infonet-economy

This work is devoted to the question of how managers can successfully probe latent needs and uncover future needs of customers, labeled as proactive customer orientation. Based on an observation of specialized proactive customer-oriented departments, expert interviews, workshops with managers, and a meta-analysis of existing research, two dimensions of proactive customer orientation are defined, proactive customer-oriented climate and proactive customer-oriented processes. New scales are developed for the two constructs, and the reliability, validity, and generalizability of the second-order measurement models are supported by an empirical study of 218 business-to-business firms and 202 business-to-consumers firms

Recently managers and academics have raised issues about the performance effects of customer relationship management. Our study addresses this skepticism and advances research by introducing a firm's generative learning orientation as a crucial factor for customer relationship performance. Data from a crossindustry survey of 199 CEOs, CMOs and Senior Marketing Executives reveal that generative learning does affect customer relationship performance directly. Moreover the interaction of customer relating capabilities and generative learning orientation contributes significantly to customer relationship performance. We conclude that a pronounced generative learning orientation is crucial for firms to fully benefit from their competences in customer relationship management.

Wer sein Unternehmen kundenzentriert gestalten möchte, muss das gesamte Unternehmen auf die Kunden ausrichten. Eine kundenzentrierte Strategie ist ein erster Schritt in die richtige Richtung - aber noch nicht mehr. Zur erfolgreichen Realisierung einer kundenzentrierten Strategie müssen die „harten“ und „weichen“ Faktoren der Customer Centricity in den Einklang gebracht sowie die Stolpersteine auf dem Weg zum Kunden vermieden werden.

This study aims to examine the direct and moderating effects of generative learning on customer performance.

The authors test the relationships between CRM capabilities, generative learning, customer performance, and financial performance with a cross industry survey of CEOs and senior marketing executives from 199 firms. Partial Least Squares are used to estimate the parameters of the resulting model.

The results reveal that generative learning affects customer performance directly. Moreover, the interaction of CRM capabilities and generative learning contributes to customer performance. This finding suggests that firms need a well-developed generative learning orientation to fully benefit from translating new insights resulting from CRM capabilities into establishing, maintaining, and enhancing long-term associations with customers, and vice versa.

The main limitations are those that typically apply to cross-sectional-surveys. Although several steps were taken to reduce the concern of key informant bias and common method variance, dependent and independent variables were collected from the same source at a single moment in time.

Ceteris paribus, an increase of generative learning orientation by one unit (seven-point scale) can command an increase of up to 7% of the average customer performance due to its direct and interaction effect. Because even small changes in customer performance have a strong impact on financial performance, this finding indicates a remarkable and substantial result for managers.

Though previous research provides evidence of the adaptive learning consequences of CRM, a review of the literature reveals a lack of studies that analyze the importance of generative learning orientation for successful CRM.

Our study examines how firms may encourage customers to migrate between channels in a multichannel environment. We use the PPM-Model of human migration to explain customer right-channeling and conduct two experiments of stationary retail to online migration. Our results suggest that the intention to use the target channel can be increased by reducing the assortment in the current (push measures) and enlarging the assortment in the desired (pull measures) channel. Furthermore, switching costs moderate the impact of both measures. Based on our qualitative work and empirical results, we provide guidelines to managers of how to successfully right-channel their customers.

Customer Centricity, die Kundenzentrierung, verbessert die Wettbewerbsposition eines Unternehmens und führt zu einem höheren Erfolg. Eine klare kundenzentrierte Strategie ist ein erster Schritt in die richtige Richtung - aber noch nicht mehr. Vor allem bei der Umsetzung lassen sich in der unternehmerischen Praxis noch viele Mängel feststellen. Häufig wird Kundenzentrierung als Leitbild verkündet, im täglichen Geschäft aber nur sporadisch und nicht konsequent umgesetzt.

Marketing scholars as well as leading managers agree on the importance of creating customer value for business success. But customer orientation may harm firms when they solely focus on expressed needs and miss to serve new customers or new markets. By responding to latent and emerging customer needs, firms can create new opportunities for value and maintain business success. Such a comprehensive market orientation (MO) is longer term in focus and proactive in nature.

Even though the interest in exploring various aspects of proactive MO has increased during the last years, existing research has not focused on at least three different important aspects: First, it remains unclear which norms, artifacts and behaviors determine a proactive market-oriented culture. Second, current research neglects how organizations can find a proper alignment among responsibility for proactive MO, degree of specialization, external cooperations, and prevailing organizational values. Third, it lacks a comprehensive understanding of internal and external consequences.

We used qualitative as well as quantitative research methods to investigate these research gaps. A multiple-case design has been applied to finalize a conceptual model on proactive MO, its organizational antecedents, contingency factors and consequences. Then, a dyadic survey of strategic business units in three industries (automotive, consumer electronics, financial services) and their customers tested the hypothesized model empirically. The identified proactive market-oriented culture differ clearly from responsive MO and confirm that both dimensions require different organizational cultures. Furthermore, we determine the contingency factors under which a firm should devote resources to increase its proactive MO

Co-marketing alliances are a sustainable source of competitive advantage, though alliances still pose significant management challenges. Little is known about which capabilities allow firms to manage ongoing co-marketing alliances. Drawing on in-depth interviews with marketing alliance managers, the authors differentiate three dimensions of co-marketing capability and develop a multi-dimensional scale for its measurement. They test the relationship of co-marketing capability with alliance performance, as well as the moderating role of boundary conditions specific to alliances, using a cross sectional survey of 287 chief marketing officers. They find amplifying and buffering effects of the alliance context. The empirical results imply that managers who want to benefit from their co-marketing alliances should invest in alliance coordination, inter-firm communication, and knowledge management capabilities, and that alliance tenure, power imbalance among partners, and alliance flexibility affect resource allocation decisions.

Well-formulated and appropriate strategies only result in superior returns for an organization when they are implemented successfully. Although a notable volume of literature has been published on the strategy implementation process, past research has neglected the role of relationship quality (leader-member exchange and team-member exchange) at the individual level of strategy implementation. We propose a contingent model based on social learning theory and examine the strategy implementation process within a retail bank. Using hierarchical linear modeling, we find that social exchange relationships embedded in a work team setting influence individual employee's strategy implementation support. Namely, the higher an employee's leader-member exchange, the stronger is the positive relationship between supervisor modeling behavior and team member strategy support. Additionally, the higher an employee's team-member exchange, the stronger the positive relationship between work team strategy support and individual strategy support.

This research implies that cognitive empathy, the mental process of putting oneself into the shoes of consumers, activates managers' consumer identity and increases the influence of their personal consumption preferences on predicted consumer preferences. Two studies are presented in suppport of this self-referential bias.