Purpose
This study examines the potential of foreign business-to-business (B2B) firms to select high-status local partners in emerging markets to achieve positive relationship outcomes. Because a domestic firm’s high status may also promote opportunism, the study also examines if the foreign B2B firms may mitigate such behavior through either or both transaction-specific investments (TSIs) and socialization.
Design/methodology/approach
The research is conducted via a model that suggests a positive correlation between high local partner status and the focal relationship outcomes and the moderating effects of structural TSIs and social governance systems. The model was developed and empirically tested using data collected from 96 foreign firms operating in China.
Findings
Using multiple regressions, the findings suggest that foreign B2B firms are likely to achieve more beneficial relationship outcomes with high-status local partners. Standing alone, foreign B2B firms’ TSIs mitigate the positive relationship outcomes, whereas their socialization with the high-status partners enhances the beneficial outcomes. Most importantly, combining socialization with TSIs increases beneficial outcomes.
Research limitations/implications
This study adds to B2B marketing, status theory and the application of transaction cost economics (TCE) and social exchange theory to foreign-local B2B exchange relationships in emerging markets. The findings confirm the attractiveness of high status in emerging markets by exploring how the selection, formation and chosen B2B governance processes may lead to competing outcomes of opportunism or success. Future research will benefit from simultaneously securing data from both sides of the dyad.
Practical implications
The paper suggests that foreign B2B firms consider high status as a key criterion in selecting local partners in emerging markets and the importance of managing high-status partners’ potential opportunism by effective governance mechanisms.
Originality/value
This study is one of the first to apply and explore the workings of status theory in the foreign-local B2B partner selection process and relationship outcomes in emerging markets and thereby contributes to B2B marketing, status theory and both TCE and social exchange theories in the focal foreign-local B2B context.
Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to examine how the cognitive appraisals, coping choices and behavioral responses by business-to-business (B2B) sales professionals confronting the acutely stressful experience of losing a customer, and their pursuit of justice in the win-back process, influences reacquisition outcomes. The paper further examines the role of sales experience as a moderator between coping choices and successful win back. Design/methodology/approach-In all, 98 critical incidents were reported by sales professionals from B2B firms across various industries. NVivo 9, content analysis and logistic regression were used to analyze the data. Findings-The results show that problem-focused coping (PFC) and pro-active responses positively affect win-back outcome. By contrast, emotion-focused coping (EFC) and re-active responses have a negative association with customer reacquisition. The findings also show that sales experience moderates the relationship between levels of EFC and win-back outcomes. Specifically, for sales professionals with low levels of EFC, sales experience helps improve chances of winning back lost customers. But for sales professionals using higher levels of EFC, more sales experience decreases win-back probability. Additionally, the findings show that procedural, interactional and distributive justice all contribute to successful customer reacquisition. Research limitations/implications-The few published studies of how B2B sales professionals deal with customer defections reveal a mixture of bereavement and drivenness in striving for new accounts. The authors' focus and findings on the use of PFC and EFC strategies, justice mechanisms and the uneven role of experience in responding to this stressful context suggests that there is much to be gained from additional research. Specifically, probes into how sales professionals may be inadvertently skewed to EFC behaviors by either overly simplistic training systems, learning-versus performance-based incentives or their experience with prior customer defections. Practical implications-The findings highlight the importance of PFC strategies and the delivery of procedural, interactional and distributive justice strategies to productively adapt to customer defections, activate switch back behavior and win back lost customers. Sales force training systems need to address the increased churning in B2B markets and integrate win-back procedures in sales
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