Recent discussions in academic literature and the business press often paint an unflattering picture of the contributions of chief marketing officers (CMOs) to the financial value of their firms. Some even suggest that CMOs, despite being the marketing leaders in firms, have little or no effect on firm performance. However, formal empirical research on the impact of CMOs on financial performance is scarce. This article presents conceptual arguments and empirical evidence about this controversial issue. The authors suggest that CMOs are far from irrelevant to the financial performance of firms. However, the impact of CMOs on financial performance is highly contingent on the managerial discretion available to them. Focusing on the role of customer power in limiting the managerial discretion available to CMOs, this study identifies individual and firm-specific conditions in which CMOs contribute more or less to firm value. Analyses of abnormal stock returns associated with the appointment of CMOs provide support for the hypothesized effects of customer power and managerial discretion.

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Although firms are increasingly launching branded mobile apps, an understanding of their influence on firm value remains elusive. Using stock market returns to assess firm value, the authors investigate the impact of branded mobile app announcements on such value. Moreover, recognizing that mobile apps generate various touchpoints in the customer journey, the authors also investigate how an app's design shifts the effects of mobile apps on firm value. In particular, they investigate effects from whether an app emphasizes features related to peer-to-peer interactions about the brand, personal-oriented interactions between a customer and the brand, or the purchase phase itself. They find that the launch of a mobile app increases firm value and that the features emphasized in app design play an important role in such value creation. The study offers important implications regarding the accountability of branded mobile apps and provides direction for marketing theory and practice.

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The Internet has been described as a major disruptive technology that has changed the face of B2B exchange relationships. This paper considers the Internet and its inherent ability to support value creation within business-to-business relationships. The paper outlines four key characteristics that describe the Internet's attributes relative to value creation and proposes that the Internet's effect depends upon properly aligning these attributes with the economic and relational factors driving value creation. In particular, the paper proposes a contextual relationship between Internet usage, joint action, and the resources shared between exchange partners.

This article presents a proposed model introducing consumer brand empowerment and discussing its antecedents and outcomes. Consumer brand empowerment reflects the perceived empowerment resulting from the consumer's influence over the brand-related attitudes and behaviors of other consumers in an online social network. The antecedents in the proposed ontology focus on the sharing of brand information in online social networks and how it promotes a sense of consumer empowerment by enabling a consumer to influence the brand attitudes of other consumers. The online social network participation factors studied include reach and how its impact is moderated by variety, depth and frequency of brandrelated information sharing in social networks. The outcomes resulting from consumer brand empowerment relate to the desired cognitive, affective and behavioral brand experiences sought by an empowered consumer. The article discusses the implications of the research relative to both marketing researchers and managers interested in understanding brand management within the emerging social network landscape.