed, and to pinpoint aspects of the firm's CRM that require work. Originality/value – This is the first study to provide a comprehensive, psychometrically sound, and operationally valid measure of a firm's CRM.

Jonathan E. Schroeder

doi: 10.1108/03090560510623262pmid: N/A

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to argue that greater awareness of the connections between the traditions and conventions of visual art and the production and consumption of images leads to enhanced ability to understand branding as a strategic signifying practice. Design/methodology/approach – Several prominent, successful artists served as case studies to illuminate the potential for insights into the interconnections between art, branding, and consumption by turning to art history and visual studies. Discusses the cross‐fertilization of art and branding, focusing on three contribution areas: the interactions between art, brands and culture, the self‐reflexivity of brands, and brand criticism. Findings – Successful artists can be thought of as brand managers, actively engaged in developing, nurturing and promoting themselves as recognizable “products” in the competitive cultural sphere. Originality/value – This paper places brands firmly within culture to look at the complex underpinnings of branding, linking perceptual and cognitive processes to larger social and cultural issues that contribute to how brands work and argues that art‐centred analyses generate novel concepts and theories for marketing research.

Tony McGuinness; Robert E. Morgan

doi: 10.1108/03090560510623271pmid: N/A

Purpose – The purpose of this research paper is to define a new construct, organisational change capability, which determines an organisation's effectiveness in implementing marketing strategy. Design/methodology/approach – A framework is constructed based on a dynamic concept of strategy, implying that strategy implementation is a process of effectively leading and managing incessant organisational change. The new construct is defined by analysis and synthesis of key sources in prior literature on leading and managing organisational change. Findings – The paper identifies organisational change capability as a distinctive new construct that integrates stages in leading and managing organisational change. The framework shows how the new construct relates to market orientation and learning orientation in jointly influencing the success of dynamic strategy outcomes. Research limitations/implications – The paper is conceptual, and requires empirical development. Practical implications – The paper helps an organisation to understand the nature of change capability, and its role in effectively implementing marketing strategy. Originality/value – The value of the paper lies in defining a new, distinctive construct that can be developed as an operational measure of an organisation's capability of effectively implementing marketing strategy.

Philip L. Dawes; Graham R. Massey

doi: 10.1108/03090560510623280pmid: N/A

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a model of the factors that explain the level of interpersonal conflict between marketing managers and sales managers. The paper aims to establish the overall level of interpersonal conflict in the full sample and in the two sampled countries (UK and Australia). Design/methodology/approach – The study draws on two theoretical frameworks to develop the model, namely structural contingency theory and the interaction approach. More specifically, the conceptual framework uses three groups of variables to explain interpersonal conflict: structural, individual, and communication. Importantly, the study developed and tested nine hypotheses. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the validity of the measures while OLS regression was used in testing the hypotheses. The data were collected from 200 sales managers in the UK and Australia. Findings – Overall, the study finds that there was a surprisingly low level of interpersonal conflict between marketing managers and sales managers and that there were no differences across the two countries. Of the three groups of variables, the two communication variables – frequency and bidirectionality – had the strongest effects on interpersonal conflict. The next strongest effects were from the individual‐level variables – psychological distance and the sales manager's formal education. The findings also reveal that the level of the sales manager's marketing training and the marketing manager's sales experience had no influence on interpersonal conflict. Two of the three structural variables – use of lateral linkages and being part of a corporation – had the hypothesized negative impact on interpersonal conflict. Originality/value – This is the first study to use a large empirical survey to examine the marketing and sales dyad. Also, it is one of the few studies to test the effects of communication behviours on peer manager conflict.

Henry F.L. Chung

doi: 10.1108/03090560510623299pmid: N/A

Purpose – The importance of the European Union (EU) to international business cannot be stressed too greatly. Recently it has expanded to 25 country markets. Its total population has reached 455 million people, which is the world's largest economic organisation. Previous international marketing standardisation (IMS) studies focused on the EU are mainly descriptive in nature and they have not specifically examined issues related to firms’ operations in two or more EU country markets at one time. The purpose of this study is to examine issues related to the crossmarket standardisation strategy, i.e. whether a standardised marketing programme and process can be used across the country markets in the EU. Design/methodology/approach – Using the pair‐wise comparison method originally developed by Sorenson and Wiechmann this study examines the marketing standardisation strategies selection process of 66 New Zealand firms which were concurrently operating in two or more EU markets. In total these firms were operating in 13 different EU country markets. Findings – The outcomes of this study suggest that, although a complete similarity in the marketing environment is not likely to occur in the EU, it is possible for firms to locate a group of country markets which have shared similar marketing characteristics in the EU region. For instance, country pairs such as UK‐France, UK‐Germany, UK‐Ireland, Germany‐France, Germany‐Italy and Germany‐Sweden could offer some extent of similarity which allows firms to adopt a standardised marketing strategy across these countries. Originality/value – This study generates a research framework for future studies and firms intending to operate in the EU region. The findings generated contribute to research in the areas of international marketing standardisation and international segmentation.

Gordon Fullerton

doi: 10.1108/03090560510623307pmid: N/A

Purpose – The relationship marketing literature puts forward that customer commitment is central to the development of marketing relationships. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which two components of customer commitment (affective commitment and continuance commitment) both enhance and undermine customer loyalty. Design/methodology/approach – A theoretical model was developed to determine the extent to which the components of commitment both served as mediators of and interacted with one another in the relationship between service quality and switching and advocacy intentions. This model was examined in a survey of customers in three service settings; financial services, retail‐grocery services and telecommunications services. Findings – Commitment serves as a partial mediator of the service quality‐loyalty relationship. It was also found that affective commitment made a negative impact on switching intentions and a positive impact on advocacy intentions in all three service settings. Continuance commitment had mixed effects on switching intentions and made a negative impact on advocacy intentions.. At the same time there was an interactive effect between the two components of commitment such that continuance commitment depressed the positive effects of affective commitment on both dependent variables. Originality/value – While the positive impact of identification based affective commitment is well understood in the marketing literature, the role of continuance commitment is not so well appreciated. This study reinforces the weakness of a relationship based on continuance commitment. In addition, few studies prior to this one have demonstrated the interactive effects between the two components of commitment.