Organizational behavior in innovation, marketing, and purchasing in business service contexts—An agenda for academic inquiry

Abstract

Many businesses today recognize the increased significance of service and the transition toward service orientation. Nonetheless, organizational practitioners frequently encounter problems managing this shift and seizing service-related business opportunities. This practical relevance, together with many still-unanswered service research questions, have inspired the preparation of this special section. We discuss the significance of business services from an academic and practitioner perspective. We find ample opportunities for conducting research combining managerial and academic relevance on behavioral theory linked to innovation, marketing, and purchasing research in business-to-business service contexts. The interrelationships among these domains are ripe for theoretical and empirical development.Against this background, the contributions in this special issue advance the extant literatures on business services and include (1) a study on how incremental innovation can become tradable as a service, (2) a demonstration of how innovative brands increases business performance, (3) a behavioral approach on organizational innovation adoption, (4) a framework of how practitioners handle relationship gaps and what factors form their behaviors, (5) an analysis of the role of relationship learning between service offerings and sales performance, and (6) an investigation of how power relationships and social integration influence learning in temporary organizations. We finish by providing a research agenda. First, more research is needed on the buyer perspective. Second, researchers need to keep in mind financial issues related to business services. Third, more researchers could tap into management, leadership, and decision-making in business service companies. Finally, sustainability, social responsibility, and environmental considerations are important topics for further exploration.

Service implementation in manufacturing: An organisational transformation perspective

“…We highlight two: strategy as practice and firm agility. Nordin and Ravald (2016) (Holmlund, Kowalkowski, and Biggemann, 2016;Kohtamäki and Rajala, 2016). Equally important, strategic agility is essential for adjusting the company's strategic direction in an ongoing and continuous process (Weber and Tarba, 2014).…”

Organizational Capabilities, Value Cocreation, and Marketing Innovation: How Well Are We Prepared to Face Future Challenges?

“…These numerous changes have increased interest in marketing from various groups in society [7]. It is in this context that the relationship between marketing and innovation has been highlighted [8,9], bringing an understanding that innovation in marketing serves to utilize and generate significant change in design, packaging, positioning, promotions, relationships, brand, and product or service pricing, all with the aim of increasing sales [3].…”

“…In this regard, innovation in marketing mainly tackles client needs beyond the general scope of the product [8]. Hence being part of a corporate competitivity nurturing process that contributes to the economic development of companies and society [10,11].…”

Formation of a system approach to the optimization of marketing management at an enterprise

“…The paper [7] investigates a possibility to delegate certain marketing functions to outsourcing on the basis of the analysis of the relationship between the optimal organizational structure of the company and the competition on the market. Finnish researchers [8] propose to delegate to consulting companies a certain part of business processes, including marketing functions.…”