Strategic marketing ambidexterity (SMA), the blend of a firm's exploitation of existing competencies and exploration of future capabilities in strategic marketing activities, represents a dynamic capability that is vital in achieving superior performance. Given its criticality, the authors examine how firm antecedents and industry contexts affect the shift in a firm's SMA over time (movement in the blend of exploitation and exploration). In addition, the authors examine SMA's influence on firm financial outcomes, i.e., risk and return. Using data from 1999 to 2011 on publically traded firms, the authors show that firm maturity and slack (financial and strategic) are key determinants of SMA. Specifically, increased firm maturity and strategic slack result in a shift toward exploitation, whereas increased financial slack results in a shift toward exploration. Industry competitiveness moderates these effects. In terms of the financial performance implications of SMA, the authors find that shifts in SMA toward exploitation increase return, but they also increase firmidiosyncratic risk. The authors conclude with implications for theory and managerial practice.

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Using an assimilation and contrast framework, the authors assess the buffering and amplifying effects of relationship commitment on organizational buyers’ intentions to switch suppliers when a relationship is strained by the incumbent's own misbehavior. The results of three studies show that both calculative and affective commitment buffer incumbent suppliers against minor incidences of their own misbehavior but that affective commitment also reliably amplifies the adverse effects of an incumbent supplier's flagrant opportunism. Process tests indicate that buyer perceptions of supplier conformance to normative standards account for (completely mediate) the observed buffering and amplification effects in a manner consistent with the underlying assimilation and contrast framework.

This article investigates the impact of service transition (the infusion of services in addition to goods to a manufacturing firm’s offering) on firm-idiosyncratic risk. The authors analyze a unique data set of 168 publicly traded manufacturing firms over a 6-year financial window (2006–2011), with the results showing that service transition produces a substantial increase in idiosyncratic risk. This effect, however, varies depending on critical firm contexts. First, strategic coherence (research and development intensity and service relatedness) mitigates market misgivings and causes idiosyncratic risk to decrease as service becomes more central to the offering. Second, misappropriation of resources (marketing expenses and resource slack) exacerbates the impact, resulting in increased firm risk. In light of the findings, the authors were able to expand the primary theoretical underpinnings concerning service transition by (1) providing a more holistic framework to view the phenomenon (behavioral theory of the firm), (2) demonstrating contextual boundaries around service transition, and (3) providing managers with useful insights to inform strategic firm-level decisions.

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