Stephan C. Henneberg

Queen Mary, University of London | QMUL

Purpose Advanced servitization is the process that involves the combination of different services that facilitate both the use of a product and customer operations. Although servitization has emerged as a frequent strategy for manufacturers to differentiate themselves from the competition, its implementation can pose major challenges and may not al...

Despite the growing importance of servitization as a source of competitiveness for manufacturers, limited knowledge exists about organizational issues of servitization. Drawing on transaction cost economics theory and a configuration theoretical perspective, our study illuminates different organization architectures for servitization and how firms...

The present study extends the discussion on product manufacturers' digital servitization toward smart solutions by outlining and reviewing the existing literature on digital servitization and smart solutions. We focus on potential configurations based on technologies, business models, and ecosystems to understand how this transition can be managed...

Boundary spanner corruption—voluntary collaborative behavior between individuals representing different organizations that violates their organizations’ norms—is a serious problem in business-to-business (B2B) marketing relationships. Drawing on insights from the literatures on the dark side of business relationships and deviance in sales and servi...

Salesperson face-to-face visits with buyer organizations are an inherently dynamic phenomenon and choreographing changes in those visits is important for a salesperson to identify and pursue sales opportunities. Drawing on social network theory and adopting a novel within-tie change perspective, we provide guidance regarding salesperson choreograph...

Consumers tend to hold a focal firm responsible for its suppliers’ unsustainable practices (chain liability), suggesting that firms need effective responses that can mitigate negative consumer reactions. In applying psychological contract theory to investigate recovery efforts related to such chain liability, the current study addresses three broad...

Taking an interdisciplinary approach which draws from research into strategy, service, marketing and technology, we set out to explore how manufacturing firms are approaching digital transformation and to develop a blueprint that will help firms formulate successful digitalisation strategies. Of course, the mechanics of strategy formulation – the t...

Business relationships are often a source of benefits for firms, but they can tip and unleash detrimental effects that diminish or even destroy relationship performance. Although prior studies on dark-side effects in business relationships have advanced the understanding of the phenomenon, they mainly relied on a dyadic perspective exploring single...

Purpose-This paper aims to conceptualize corporate reference management as a strategic signaling activity in business networks. While research has extensively outlined how firms develop and maintain social capital through business-to-business (B2B) relationships, less is known about how they signal their participation in business networks to develo...

Purpose This paper aims to conceptualize corporate reference management as a strategic signaling activity in business networks. While research has extensively outlined how firms develop and maintain social capital through business-to-business (B2B) relationships, less is known about how they signal their participation in business networks to develo...

Purpose: The present study intends to extend the discussion about digital servitization business model configurations and the journey towards digital servitization business model. Technology companies are moving towards the digital servitization, e.g., business models that bundle products, services, and software systems in ways we have not seen bef...

Not that long ago – in pre-digital times – a company would have a business model and strategy supported by a technology strategy. Today’s world is a lot more complicated, with technology architecture informing business strategy and business model innovation as much as the other way round. In this context, we often talk about ‘digitally-driven busin...

Sustainability represents a ‘grand challenge’, which can often not be addressed by actions of individuals or single organizations alone. To understand collaborative sustainability activities, in this article we propose the concept of open sustainability. We derive open sustainability from literature in the areas of sustainability, open approaches,...

CFP on "Moving toward autonomous solutions: The role of Product-Service-Software Systems"

In this article, the authors extend the current literature on servitization by taking a configurational perspective, aiming to understand the interplay between the drivers (conditions) that lead to certain equifinal outcomes of servitization. By taking stock of the servitization literature using the contingency theory of strategy as a foundational...

This article aims to deepen the understanding about when and how the mobilization of resources through strong and weak ties in a focal firm's network can affect new product success. It addresses two significant gaps in the literature. While prior research has advanced the understanding of how factors around tie strength, resource mobilization, and...

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore whether dyadic operationalization within business relationships is feasible and sensible in a rigorous way. It aims to introduce quantitative operationalizations of business relationship characteristics from both monadic and dyadic datasets, and to introduce aggregation techniques for utilizing the r...

Business relationships as well as the wider embedding network provide firms with crucial resources for their resource base, thus the capabilities that allow firms to successfully manage (in) such business relationships and networks have been an important research focus for industrial marketing. This article contends that there exist important oppor...

Managing business relationships successfully is critical for many professional service firms (PSFs) in order to be able to address complex client needs. Furthermore, the project-based nature of PSFs' work puts pressure on them to retain clients across project periods. Drawing on both net effect and configurational perspectives, this study provides...

Purpose The objective of this paper is to develop and validate a scale for inter-firm market orientation (IMO) based on an original conceptualization by Elg (2008). Building on the MARKOR scale development work, the IMO scale is introduced in order to better understand the market orientation efforts that occur within business relationships. Desig...

Endogeneity bias represents a critical issue for the analysis of cause and effect relationships. Although the existence of endogeneity can produce severely biased results, it has hitherto received only limited attention from researchers in marketing and related disciplines. Thus, this article aims to sensitize researchers intending to publish in th...

Manufacturers across many industries use service infusion to address the changing customer demands and improve their competitive position. However, understanding the drivers of successful service infusion is a complex process. Using business model and configuration theories, this study conceptualizes and analyzes the interplay of different driver d...

Companies need to manage business relationships successfully in order to stay competitive. Drawing on configurational logic, this study shows that companies can improve their relationship performance through leveraging the structure of their business relationships. However, relationship structures must align with the company's business strategy. To...

Our paper is concerned with how managers understand their surrounding network and what strategic actions they take based on this insight. Recent research in the areas of network management and business relationships shows increasing interest in the interplay between cognition and action, particularly on how managers relate perceptions about their b...

Fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) can help researchers to address causal complexity, especially in relation to the interactions between different conditions leading to the outcome in question. FsQCA helps investigate how alternative solutions (different configurations of conditions) make up the outcome, and considers the asymmetric...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose and empirically investigate the concept of networking capability (NC) for the management of supplier relationships and their dynamics in order to leverage product innovations. NC in the context of supplier relationships is conceptualized based on dynamic capabilities aimed at relationship initiation,...

Value creation and value appropriation are fundamental strategic processes. Both can be analyzed at the level of the individual manager, an organization or at the systemic level. On the organizational level, empirical research so far has put strong emphasis on aspects of value creation, while value appropriation has received less attention. We anal...

This study conceptualizes service infusion as a business model reconfiguration by using a process perspective. Service infusion is therefore understood as a process affecting the business model dimensions of transaction content, structure, and governance. The service-related reconfiguration of the business model is explained by underlying knowledge...

Relationship quality is a central theme in business to business relationships, and it is becoming increasingly important from a theoretical as well as practical perspective to understand and monitor relationship quality. Despite its pivotal role, measurement issues of relationship quality have not been systematically investigated, confounded by a l...

Supply chain management theory recognizes the importance of managing supplier relationships. However, we know less about the capabilities underlying such supplier relationship management that are required to restructure and develop the supply base in order to continuously improve its performance. A recent study by Mitrega and Pfajfar (2015) provide...

This study examines antecedents of sales growth using a two-step mixed-method approach including analyses of net effects and combinatory effects. Based on a sample of 453 respondents from manufacturing and service firms, this article shows how the combination of structural equation modeling (SEM) and fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQC...

How to manage in business relationships due to resource-dependence issues has become one of the most important research topics in management and strategy research. Such business relationships with customers and suppliers are pivotal to the success of collaborative innovation activities and ultimately firm performance. However, business relationship...

This article attempts to advance the personal selling and sales management literature by analyzing the negative consequences that may emanate from salespeople’s daily work experiences. The overall purpose of this article is to detect holistic workplace conditions, which result in frustration experiences in the sales force. Frustration is associated...

Inter-organizational trust is a key characteristic of buyer-seller relationships (Handfield and Bechtel 2002; Kwon and Suh 2004). This paper investigates the drivers of buyer and seller inter-organizational trust. Previous studies have attempted to investigate the drivers of inter-organizational trust. However, these studies are dominantly based on...

The purpose of this study is to elucidate the stress-strain relationship by examining compound causes of frustration in the workplace. Drawing on configuration theory, this article describes stress patterns, that is, configurations of role stressors and social stressors, underlying frustration and its negation, that is, mellowness. In addition, thi...

This paper provides an overview of different ways of using dyadic operationalizations. Using a dataset from the Russian manufacturing industry, we test a monadic versus an internal dyadic data. This research opens up more meaningful quantitative work by enriching the often limited focal company perspective of research on business relationships.

Extant research has identified several relationship characteristics that are essential in developing successful business relationships with counterparts. Drawing on configuration theory, this research aimed at examining the confluence of seven relationship characteristics and business strategy and the impact of their coalignment on both firm perfor...

The international marketing literature suggests that the characteristics of the subsidiary-headquarters relationship play an important role in subsidiary knowledge development within the field of multinational corporations (MNCs). However, few studies examine the association between the subsidiary-headquarters relationship and subsidiary strategic...

This chapter describes the value dimensions and relationship postures in dyadic key relationship programmes (KRP). A dyadic perspective of value in KRP interactions needs to start with a conceptual understanding of the multi-faceted nature of value and that value in KRPs can be usefully disaggregated into three levels which include internal, exchan...

Despite the growing number of studies focusing on fairness perceptions in buyer–supplier relationships, the pertinent literature mostly focuses on understanding the buyers' perceptions of fairness. In this study, we argue that sellers' perceptions of the fairness of the buyer are equally important but often overlooked. Moreover, existing research f...

This study is concerned with the extent to which network-oriented behaviors directly and/or indirectly affect firm performance. It argues that a firm's interaction behaviors in relation to an embedded network structure are key mechanisms that facilitate the development of important organizational capabilities in dealing with business partners. Such...

This study explores the complaint management expectations of 72 British and 74 German organizational buyers using automated online means-end laddering and a Hierarchical Value Map presentation. It conceptualizes the links between expected complaint resolution attributes by the buyer (i.e., means) and the buyer’s value perceptions (i.e., ends). Unli...

This study contributes to understanding the role of trust in business-to-business relationships at two different levels of operation: the inter-personal and inter-organizational levels. A nomological model was built around an overall framework consisting of three main groups of business relationship characteristics: attitudes, behaviors, and outcom...

This study aims at conceptualizing the different outcomes of inter-cognitive representations, such as manifestations of agreements between business actors, legally binding contracts, and industry standards and regulations which are developed through interactions between actors in business networks. Inter-cognitive representations inscribe shared un...

This study introduces the concept of relational attractiveness of the customer (RAC) which is defined as the attitude of the supplier towards the customer firm in order to maintain and/or to improve an existing business relationship. Social Exchange Theory explains relational exchanges in business markets and provides a configurational logic for RA...

Service Infusion beschreibt ein Konzept im Bereich des Industriegütermarketing, das sich auf die Anreicherung industrieller Produkte mittels verschiedener Dienstleistungen bezieht (Eggert et al. 2011). Hiermit wird neues Wertschöpfungspotenzial durch gesteigerten Service Value generiert. Service Infusion wird für Industriegüter schon seit einiger Z...

Networking represents a cornerstone for entrepreneurial action, nurturing relationships that provide access to necessary resources. Previous research shows that such relationships can be fostered as part of incubation processes. However, there is a lack of understanding of the underlying networking process, particularly in settings aimed at promoti...

Based on an existing conceptualization in the literature, this study operationalizes the construct of organizational networking, through a rigorous two-stage scale construction and validation process. Organizational networking refers to firm behaviors, i.e. the activities/routines/practices, which enable an organization to make sense of and capital...

This paper investigates the fit between the strategic posture of a political party and its political market orientation, and analyses the impact of this fit on party performance. For this purpose, a configuration theory logic is applied to the context of the political market; in particular, we develop strategic profiles (i.e. strategic postures and...

This research is aimed at understanding firms' different types of ‘networking behaviors’, i.e., how and why firms affect their strategic network position by activities/routines/practices aimed not just at their business partners, but beyond such direct relationships. Thus, we adopt a network perspective to examine how firms exploit their webs of di...

As portfolio models have evolved in the area of business marketing scholars have turned their attention from traditional product-based and transaction-oriented portfolios to portfolios based on business relationship considerations. However, the conceptualization of relationship portfolios has remained vague, and the applications of these analyses i...

Contents: 1. Introduction; 2. Defining Political Marketing; 3. Theories and Concepts in Political Marketing; 4. The Triadic Interaction Model of Political Exchange; 5. Critical Perspectives on Political Marketing; 6. Political Marketing and Theories of Democracy; 7. The Ethics of Political Marketing; 8. Political Relationship Marketing; 9. Strategi...

In order to capture different aspects of change within different actor groups of a distribution network, a network-as-practice perspective (NPP) is used in this study, which looks at performative aspects of an exchange system. This approach, based on the ‘practice-turn’, is framing the development of an analytical framework, which describes practic...

Non-commercial exchanges including social and political ones have become an accepted marketing explanandum since the broadening debate of marketing of the 1970s. In order to build a theory of political marketing, a rigorous understanding of the nature of the political exchange needs to be developed beyond the simplistic assumption of being synonymo...

Drawing on the configuration theoretic approach, we posit that firms can improve both relationship performance and their overall firm performance through leveraging the structure of their business relationships, i.e. by accurately aligning their relationship structure with their specific business strategy. In the context of this research, we focus...

Service networks represent an often used but less often defined construct. As part of the Industrial Marketing Management Special Issue on Services Networks we provide an overview of different ways of understanding services networks, particularly from a business marketing and a services systems perspective. We provide our own definition of services...

Business relationships are seen as beneficial way of structuring inter-organizational exchanges. For example, transaction cost economics (TCE) posits that relationships as a governance form are specifically important for recurrent transaction types in terms of their mix and ideosyncratic nature (Williamson, 1985; 1996). Interdependencies between th...

This paper deals with organizational inscriptions of managerial cognitions elaborating on the emerging concept of network pictures. While previous studies on network pictures have concentrated on individual managers' cognitive views of business networks, this study operates on a focal company level (meso-level) and is concerned with how managerial...

There has recently been increasing interest in the relationship between managers' perceptions of their surroundings and their interactions with other actors. This sense-making issue is linked to the development of the concept of network pictures. Our paper investigates a hitherto neglected aspect of network pictures: their complexity. In several bo...

A growing body of scholars are advocating a better understanding of how value is created in business networks, rather than merely in business relationships or at the level of single actors. Among such networks, innovation networks, i.e. the configurations of strategic entrepreneurial nets aimed at improving the effectiveness of innovation performan...

Purpose – There is conflicting evidence of the extent to which business relationships in the UK construction industry are based on trust between closely collaborating parties or alternatively are more adversarial in nature, based on dependence between the parties. This study seeks to provide empirical evidence about the effects of trust and depende...

This paper focuses on how managers use their understanding of their business network as a strategic tool in their decision making process. Recent research in the areas of network management and business relationships shows increasing interest in these issues, particularly on how managers relate perceptions about their business network to decision-m...

Integrating the IMP Group approach with aspects of the resource-based view of the firm, we seek to develop and test a typology of relationship strategies based on different resource acquisition foci. For this purpose, we conducted interviews with thirty CEOs and other senior marketing managers in the UK and the USA. In-depth content analysis identi...

In recent years, there has been increasing interest among business-to-business marketing scholars in the processes of managerial cognition. In particular, actors' network pictures, defined as the cognitive representations of managers' business surroundings have attracted much attention. However, there has so far been no empirical research on the im...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the levels of trust and reliance in different international business markets. The paper aims to obtain empirical evidence regarding the importance of relational aspects (trust) vis‐à‐vis organisational ones (reliance) for building long‐term business relationships. Design/methodology/approach –...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between the strategic postures and political market orientation profile of two Danish parties. Profile stability at the organisational level is used as a control variable. Design/methodology/approach The strategic political postures of two Danish parties are derived using a self‐...

The article investigates the role of market orientation as an antecedent for the development of relational capabilities and performance in Russian industrial firms. We test the direct role of different aspects of market orientation on business performance in comparison to an indirect and mediated influence via improving a firm's ability to become e...

This study aims to investigate the role of interfunctional collaboration between marketing and purchasing functions in industrial companies. Interfunctional collaboration is considered as a measure of the internal alignment and partnership between departments in the firm, which in turn contributes to the creation of sustainable advantages via impro...

How should a network be organised? In what direction should it change? In networks actors have distinct network positions which are defined by their connected relationships. If an actor wants to change this network position by altering his connected relationships or respond to the actions of others, he will most likely face differing and perhaps co...

As part of a product management strategy, companies face the challenge of integrating customer needs on the one hand with company and production requirements on the other hand. While approaches exist that attempt to transform the ‘voice of the customer’ into the ‘voice of the engineer’, these invariably do not explicitly convey issues of brand mana...

Recently, the areas of strategic political marketing and political market orientation have been the subject of several conceptual articles that have provided the theoretical foundations for further empirical work. However, despite the close conceptual relatedness of the proposed concepts, they have yet to be integrated to provide a more nuanced fra...

Purpose To overcome the limitations of applying trust in interorganizational relationships, this paper aims to investigate the significant role of interorganizational reliance in business relationships and develop an original scale to measure this new construct. Design/methodology/approach A total of 20 in‐depth interviews with buying firms were c...

Whilst many researchers have investigated the nature of business relationships, few contributions have been made that explain how firms adopt and implement alternative relationship strategies in dealing with their counterparts. Building upon the notion that firms of superior performance have more coherent structural configurations than those of low...

The market for MBA degrees is changing rapidly. As this market tends to maturity, an increase in the number of universities offering these degrees is evident, and also in the different formats in which these degrees are offered. In this increasingly crowded marketplace, there exist two main sources of information that buyers (students as well as pr...