How a glass-processing SME developed its big data competence
This chapter demonstrates how Glaston, a glass-processing SME, has overcome the constraints of limited funds and limited technical know-how to develop its big data competence. While describing Glaston's big data journey, the study focuses on three types of dynamic capabilities that have played a crucial role in the building of Glaston's big data competence. First, the combination of market listening and business imagination has enabled Glaston to monitor technological developments in the industry and adapt them to big data use cases that are relevant for the company. Second, open innovation has allowed Glaston to complement internal resources and co-create big data initiatives with external…
Consumer behavior with augmented reality in retail: a review and research agenda
Driven by the rapid technological development and adoption of augmented reality (AR) in retail, academic research has grown rapidly. Our purpose is to understand the reasons why consumers use augmented reality in retail and what outcomes retailers can expect. This study presents a systematic literature review and summarizes the current empirical knowledge on consumer behavior with AR in retail. This topic remains scattered between various literature streams showing that the potential of AR to create value for consumers lays in its ability to generate utilitarian and hedonic value, to improve decision-making, and to enhance personalization of the virtual self. Then, this study warns about ne…
Digital content marketing in business markets : Activities, consequences, and contingencies along the customer journey
Fundamental shifts in business-to-business (B2B) buying behavior make digital content marketing (DCM) a strategic priority for vendors, though firms struggle to achieve its full potential, as a customer-centric marketing approach. To address important knowledge gaps in extant research, this study identifies key activities for realizing customer-centric DCM in B2B markets and key contingencies that influence its performance outcomes. A theories-in-use approach, building on 56 interviews with managers at 36 B2B companies that have invested heavily in DCM, advances current literature by developing an activity-based conceptualization, grounded in relevant marketing research streams (customer en…
Agile logic for SaaS implementation: Capitalizing on marketing automation software in a start-up
The emergence of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) has facilitated agile technology implementation that focuses on iterative adaptations via learning by doing rather than the realization of a predesigned implementation plan. This study conceptualizes such an agile approach and explicates its operationalization via a four-year qualitative case study of a business-to-business (B2B) start-up firm’s implementation of a HubSpot marketing automation (MA) SaaS. The study shows how agile implementation continuously introduces adaptations to SaaS features and organizational routines for improving their mutual fit given the organization’s goals. The study also contributes to theory by offering a novel fra…
An effectual approach to executing dynamic capabilities under unexpected uncertainty
This study investigates how business-to-business (B2B) firms navigate contexts of unexpected uncertainty. Building on the theories of effectuation and dynamic capabilities, the study develops a model that highlights how effectual decision-making logic is manifested in the activities B2B firms employ to sense and seize new opportunities and threats and transform existing business operations. The qualitative data were collected in two phases (before and after the COVID-19 outbreak) and consisted of 24 interviews with 13 B2B firms. The findings demonstrate a strong reliance on managers' effectual decision-making in situations of unexpected uncertainty and provide a set of key activities that h…
Implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on market orientation in retail banking
AbstractThis qualitative study examines the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on the implementation of market orientation (MO) in the context of retail banking. The findings show that MO was significantly reflected in the behaviors of banks upon encountering the COVID-19 situation, with the banks increasing their MO in response to the crisis. This study finds subcategories based on the empirical data that explain the implementation of MO in more detail. Overall, the findings provide valuable conceptual and managerial insights into the modus operandi of banks during a crisis and offer new best practices for the banking industry.
Social Media Influencers as Mediators of Commercial Messages
Social media influencers are integral to contemporary organizations’ marketing strategies. Despite growing interest in the topic, there is scant knowledge of how organizations manage and collaborate with influencers in their content production during commercial collaborations. Drawing on semi-structured interviews and a semiotic analysis of social media content, this study elucidates the dynamics of organizations’ commercial collaborations with influencers and discusses how influencers decode and transmit organizations’ commercial messages to their followers in the destination marketing context. Social reality and commercial messages are enmeshed in the content narrative and interpreted by …
The effects of two-way communication and chat service usage on consumer attitudes in the e-commerce retailing sector
In e-commerce retailing (e-retailing), where competitors are only one click away and prices are easy to compare, providing superior customer service and reciprocal communication via a company’s website are important aspects of attracting and retaining customers. One increasingly popular solution to improve customer service is a “live chat” interface that allows consumers to have real-time conversations online with customer service agents. As the literature on the impacts of real-time communication via live chat is currently very limited, this study develops and tests a model that demonstrates the moderating effects of a chat service on the relationship between two-way communication (i.e., a…
The emperor’s new clothes : self-explorative engagement in virtual try-on service experiences positively impacts brand outcomes
Purpose Virtual try-on (VTO) technology offers an opportunity for fashion and beauty brands to provide enriched self-explorative experiences. The increased popularity of VTOs makes it urgent to understand the drivers and consequences of the exploration of styles in VTO contexts (herein called self-explorative engagement). Notably, little is known about the antecedent and outcomes of the personalized self-explorative experience central to VTOs. This paper aims to fill this knowledge gap. Design/methodology/approach An online quasi-experiment (N = 500) was conducted in the context of fashion and beauty VTOs. Participants were asked to virtually try on sunglasses or lipsticks and subsequently…
Medicine of the future: How and who is going to treat us?
Medicine’s ability to quickly respond to challenges raises questions from researchers, practitioners, and society as a whole. Our task in this study was to identify key and atypical current factors influencing the development of medicine and to predict the development of medicine in the short, medium, and long term. To implement our study, we selected 22 medical experts and applied the three-level Delphi method. The current trends caused by COVID-19 have a short-term impact, but they will launch other drivers that will transform the healthcare industry. Well-being technologies, data-informed personalization, and climate change will become key drivers for the development of medicine over the…
B2B influencer marketing : Conceptualization and four managerial strategies
While there is a growing body of research on influencer marketing, it focuses almost exclusively on the consumer marketing context, and offers limited insights for business-to-business (B2B) organizations. To address this gap, the purpose of this study is to explore the use of influencer marketing in B2B markets. We draw empirical insights from 22 interviews with a) 12 senior marketing managers representing influencer marketing users in various B2B industries, ranging from industrial product manufacturers to professional service providers, and b) 10 experts from marketing agencies who advise other B2B firms on how to apply influencer marketing. The study findings identify the key elements o…
Antecedents of Market Orientation in The Banking Sector During Its Digital Transformation
Firms are under increasing pressure to remain relevant for their customers and need to rethink how to remain market-oriented in the digital age. This is evident in the banking sector where the traditional banks are gradually being challenged by digital native competitors and growing customer demands. Consequently, this study examines what it takes to be market oriented in the banking sector at the age of increasing digitalization. Specifically, we focus on developing the theory on the antecedents of MO and examine how banks can regain market orientation under changing market conditions. Although Market Orientation (MO) has been a widely studied concept that has been applied in numerous diff…