Guest editorial

Citation

Kleinaltenkamp, M. and Ehret, M. (2006), "Guest editorial", Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 21 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/jbim.2006.08021baa.001

Guest editorial

Michael Kleinaltenkamp is Professor of Business and Services Marketing, the managing director of the “Executive Master of Business Marketing” program, and Dean of the School of Business and Economics at the Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany. He holds a PhD in Business Administration and Economics from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, where he also did his habilitation. His research focuses on Business-to-Business and Services Marketing. He has published more than 150 publications and is a Member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing. He is also a co-editor of Wirtschaftsinformatik (Business Informatics), the managing editor of the book series “Business-to-Business-Marketing”, and a member of the editorial board of the book series “Focus Dienstleistungsmarketing” (“Services Marketing”).

Michael Ehret works currenty as Visiting Professor for Innovation and Technology Marketing at Technische Universität München and is affiliated as Assistant Professor in the Department of Marketing at Freie Universität Berlin. He has published in international journals such as the Journal of Marketing & Industrial Management. He is a member of the Editorial Review Board of Industrial Marketing Management and served as reviewer for international journals such as the Journal of Marketing, as well as for numerous conferences. His research focuses on relationship-based marketing concepts, business-to-business-marketing and innovation marketing. He has been consulting for companies from the business-to-business area and in the media industry. He holds a PhD in Business Administration from Freie Universität Berlin.

One peculiarity of relationship marketing is that the pioneers drew to some extent on theory; the motivation behind relationship marketing surely being rooted in empirical observations and managerial problems, which highlighted the value added of relationship-based managing. The perception of these issues led the pioneers to challenge established, mostly transaction based theories on the market and marketing. Early contributors, such as Arndt, perceived relationships as attempts to domesticate the market. Currently research is moving its focus to the economic value of relationship based managing.

The foundation of this special issue devoted to relationship marketing theory, was laid at the 7th Conference on Relationship Marketing and Customer Relationship Management in Berlin in 2003. One of our major objectives has been to provide a forum for the discussion and further development of relationship theory. Out of the total 40 papers presented at the conference, we selected ten papers, mainly focused on theory, for submission to this special issue; four of which have found their way through the review process.

With our introductory article we maintain a strict economic perspective. By stressing a transaction-based definition of relationships, we try to surpass the dichotomy between transactions and relationships often present in theory. We see ourselves in line with recent attempts in the relationship research to pay more attention to the multitude of relationship approaches applied by companies in order to maximize value. We also emphasize the differentiation effect of specific investments as central to the marketing concept, which in our view has been overlooked by marketing researchers, by stressing transaction costs and opportunism.

Our contribution is followed by a series of three papers, which are based on a theoretical debate between Shelby Hunt and Mario Rese held at the Berlin conference in 2003. Hunt, Arnett and Madhavaramet draw on Morgan and Hunt’s resource advantage theory. They maintain that the rising significance of relationship marketing is caused by the increasing significance of competition between networks of collaborating companies. They provide an integrated framework based on eight factors, such as relationship-, resource- and historical factors. Rese challenges this approach, with an economic framework encompassing decisive situations. A partnering approach, he maintains, is only economically justified under conditions where the supplier provides superior quality of standardized offerings. Basically he advises companies to be selective with their relationship approach. In their reply Hunt, Arnett and Madhavaraket maintain that the main issue is not selection of relationships, but investment in relationship portfolios that add value to the company. They are also noble, in so far as they use their last word not with a definite statement but with the question: will an integrative framework for relationships ever be developed? If so, we hope that companies are guided in selecting the relationships they are investing in, but do not forget the dynamics caused by a relationship approach, and therefore, perhaps, profit from this debate.

We are grateful to the authors for their courage in engaging in this project and having their views deliberately challenged in a public forum.

In the contribution “Norm-based relational behaviors”, Björn Ivens provides an interesting example on how empirical research can help to refine already sound theory. He investigates whether MacNeil’s theory of relational norms contains an underlying structure. His results imply a rather simple structure, apparent in business-to-business relationships, based on value creation and value division. One result especially evident for managers is that soft factors also matter.

Jacob and Ehret also try to improve theory development with the help of empirical research, challenging the at times conflicting statements of new institutional economics and market process theory, with the help of an experimental design. The results suggest that successful business customers tend to rely on measures against potential opportunism, as maintained by new institutional economics. The market process theory framework seems to be applied better when business customers have been subjected to poor performance, requiring them to act in a more entrepreneurial way.

Finally, we present a case study, which was not submitted at the conference: the Gildemeister-Lathes case. The automation and drives department of Siemens has to deal with a competitor trying to invade the relationships with one of its key customers, the turning division of the Gildemeister group. One important aspect stems from the influence of the customer’s customer. This is one of the first case studies devoted to this topic that is experiencing rising attention from management and in academia.

We would like to take the opportunity to thank all those who have contributed to make this rare kind of special issue happen. First we thank the reviewers for their time and effort in helping the authors to realize the potential of their papers.

The papers published, were presented at the 7th Conference on Relationship Marketing and Customer Relationship Management in Berlin, a conference series launched by Jagdish N. Sheth (Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA), Atul Parvatiyar (Institute for Customer Relationship Management, Atlanta, GA, USA) and Wesley J. Johnston (Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA).

We want to express our gratitude to the reviewers Jost Adler (Universität Duisburg, Germany), Danny N. Bellenger (Georgia State University, Atlanta, USA), Sabine Fließ (Fernuniversität Hagen, Germany), Wesley J. Johnston (Georgia State University, Atlanta, USA), Ove Jensen (Universität Mannheim, Germany), Alfred Kuss (Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany), Christian Schade (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Germany) and Ian Wilkinson (University of New South Wales, Australia) for devoting their insight and experience with the authors in the blind review process.

The conference was supported by generous grants from the Teradata Center for Customer Relationship Management (Duke University, Durham, NC, USA), The American Marketing Association, the Center of Business and Industrial Marketing, Georgia State University (Atlanta, GA, USA), Mercedes Benz CharterWay (Berlin), NCR Germany Teradata Division (Augsburg) and VTG Lehnkering AG (Hamburg at the time, currently split in two independent companies, VTG and Lehnkering).

Michael Kleinaltenkamp, Michael EhretGuest Editors