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Research and managerial practice generally contend that human capital and brand equity constitute a company's most valuable resources. Relying on similar underlying theoretical rationales, research on the value relevance of these two resources has developed in different disciplines. Combining diverse data sources, the authors examine the simultaneous effects of brand equity and human capital on firm value. In addition, they consider how much the effects of these two resources differ between services and manufacturing. Results provide evidence for a complementary relationship between human capital and brand equity and show that both resources create relatively more value in a service setting.

When evaluating a product, consumers may interpret price information as either an indicator of quality or an indicator of monetary sacrifice. On the basis of construal level theory, we propose that psychological distance alters the weight consumers attach to these opposing roles of price. Four experiments show (1) that from both a temporally and a socially distant perspective, the price–perceived quality relationship is more pronounced; (2) that from a temporally proximal perspective, the price–perceived sacrifice relationship is more pronounced; (3) that these effects stem from differences in the way consumers mentally construe price information; and (4) that when people initially use price to judge a product for distant future consumption, it receives less attention as an indicator of sacrifice in a later evaluation for near future consumption. These findings have implications for prelaunch communication activities and preference elicitation methods such as conjoint analysis.

Despite the high relevance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in current business practice and the considerable research on CSR outcomes in consumer markets, investigations of its influence on organizational business relationships are scarce. Relying on instrumental stakeholder theory, the authors develop and empirically test a framework of the influence of a supplier's CSR engagement on organizational customer outcomes. Findings from an examination of 200 cross-industry supplier-customer dyads reveal positive effects of two facets of a supplier's CSR efforts on customer loyalty through distinct mechanisms. Business practice CSR fosters customers' trust, whereas philanthropic CSR strengthens customer-company identification. The authors distinguish a supplier's actual CSR engagement and customers' perception of these CSR activities. In addition, they consider central contingency factors reflecting uncertainty and dependence in business-to-business relationships that determine the effectiveness of CSR.

Facing competitive and commoditization threats, many companies shift to solution offerings, albeit with mixed results. With a qualitative analysis of dyadic data (suppliers and customers), this article investigates an important, often overlooked reason for such mixed outcomes: the complex, dynamic role of governance matching. This study identifies a series of tensions arising from solution-specific exchange conditions and the matched governance mechanisms actors use to address them: temporary asset colocation, network closure, knowledge-based boundary objects, rights allocation agreements, and liaison champions. It also reveals the dynamic nature of governance matching. Solutions evolve in three phases—experimentation, integration, and evolution—in which single mechanisms have different functions (safeguarding and/or coordination), provide contingent and transient benefits, and can be used in combination to address complex tensions. This study also identifies two decision points, mutual commitment and balanced power, that separate the three phases; their outcomes help explain why certain solution efforts do not take off, others stall, and still others revert to mere spot exchanges. Beyond contributing to solutions literature, these findings provide actionable insights to marketing managers.

Although the identification of customer needs constitutes a cornerstone of the marketing concept, the accuracy of frontline employees' perceptions of customer needs has never been examined in a systematic manner. Following research in social cognition, this article introduces the concept of \"customer need knowledge\" (CNK), which describes the extent to which a frontline employee can accurately identify a given customer's hierarchy of needs. The results of two large-scale, multilevel investigations involving data from three different levels (customers, employees, and managers) demonstrate the importance of CNK for the provision of customer satisfaction and customer value. In particular, CNK fully mediates the influence of employees' customer orientation and cognitive empathy on these customer outcomes. Moreover, whereas the length of the relationship between an employee and a particular customer enhances CNK, a large age discrepancy in relation to the customer decreases employees' level of CNK.

A central question for firms releasing successive generations of a product is whether they should pursue a market-driven approach and align own product releases to existing industry-level patterns. While an alignment with industry patterns enables firms to capitalize on general market receptivity, it may also entail dilution and competitive interference effects. Using data on the consumer electronics and automotive industries, we show that the effectiveness of such alignment depends on two additional timing-related decisions: the firm’s release regularity for successive product generations and its preannouncement timing. Firms benefit from alignment to the industry only if they release successive generations in a regular manner (to create anticipation) and refrain from early preannouncements (to avoid competitive counteraction). For all other combinations of release regularity and preannouncement timing, not aligning to the industry rhythm leads to higher levels of firm performance. Taken together, our findings enable a nuanced view of the interplay of timing-related launch decisions that provides actionable guidance for managers.

In the context of price discounts, a special type of price promotion, in which savings depend on the outcome of a gamble and are thus uncertain, has recently achieved some popularity. The question arises as to whether such gambled price discounts (GPDs) incur the negative reference price effect—that is, a downward shift in customers' internal reference price (IRP)—which is often associated with regular price discounts (RPDs). From several studies, including two longitudinal field experiments, the authors find that GPDs indeed alleviate the negative reference price effect: IRPs and actual repurchasing tend to be lower for RPDs than for GPDs and a no-discount control condition. Moreover, the authors explore the psychological underpinnings of these effects and show that the different consequences of GPDs versus RPDs on IRPs are more pronounced if information regarding product quality is limited. The authors demonstrate that findings are robust to variations of GPD discount levels and the probability of winning.

Research on new ventures has indicated that poorly conducted marketing is among the main reasons for new venture failure. To acquire urgently needed initial funding, new ventures strive to conform to investors' expectations of appropriate marketing capabilities because these capabilities may endow them with legitimacy in the eyes of potential investors. Drawing on organizational legitimacy and human resource theory, the authors argue that the characteristics of the chief marketing officer (CMO) may endow new ventures with marketing legitimacy. Employing a two-stage selection hazard rate analysis to simultaneously account for potential selection bias and right-censored observations, the authors analyze a comprehensive data set of 2,945 high-technology new ventures. Bearing in mind that this research is a first exploratory attempt to illuminate the role of marketing for new venture funding using correlational secondary data, the results indicate that CMO education, marketing experience, and industry experience are positively related to the likelihood of funding. Moreover, the relationships between CMO characteristics and funding are contingent on task-related uncertainty and industry legitimacy. These findings provide initial insights for entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and public policy makers.

Purpose This study aims at developing and testing a conceptual model that shows the antecedents of the recall of a former sponsorship. Design/methodology/approach Primary (n = 1,146) and secondary data from German professional soccer build the empirical base for this research. Multilevel logistic regression is used for data analysis. Findings The results show that retroactive interferences in the form of replacement sponsors for the same object reduce the recall of a former sponsorship, while the mere passage of time does not have a significant main effect. To counteract such forgetting, the empirical analysis shows that sponsor managers can influence recall of a former sponsorship positively after sponsorship termination by switching to a lower-level sponsorship for the same object or by engaging in subsequent sponsorships with other congruent objects in the same context. Research limitations/implications The focus on one type of sponsorship (sport sponsorship) in one country (Germany) is the main limitation of this research. Practical implications The findings of this paper should encourage managers to consider the long-term consequences of sponsorship engagements beyond the duration of the sponsorship contract. Managers can influence the recall of a sponsorship not only prior to and during an engagement, but also after the loss of sponsorship rights. Originality/value Previous research on former sponsorships has mainly focused on the phenomenon of former sponsor recall per se, without considering the determinants of the construct. This paper contributes to sponsorship literature by showing that the number of replacement sponsorships, a construct unique to the former sponsorship context, dominates the time since sponsorship ending as the main driver of forgetting. Moreover, it provides managers with new post-sponsorship strategies that help maintaining the recall of a former sponsorship at a high level.

Although salespeople’s perception of their customers is often systematically biased, research on the antecedents and consequences of perceptual inaccuracy in customer–salesperson relationships is still scarce and limited in scope. Drawing on findings from personality research and social psychology, we therefore empirically examine potential antecedents and consequences of salespeople’s misperception of customer commitment in 233 customer–salesperson dyads. Results provide evidence of the effects of customer-related factors, relationship-related factors, and salesperson-related factors on the extent of salespeople’s misperception of customer commitment. Moreover, we show that salespeople with an upwardly biased perception of customer commitment engage in less relationship-building effort, which in turn negatively affects customer behavior.