Customer Concentration, Executive Attention, and Firm Search Behavior

Zhong, Weiguo; Ma, Zhiming; Tong, Tony W.; Zhang, Yuchen; Xie, Luqun

doi:10.5465/amj.2017.0468

Cited by 75 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 82 publications

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“…Therefore, although continually developing new customers is critical to SME competitiveness, we recommend that the managers of SMEs who have implemented SCF should not focus less on the relationships with their key customers. This agrees with previous studies, such as Zhong et al (2020), who investigated the US public firms. They found that the firm with a higher concentration of customers tends to be more dedicated to the competitive environment.…”

Section: Managerial Contributionssupporting

confidence: 93%

Supply Chain Finance, Performance and Risk: How Do SMEs Adjust Their Buyer-Supplier Relationship for Competitiveness?

Li¹,

Fang²,

Park³

et al. 2021

JOC

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Supply chain finance (SCF) has attracted considerable attention being an innovative business model that allows firms, especially small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), to convert illiquid assets into cash without incurring additional liabilities. However, its effects on SME performance and risk have been insufficiently studied. The competitiveness of SMEs depends on performance enhancement and risk mitigation. Thus, this study constructs a scaled-decile rank transformation of account receivable turnover to gauge the degree to which a supplier implements SCF, thereby examining the relationship between SCF, performance, and risk. We collect data on 4,679 SMEs from the Chinese manufacturing sector. Thereafter, hierarchical linear regression, a complex form of multiple linear regression analysis, is employed to test the hypotheses. The results indicate that an SME’s SCF adoption positively impacts its performance but negatively impacts its risk. To further explore cross-sectional variability, we investigated the buyer-supplier relationship’s moderating role. Results show that an increase in customer concentration strengthens both the positive effects of SCF on performance and the negative effects of SCF on risk. Overall, our study contributes to the literature on the interface of operations and finance in supply chains by exploring the multiple facets of SCF adoption and highlighting the moderating role of buyer-supplier relationship in SCF and SME competitiveness. Finally, we provide managerial implications for SMEs and financial service providers by validating the value of SCF implementation and the buyer-supplier relationship management in forging competitive advantages.

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Section: Managerial Contributionssupporting

confidence: 93%

Supply Chain Finance, Performance and Risk: How Do SMEs Adjust Their Buyer-Supplier Relationship for Competitiveness?

Li¹,

Fang²,

Park³

et al. 2021

JOC

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“…The time horizon of executives’ focus and the immediacy of needed results will shape both tactical and strategic decisions. To supplement this line of work, Zhong, Ma, Tong, Zhang, and Xie (2020) examine empirically the impacts on firm innovation of CEOs’ temporal attention.…”

Section: Future Research Directions and Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Worlds Apart? Connecting Competitive Dynamics and the Resource-Based View of the Firm

Chen

Michel

Lin

2021

Journal of Management

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Competitive dynamics (CD) and the resource-based view (RBV) emerged simultaneously from the study of strategy more than three decades ago. The two subfields have advanced since then to occupy established positions in strategic management. Generally, CD is outward-focused and interested in a firm’s moves and countermoves in the marketplace. The RBV looks inward, examining a firm’s internal organizational capabilities, its tangible and intangible resources. They have mostly been investigated independently; rarely have researchers put together the two pieces of internal capabilities and external competitive profile. Consequently, we have only a fragmented snapshot of the firm’s core strategic elements and behaviors. Here, we compare and contrast the two perspectives along a number of dimensions such as focus of attention and conception of competitive advantage. Based on this understanding, we explore the CD-RBV interface, specifically how central elements of these research streams may be considered jointly to expand our understanding of firm behaviors and outcomes. We highlight limitations and lapses in the literature and suggest directions for future researchers interested in developing new theories connecting the intellectual boundaries of these two important strategy subfields.

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“…We use these complementary theories to examine how MROB influences executive attention toward customerrelated issues during M&As. If executives pay more attention to, for example, innovation, then they allocate more resources toward innovation-related activities to drive success (Yadav, Prabhu, and Chandy 2007;Zhong et al 2020). Similarly, we argue that MROB will direct executive attention toward building organizational resources and processes, directing capabilities, and mobilizing employees to meet customers' needs during M&As.…”

Section: The Moderating Role Of Marketing Representation On the Board...mentioning

confidence: 86%

“…Existing research in marketing has overwhelmingly used the RBV of the firm to examine outcomes of M&As. This view, which emphasizes capabilities, fails to consider executive attention (Zhong et al 2020); however, executive attention is a precursor to resource investments. Further, although the ABV considers executive attention, it has primarily focused on the effect of supply-side (vs. demand-side) factors that influence managerial attention (e.g., Ocasio 1997;Zhong et al 2020).…”

Section: Theoretical Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Despite Efficiencies, Mergers and Acquisitions Reduce Firm Value by Hurting Customer Satisfaction

Umashankar¹,

Bahadir²,

Bharadwaj³

2021

Journal of Marketing

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Most researchers focus on the effect of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) on investor returns and overlook customer reactions, despite the fact that customers are directly impacted by these corporate transformations. Others suggest that in M&A contexts, a dual emphasis of customer satisfaction and firm efficiency is both likely and beneficial. In contrast, the authors demonstrate that M&As not only do not yield a dual emphasis but also cause a decline in customer satisfaction to the extent that it eclipses any gain in firm value from an increase in firm efficiency. A quasi-experimental difference-in-differences analysis and an instrumental variable panel regression provide robust evidence for the dark side of M&As for customers. The authors use the attention-based view of the firm to demonstrate that post-M&A customer dissatisfaction occurs because of a shift in executive attention away from customers and toward financial issues. In line with the related upper echelons theory, they find that marketing representation on firms’ board of directors helps maintain executive attention on customers, which mitigates the dysfunctional effect of M&As on customer satisfaction. This research identifies a negative M&A-customer satisfaction relationship and highlights executive attention to customer issues and marketing leadership as factors that mitigate this negative relationship.

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Customer Concentration, Executive Attention, and Firm Search Behavior

Cited by 75 publications

References 82 publications

Supply Chain Finance, Performance and Risk: How Do SMEs Adjust Their Buyer-Supplier Relationship for Competitiveness?

Supply Chain Finance, Performance and Risk: How Do SMEs Adjust Their Buyer-Supplier Relationship for Competitiveness?

Worlds Apart? Connecting Competitive Dynamics and the Resource-Based View of the Firm

Despite Efficiencies, Mergers and Acquisitions Reduce Firm Value by Hurting Customer Satisfaction

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