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The organization of interfirm exchanges has become of critical importance in today’s business environment. Many scholars have criticized the inadequacies of legal contracts as mechanisms for governing exchange, especially in the face of uncertainty and dependence. Other scholars argue that it is not the contracts per se but the social contexts in which they are embedded that determine their effectiveness. This study investigates the performance implications of governance structures involving contractual agreements and relational social norms, individually and in combination (plural form) under varying conditions and forms of transactional uncertainty and relationship-specific adaptation. Hypotheses are developed and tested on a sample of 396 buyer-seller relationships. The results provide support for the plural form thesis—increasing the relational content of a governance structure containing contractual agreements enhances performance when transactional uncertainty is high, but not when it is low. Implications for theory and future research are discussed.

As the twenty-first century dawns, marketing is poised for revolutionary changes in its organizational context, as well as in its relationship with customers. Driven by a dynamic and knowledge-rich environment, the hierarchical organizations of the twentieth century are disaggregating into a variety of network forms, including internal networks, vertical networks, intermarket networks, and opportunity networks. The role of marketing in each network is changing in profound ways. Marketing increasingly will be responsible for creating and managing new marketing knowledge, education, real-time market information systems, intrafirm integration, conflict resolution, technology forecasting, risk and investment analysis, transfer pricing of tangibles and intangibles, and the coordination of the network's economic and social activities. It will explore new frontiers in multilateral marketing, reshape markets through technology convergence and electronic commerce, organize consumer communities, and aggregate consumer information and demand into saleable business assets. The most radical implication for marketing is the shift from being an agent of the seller to being an agent of the buyer, from being a marketer of goods and services to being a customer consultant and manager of his or her saleable consumption assets. I n the relatively short period of a half century, marketing has made several transitions, from seller of a firm's outputs to key player in shaping a firm's products, technologies, marketing policies, and strategic direction. As the next century unfolds, marketing again is poised to undergo significant changes in its content, emphases, and boundaries. Peter Drucker has described the economy of the future as a network society. Business networks are not entirely new, but there has been a rapid evolution in their number, form, and complexity. Marketing outcomes increasingly are decided by competition between networks of firms rather than by competition among firms. Companies embedded in strategic networks will enjoy significant market advantages in the future. In this article, we explore how marketing will be organized and function in different types of network structures that are populating the contemporary world economy.The twenty-first century is shaping up to be a knowledge-driven society in which the basic economic resource is not materials, labor, or capital, but knowledge! (Drucker 1993). Networks are adapted better to knowledge-rich environments because of their superior information-processing capabilities. They minimize idiosyncratic investments in fixed assets and technology and thus are more flexible and responsive to change. But the network organization is about not only structural upheaval, but also a new managerial ethos. Networks are not tolerant to traditional instruments of 'For example, knowledge and knowledge workers are recognized easily as the core strategic assets of companies such as Microsoft. The consumption environment too is charged with an increasing knowledge component. Knowledge pro...

Commitment is an essential part of successful long-term relationships. Whereas commitments by both parties in an exchange can provide the foundation for development of relational social norms, disproportionate commitments can lead to opportunism by the less committed partner. The authors study the effect of the credibility and proportionality of commitment inputs in an exchange upon the development of relational social norms, opportunism, and long-term commitment intentions. They also investigate longitudinal effects of the credibility of long-term commitment intentions, relational social norms, and opportunism in one time period on commitment inputs and long-term commitment intentions in later periods. Data gathered from a behavioral simulation suggest that (1) the credibility of commitment inputs in exchange is positively related to the development of relational social norms, (2) and is positively related to long-term commitment intentions in the same time period, (3) relational social norms may be undermined by opportunistic conduct, and (4) the presence of relational social norms in one time period is positively related to commitment inputs and long-term commitment intentions in later periods.

Rapid changes in industrial structure and global competition have occurred in the last two decades. The changes herald the post-industrial era, producing an environment of ambiguity and paradox at this point in time, but nevertheless causing profound impacts on our economic and social institutions. The environment of the future will be characterized most notably by unprecedented levels of diversity, knowledge richness, and turbulence. However, marketing's strategy concepts remain rooted in the historical evolution of functional approaches to a customer orientation. In the post-industrial era, unusual forms of marketing organization (that are ambidextrous and highly flexible) will be needed to cope with complex and dynamic task environments. The author discusses two such forms, the marketing exchange company and the marketing coalition company. The marketing companies serve as the organizing hubs of complex networks of functionally specialized firms. The new forms are transorganizational systems in which the critical managerial activities are boundary-spanning ones. To be effective, such systems will evolve elaborate relational norms and sophisticated information, political, and quasijudicial systems.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. American Marketing Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Marketing.As the twenty-first century dawns, marketing is poised for revolutionary changes in its organizational context, as well as in its relationship with customers. Driven by a dynamic and knowledge-rich environment, the hierarchical organizations of the twentieth century are disaggregating into a variety of network forms, including internal networks, vertical networks, intermarket networks, and opportunity networks. The role of marketing in each network is changing in profound ways. Marketing increasingly will be responsible for creating and managing new marketing knowledge, education, real-time market information systems, intrafirm integration, conflict resolution, technology forecasting, risk and investment analysis, transfer pricing of tangibles and intangibles, and the coordination of the network's economic and social activities. It will explore new frontiers in multilateral marketing, reshape markets through technology convergence and electronic commerce, organize consumer communities, and aggregate consumer information and demand into saleable business assets. The most radical implication for marketing is the shift from being an agent of the seller to being an agent of the buyer, from being a marketer of goods and services to being a customer consultant and manager of his or her saleable consumption assets.In the relatively short period of a half century, marketing has made several transitions, from seller of a firm's outputs to key player in shaping a firm's products, technologies, marketing policies, and strategic direction. As the next century unfolds, marketing again is poised to undergo significant changes in its content, emphases, and boundaries. Peter Drucker has described the economy of the future as a network society. Business networks are not entirely new, but there has been a rapid evolution in their number, form, and complexity. Marketing outcomes increasingly are decided by competition between networks of firms rather than by competition among firms. Companies embedded in strategic networks will enjoy significant market advantages in the future. In this article, we explore how marketing will be organized and function in different types of network structures that are populating the contemporary world economy.The twenty-first century is shaping up to be a knowledge-driven society in which the basic economic resource is not materials, labor, or capital, but knowledgel (Drucker 1993). Networks are adapted better to knowledge-rich environments because of their superior information-processing capabilities. They minimize idiosyncratic investments in fi...

No abstract

The domain and theories of marketing have been expanding since the origins of the discipline. Since the 1970s marketing science has been organized around the exchange paradigm. Marketing concepts apply to all forms of exchange, whether it is goods, services, personages, places or ideas, and whether it is between individuals, forprofit and nonprofit firms, governments and NGOs. Marketing theories evolved from a firm oriented view to encompass the exchanging dyad. More recently the paradigm expanded to a network level of explanation, and relational theories have come to the fore. But even as the field struggles to grasp its new fields of explanation, there is a Kuhnian shift happening at its boundaries. The shift significantly bends the marketing worldview as well as the theoretical tools and methodologies we use to study it. In this paper we develop a three-tiered explanation of the emerging field of marketing-its subphenomena (consumer experiences and sensory systems), its phenomena (marketing networks), and its superphenomena (sustainability and development).