Theoretical Perspectives of Business Relationships: Explanation and Configuration

Kleinaltenkamp, Michael; Plinke, Wulff; Söllner, Albrecht

doi:10.1007/978-3-662-43856-5_2

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…Furthermore, a customer has multiple engagement alternatives and takes into account expected benefits and costs (including effort) when deciding to enter into an exchange relationship. While transactional value is part of this comparison of alternatives, there is consideration of the value of relationships (value from past exchanges) with the supplier of the value proposition in the engagement decision (Kleinaltenkamp, Plinke, & Söllner, 2015;Payne et al, 2017;Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004;Ravald & Grönroos, 1996). Each actor has a finite set of resources for engagement (Azzari et al, 2021) and may encounter conflicting engagement contexts (Alexander et al, 2018) so they make discretionary choices, choosing the most relevant, meaningful, and/or convenient value proposition with which to engage.…”

Section: Proposition 1: Customer-mobilized Engagement Is An Anteceden...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking customer engagement design: Using customer-mobilized engagement (CME) to grow business networks

Davey

O'Brien

Ouschan

et al. 2022

Industrial Marketing Management

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Section: Proposition 1: Customer-mobilized Engagement Is An Anteceden...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking customer engagement design: Using customer-mobilized engagement (CME) to grow business networks

Davey

O'Brien

Ouschan

et al. 2022

Industrial Marketing Management

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“…When a customer perceives scope to influence supplier innovations, we could expect this underlying democratizing of innovation (von Hippel, 2005) to contribute to a customer's increased perceived appropriability of returns to his relationship investment with the supplier (Grant, 1991;Kleinaltenkamp et al, 2015), and to greater attractiveness of the customer to the focal supplier. It is, thus, of interest to note that customer attractiveness to a given supplier has been found to help attaining preferential resource allocation from the supplier (Pulles et al, 2016).…”

Section: Customer's Perceived Influence On Supplier Innovation and Lomentioning

confidence: 99%

An analysis of configurations of relationship quality dimensions to explain sources of behavioral outcomes in globalized manufacturing

Steiner

Brandhoff²

2020

EJM

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Purpose This paper aims to explore the role of configurations of relationship quality dimensions for explaining sources of behavioral outcomes in the globalized manufacturing industry. Design/methodology/approach A joint analysis of behavioral and objective performance data from globalized manufacturing links perceptual customer metrics that relate to dimensions of relationship quality (i.e. attitudinal loyalty, perceived customer orientation, customers’ perceived innovativeness of the supplier and perceived customer influence on supplier innovation) with behavioral outcomes (i.e. share of wallet (SOW) and customer account profitability). Using data from a global business-to-business (B2B) customer survey together with archival performance data from a multinational mechanical engineering firm, a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) is performed. Findings The fsQCA results suggest that perceptual customer metrics related to innovation can be relevant aspects of relationship quality, in line with Anderson and Mittal’s (2000) satisfaction-repurchase-profitability chain framework and its adaptation to SOW. However, the underlying complexities in the different combinations of attributes in the recipe are such that they are not equifinal in leading to higher SOW or higher profitability. This paper finds indications for non-linearities between perceptual measures investigated and profitability of customer accounts, with particular relevance for the role of perceived customer orientation, perceived product innovativeness of the supplier and attitudinal loyalty. Research limitations/implications The analysis faces a number of limitations, starting with its reliance on cross-sectional survey data, which does not enable us to account for feedback mechanisms, for example, arising from customer perceptions regarding innovation aspects. The lack of a multidimensional conceptionalization of the perceptual customer constructs may have limited the analysis, considering also recent evidence from retail companies in the furniture sector in Spain, suggesting that the multidimensional conceptualization of relationship value explained satisfaction and loyalty levels to a greater extent than the one-dimensional conceptualization (Ruiz-Martínez et al., 2019). Practical implications In terms of managerial implication, the results suggest that customers perceive limited value in participating in the focal firm’s innovation value chain funnel, hence customer loyalty cannot be bought using simple incentive strategies. The results with regard to customer account profitability suggest that B2B customers investigated here may distinguish when interacting with their globalized supplier in the innovation funnel: they may see a positive customer value when the innovation is a product, and thus, relation-specific, whereas they may see limited customer value when innovation is considered in more generic terms (customers’ perceived influence on supplier innovation in general). Originality/value This paper starts from the premise that perceptual customer metrics can matter for supplier performance, as the customer relationship and customer value management research has shown. However, there is limited empirical evidence from globalized manufacturing sectors incorporating perceptual constructs in behavioral outcomes, and limited evidence assessing customer-perceived value in such sectors through alternate approaches to main-effects focused analyzes. We employ qualitative comparative analysis using fuzzy sets (Russo et al., 2019) to address these gaps, focusing on two key behavioral outcomes, namely, customer account profitability and SOW.

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“…When a customer perceives scope to influence supplier innovations, we could expect this to contribute to the customer's increased perceived appropriability of returns to his relationship investment with the supplier (e.g. Grant 1991;Kleinaltenkamp et al 2015), and to greater attractiveness of the customer to the focal supplier, due the underlying democratizing of innovation (von Hippel 2005). It is thus of interest to note that customer attractiveness to a given supplier has been found to help attaining preferential resource allocation from the supplier (Pulles et al 2016).…”

Section: Customer's Perceived Influence On Supplier Innovationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do customer perceptions of innovation matter in industrial markets?

Steiner¹,

Brandhoff²

2018

Proceedings

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Perceptual customer constructs can be central to leverage market intelligence for optimizing customer relationships. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to our understanding of the relationship between perceptual customer metrics that relate to relationship quality (i.e., customer orientation, customer satisfaction, attitudinal loyalty, customer influence on supplier innovation) and behavioral outcomes (i.e., customer account profitability, share of wallet). The paper integrates stated and revealed preference data from a multinational mechanical engineering firm and its global customer base. Results from latent class analysis and fractional logistic regressions highlight both the role of customer perception heterogeneity, and that of nonlinearities between perceptual constructs and behavioral metrics, for targeting behavioural outcomes. They also suggest that attitudinal loyalty and customer satisfaction are highly relevant aspects of relationship quality with respect to share of wallet. However, fractional logistic regression results also indicate that customer perceptions of the supplier's product innovativeness, and perceptions of customer influence on supplier innovation, are likely not relevant aspects of relationship quality.

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Theoretical Perspectives of Business Relationships: Explanation and Configuration

Cited by 5 publications

References 54 publications

Rethinking customer engagement design: Using customer-mobilized engagement (CME) to grow business networks

Rethinking customer engagement design: Using customer-mobilized engagement (CME) to grow business networks

An analysis of configurations of relationship quality dimensions to explain sources of behavioral outcomes in globalized manufacturing

Do customer perceptions of innovation matter in industrial markets?

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