In business-to-business markets, suppliers often ask an existing customer to provide a referral for them (i.e., a supplier-selected referral), in which the supplier selects a referrer to influence a specific potential customer favorably. The selection of the referrer is important because the right referrer providing the right message can generate business for the supplier. To study supplier-selected referrals, the authors extend the dyadic sourcemessage-recipient communication framework to propose a framework that incorporates the supplier and the supplier's management of the communication between the referrer and the potential customer. They label this framework the Managed Triadic Communication (MaTriC) framework. The authors conduct three experimental studies in which they apply the MaTriC framework to the domain of supplier-selected referrals and focus on the contingent role of supplier uncertainty. The authors find that the benefits of a supplier-selected referral are contingent on supplier uncertainty. For example, their findings imply that an outsupplier should focus on selecting a referrer that would give an all-positive evaluation (vs. a balanced evaluation), whereas an insupplier should focus on selecting a highly credible referrer, even if that referral does not provide an all-positive evaluation of the supplier.

Foreign subsidiaries of multinational corporations (MNCs) rely on external partners, such as channel partners, to achieve global objectives. We conceptualize the subsidiary's channel partner as an extended link of the MNC's internal network: thus, the subsidiary's adaptation and execution of the MNC's global strategies should influence the subsidiary's channel relationship and performance. Building on the strategy-environment alignment framework, we study the influence of MNC global strategies (global efficiency, multinational flexibility, and worldwide learning) on a subsidiary's channel commitment and the moderating influence of the host-country environment. Survey data from German and Japanese MNCs in the United States indicate the importance of global strategies to a channel relationship. For example, we find that an emphasis on multinational flexibility is detrimental, but worldwide learning benefits the subsidiary's channel commitment. We also find that the host-country environment plays a contingent role: for example, a global efficiency strategy is beneficial for channel commitment in a stable environment, but detrimental in a dynamic environment. Our research offers key implications for MNCs; we suggest that when MNCs decide to lay emphases on global strategies the MNCs should consider not just their internal subsidiary network, but also their extended channel partner links that function in foreign markets.

In evaluating suppliers in complex purchasing decisions involving customized solutions, purchasing managers must judge the capabilities suppliers have to provide the solutions, a judgment that often includes considerable uncertainty. To reduce this uncertainty, suppliers often ask their existing customers to be reference customers and give a referral to purchasing managers — that is, suppliers and purchasing managers consider a supplier‐selected referral as a source of information. However, in contrast to other information sources, reference customers are selected by suppliers, not by purchasing managers; thus, purchasing managers may perceive a bias in the supplier‐selected referral. We study the antecedents of purchasing managers' perceived bias with a mixed‐design experiment with purchasing managers as respondents. We find that the greater the experience of purchasing managers, the less the bias in the referral they perceive. We also find that reference customers can reduce purchasing managers' perceived bias in the supplier‐selected referral by giving a referral that has some negative information in an otherwise positive referral.

From the supplier firm's perspective, a referral is a recommendation from A (the referrer) to B (the potential customer) that B should, or should not, purchase from C (the supplier firm). Thus, as referrals are for a specific supplier firm, they should be viewed as part of the supplier firm's marketing and sales activities. We recognize three types of referralscustomer-to-potential customer referrals, horizontal referrals, and supplier-initiated referrals -that have critical roles in a potential customer's purchase decision. We develop the concept of referral equity to capture the net effect of all referrals for a supplier firm in the market. We argue that supplier firms should view referral equity as a resource that has financial value to the firm as it affects the firm's cash flows and profits. We offer strategies firms can use to manage referrals and build their referral equity and suggest a research agenda.

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Intuition suggests that a salesperson should not refer consumers to a competitor for products that they both sell. However, myriad examples reveal salespeople doing just that. The authors study specialist competitor referrals, a sales strategy by which one increases consumers’ purchase likelihood of a focal product (e.g., a painting at an art gallery) by (1) referring consumers to a competitor (e.g., a frame warehouse store) that offers a nonfocal product (e.g., a frame) at a lower price, while (2) stating that the stores differ in their specializations (i.e., the stores concentrate their efforts on different goods). Using a study and survey with salespeople, experimental studies, an incentivized negotiation experiment, and a field study, the authors show that specialist competitor referrals can indeed benefit sellers. Specifically, they build on equity theory to show that specialist competitor referrals increase focal product sales by reducing consumers’ perceived overpayment risk for the focal product via increasing perceived equity in the exchange. The authors also show that competitor referrals for nonfocal products that do not justify the price difference on the nonfocal product are ineffective.

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