Achieving customer loyalty is a primary marketing goal, but building loyalty and reaping its rewards remain ongoing challenges. Theory suggests that loyalty comprises attitudes and purchase behaviors ...that benefit one seller over competitors. Yet researchers examining loyalty adopt widely varying conceptual and operational approaches. The present investigation examines the consequences of this heterogeneity by empirically mapping current conceptual approaches using an item-level coding of extant loyalty research, then testing how operational and study-specific characteristics moderate the strategy → loyalty → performance process through meta-analytic techniques. The results clarify dissimilarities in loyalty building strategies, how loyalty differentially affects performance and word of mouth, and the consequences of study-specific characteristics. Prescriptive advice based on 163 studies of customer loyalty addresses three seemingly simple but very critical questions:
What is customer loyalty
?
How is it measured
? and
What actually matters when it comes to customer loyalty
?
Endogeneity in empirical marketing research is an increasingly discussed topic in academic research. Mentions of endogeneity and related procedures to correct for it have risen 5x across the field’s ...top journals in the past 20 years, but represent an overall small portion of extant research. Yet there is often substantial difficulty in reconciling issues of endogeneity with many of the substantive questions of interest to marketing strategy for both theoretical and/or practical reasons. This paper provides an overview of main causes of endogeneity, approaches to addressing it, and guidance to marketing strategy researchers to balance these issues as the field continues to move towards more methodological sophistication, potentially at the expense of managerial tractability.
Dynamic Relationship Marketing Zhang, Jonathan Z.; Watson, George F.; Palmatier, Robert W. ...
Journal of marketing,
09/2016, Volume:
80, Issue:
5
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Firms routinely engage in relationship marketing (RM) efforts to improve their relationships with business partners, and extant research has documented the effectiveness of various RM strategies. ...According to the perspective proposed in this article, as customers migrate through different relationship states over time, not all RM strategies are equally effective, so it is possible to identify the most effective RM strategies given customers' states. The authors apply a multivariate hidden Markov model to a six-year longitudinal data set of 552 business-to-business relationships maintained by a Fortune 500 firm. The analysis identifies four latent buyer-seller relationship states, according to each customer's level of commitment, trust, dependence, and relational norms, and it parsimoniously captures customers' migration across relationship states through three positive (exploration, endowment, recovery) and two negative (neglect, betrayal) migration mechanisms. The most effective RM strategies across migration paths can help firms promote customer migration to higher performance states and prevent deterioration to poorer ones. A counterfactual elasticity analysis compares the relative importance of different migration strategies at various relationship stages. This research thus moves beyond extant RM literature by focusing on the differential effectiveness of RM strategies across relationship states, and it provides managerial guidance regarding efficient, dynamic resource allocations.
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BFBNIB, INZLJ, IZUM, KILJ, NMLJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, ZRSKP
•Article reviews and synthesizes marketing channels research from 1980 to 2014.•Covers key theories, strategies, units of analysis, and substantive topics.•Shows trends and evolution of channels ...research through dynamic content analysis.•Identifies developing channel disruptions for directions for future research.
Despite the vast increase in marketing channels research published in the past decade, few contemporary analyses review or synthesize the domain. This article provides a comprehensive review of marketing channels research from 1980 to 2014. To present a multidimensional view of marketing channels, the authors evaluate extant literature from four perspectives: (1) key theories and constructs, (2) marketing channel strategies, (3) units of analyses, and (4) substantive topics in channels research. A content analysis of the relevant topics within each perspective that have had the greatest impact on channel research provides insights into research trends. This multidimensional analysis offers an integrated guide to extant literature, as well as an outline of promising directions for research, in light of the most significant trends.
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CEKLJ, GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
The adoption of digital communications, facilitated by Internet technology, has been among the most significant international business developments of the past 25 years. This article investigates the ...effect of these new technologies and the changing global business environment to understand how regional approaches to international market entry (IME) are changing in light of macro developments. Despite substantial resources in business practice dedicated to combining rebtional strategies in digital settings, this analysis of extant literature reveals that fewer than 3% of peer-reviewed research articles in the international marketing domain examine digital contexts. To address this gap, the authors assess 25 years of literature to provide (1) a description of the evolution of IME research; (2) a review and synthesis of pertinent literature that adopts relational, digital, and hybrid approaches to IME; (3) a taxonomy of IME strategies; and (4) directions for further research.
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BFBNIB, IZUM, KILJ, NMLJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Stakeholders have long pressured firms to provide societal benefits in addition to generating shareholder wealth. Such benefits have traditionally come in the form of corporate social responsibility. ...However, many stakeholders now expect firms to demonstrate their values by expressing public support for or opposition to one side of a partisan sociopolitical issue, a phenomenon the authors call “corporate sociopolitical activism” (CSA). Such activities differ from commonly favored corporate social responsibility and have the potential to both strengthen and sever stakeholder relationships, thus making their impact on firm value uncertain. Using signaling and screening theories, the authors analyze 293 CSA events initiated by 149 firms across 39 industries, and find that, on average, CSA elicits an adverse reaction from investors. Investors evaluate CSA as a signal of a firm’s allocation of resources away from profit-oriented objectives and toward a risky activity with uncertain outcomes. The authors further identify two sets of moderators: (1) CSA’s deviation from key stakeholders’ values and brand image and (2) characteristics of CSA’s resource implementation, which affect investor and customer responses. The findings provide new and important implications for marketing theory and practice.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
In the modern business environment, consumers are increasingly influenced by megatrends involving marketplace, technology, socioeconomics, geopolitics, and natural environment. Simultaneously, the ...data and insights that can inform consumer attitudes and behaviors often reside outside of firms' direct control. Consciously incorporating these interdependent factors into firms' decision-making is essential for adaptability and sustainable profitability.
Building on the “outside-in” perspective, we propose that firm strategies should be informed through the lens of the marketing ecosystem that considers the interrelated and dynamic megatrends. By leveraging advances in data and technology, firms can sense-make the marketplace by extracting insights from massive amounts of diverse consumer data with modern-day analytics. By mapping out the megatrends with marketing analytics, firms can 1) more accurately predict consumers' changing preferences and formulate appropriate strategies to engage with them; and 2) become more market-adaptable and competitive in the present and the future.
To deliver sustainably compelling value to customers, firms should adopt an ecosystem mindset and cooperate with various stakeholders. A broad-thinking, agile, and humble firm culture can enable the development of more robust outside-in capabilities. We elaborate on the megatrends in the interconnected world of the marketing ecosystem, and propose emerging research directions in each area.
•Strategy should be informed by megatrends in marketplace, technology, socioeconomics, geopolitics, and the environment.•The marketing ecosystem is a broadened outside-in view, consisted of interrelated trends that shape consumer behaviors.•Firms can sense-make the marketplace using diverse consumer data in the ecosystem and modern analytics technologies.•Megatrends are changing market dynamism, privacy, inequality, international protectionism, and resource sustainability.•The ecosystem view promotes a broad-thinking, agile, and humble culture that can enable superior outside-in capabilities.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Organoid technology holds great promise for regenerative medicine but has not yet been applied to humans. We address this challenge using cholangiocyte organoids in the context of cholangiopathies, ...which represent a key reason for liver transplantation. Using single-cell RNA sequencing, we show that primary human cholangiocytes display transcriptional diversity that is lost in organoid culture. However, cholangiocyte organoids remain plastic and resume their in vivo signatures when transplanted back in the biliary tree. We then utilize a model of cell engraftment in human livers undergoing ex vivo normothermic perfusion to demonstrate that this property allows extrahepatic organoids to repair human intrahepatic ducts after transplantation. Our results provide proof of principle that cholangiocyte organoids can be used to repair human biliary epithelium.
Understanding the signaling pathways that drive aggressive breast cancers is critical to the development of effective therapeutics. The oncogene MET is associated with decreased survival in breast ...cancer, yet the role that MET plays in the various breast cancer subtypes is unclear. We describe a knockin mouse with mutationally activated Met (Metmut) that develops a high incidence of diverse mammary tumors with basal characteristics, including metaplasia, absence of progesterone receptor and ERBB2 expression, and expression of cytokeratin 5. With gene expression and tissue microarray analysis, we show that high MET expression in human breast cancers significantly correlated with estrogen receptor negative/ERBB2 negative tumors and with basal breast cancers. Few treatment options exist for breast cancers of the basal or trastuzumab-resistant ERBB2 subtypes. We conclude from these studies that MET may play a critical role in the development of the most aggressive breast cancers and may be a rational therapeutic target.
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BFBNIB, NMLJ, NUK, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Hybridization between introduced and indigenous species can lead to loss of unique genetic resources and precipitate extinction. In Tanzania, the Nile tilapia (
Oreochromis niloticus
) and ...blue-spotted tilapia (
Oreochromis leucostictus
) have been widely introduced to non-native habitats for aquaculture and development of capture fisheries. Here, we aimed to quantify interspecific hybridization between these introduced species and the indigenous species
Oreochromis esculentus
,
Oreochromis jipe
and
Oreochromis korogwe
. In the Pangani basin, several hybrids were observed (
O. niloticus
×
O. jipe
,
O. leucostictus
× O.
jipe
,
O. niloticus
×
O. korogwe
), although hybrids were relatively uncommon within samples relative to purebreds. Hybrids between the native
O. jipe
×
O. korogwe
were also observed. In the Lake Victoria basin, no evidence of hybrids was found. Analysis of body shape using geometric morphometrics suggested that although purebreds could be discriminated from one another, hybrids could not be readily identified on body and head shape alone. These results provide the first evidence of hybridization between the introduced species and the Critically Endangered
O. jipe
in Tanzania. Given uncertainty regarding benefits of introduced species over large-bodied indigenous species in aquaculture and capture fisheries, we suggest that future introductions of hybridization-prone species should be carefully evaluated.
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DOBA, EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, IZUM, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OBVAL, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
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