Executive Summaries

Service Quality and Export Performance of Business-to-Business Service Providers: The Role of Service Employee–and Customer-Oriented Quality Control Initiatives

Christina Sichtmann Maren von Selasinsky and Adamantios Diamantopoulos

The marketing literature has emphasized superior service quality as an important competitive advantage for service firms operating in international markets. However, service employees’ performance and customers’ contributions to service delivery may vary across time, organizations, and people, leading to an uncertain outcome of the service delivery process. Sichtmann, Von Selasinsky, and Diamantopoulos focus on the role of quality control initiatives (QCIs) as important quality management practices in the context of the export performance of services. They define QCIs as specific service provider–initiated directives aimed at influencing both employees and customers to perform service delivery in ways that positively affect the quality of the service outcome.

Using the facilities–transformation–usage framework of service provision and drawing from control theory, the authors develop a theoretical model of QCIs in the context of services export. They distinguish four types of QCIs depending on their relevance in the stages of the service delivery process and whether they are targeted at the service employee's or the customer's contributions to service delivery. They test the model with an empirical study of 129 business-to-business service providers.

The results confirm a positive and significant influence of relative service quality on the export performance of services. Relating to the effect of the QCIs on relative service quality, the results indicate that regardless of the degree of customer integration in service provision, export customer–oriented training of service employees and work process standardization emerge as significant mechanisms of superior service quality that affect export performance. The customer-oriented QCI of coproduction instructions also has a positive influence on relative service quality. The results indicate that for services with a low degree of customer integration in particular, service exporters should inform customers where, when, and how they should contribute to the service process. Adaptation to export customers’ coproduction competence and motivation seems to be relevant only in the export of services with a high degree of customer integration.

With regard to antecedents of QCIs, the results show that service exporters should actively develop a customer-oriented culture in their firms to enhance their quality control efforts. Furthermore, the authors find export commitment to be relevant for the development and implementation of the service employee–oriented QCIs—namely, export customer–oriented training and work process standardization.

Analyzing the Diffusion of Global Customer Relationship Management: A Cross-Regional Modeling Framework

V. Kumar Sarang Sunder and B. Ramaseshan

Most recent research on customer relationship management (CRM) has been restricted to developed economies such as the United States. Researchers have done little work in studying the growth of CRM in developing markets in Asia and South America, which are becoming extremely relevant to business today. With the changing business climate, firms are beginning to embrace the concept of managing customers rather than products. This leads managers down the path of customer centricity, and here lies the relevance of a truly global CRM (GCRM).

The goal of the first phase of Kumar, Sunder, and Ramaseshan's study is to understand the landscape of GCRM adoption across regions. To this end, the authors conduct a qualitative study with executives from various firms spanning three regions (Asia-Pacific, Europe, and North America). The managerial interviews suggest that there is a significant cross-regional effect among firms with regard to GCRM adoption. Using these results as motivation, the authors conduct the second phase of the research, in which they quantify the cross-regional effect while accounting for innovation and imitation effects. By developing and applying a unique generalized cross-regional diffusion modeling framework to CRM licensing sales, they capture not only the intraregional effects but also the learning between regions.

The findings suggest that there is untapped market potential in the GCRM market with varying adoption patterns across regions. With regard to the diffusion, North American firms are the most innovative, and those in the Asia-Pacific region are the most imitative. The authors also find that whereas firms in the Asia-Pacific region learn from their European and North American counterparts and European firms learn from North American ones, there exists no reverse learning between these regions.

Through its quantitative and qualitative robustness, this study highlights the importance of GCRM and its potential. This study also enables managers to make informed global marketing decisions about when and where to introduce a technology to maximize its diffusion. The global cross-regional diffusion model facilitates strategic market entry decisions, such as whether to use the waterfall (sequential market entry) or the sprinkler (simultaneous market entry) strategy. The results of this study suggest that a waterfall entry strategy would be apt when dealing with GCRM technology adoption because there is a systematic learning effect between regions. The authors conclude by providing strategic implications for the implementation and calibration of GCRM technology, while recognizing avenues of further research in this nascent area of international marketing.

When Exporting Manufacturers Compete on the Basis of Service: Resources and Marketing Capabilities Driving Service Advantage and Performance

Anna Kaleka

Continuous incremental developments have led researchers to proclaim service as the dominant logic in the marketing discipline, and widely available economic indicators reveal a similarly relentless increase in the contribution of services in the global gross domestic product. In this climate, achieving competitive advantage in the international markets depends to a great extent on the level of service the firm offers its customers. Kaleka discusses the idiosyncratic nature of service advantage in the context of manufacturing firms exporting their products through independent distributors. The author acknowledges the role of end customers as the ultimate judges of the relative market position of the service component of the offering, which is delivered with input from both the manufacturer and the distributor. In this context, service advantage comprises both marketing and logistics service quality elements.

There is a strong indication that achieving positional service advantage in overseas markets leads to superior export performance in those markets. There are several avenues for achieving export service advantage. It largely depends on three key marketing capabilities: embedded processes for developing market intelligence, experience with exporting, and financial resources. Firms with embedded processes that facilitate the development of export market intelligence can use both the processes and the developed knowledge to improve their ability to relate to customers and their ability to develop, modify, and adapt products. Then, these customer relationship development and product development capabilities are likely to lead to the achievement of service advantage. In general, experience with exporting, and with the specific export market in particular, nurtures customer relationship and informational capabilities. Financial resources facilitate informational and product development capabilities, which in turn enable exporters to achieve service advantage and superior export performance in the overseas markets.

Prior Relationships and Consumer Responses to Service Failures: A Cross-Cultural Study

Michael K. Hui Candy K.Y. Ho and Lisa C. Wan

Although previous research has indicated that strong customer relationships provide considerable value to service firms, researchers have also noted that the value of customer relationships can vary among customers with diverse cultures. Hui, Ho, and Wan examine the mitigating effect of a prior relationship between service providers and customers on the negative consequences of service failures as a function of interdependent–independent self-construal.

The authors conceptualize prior relationship as the length of past patronage of a service provider. They propose that both the strength (i.e., how strong the effect is) and the scope (i.e., the range of situations under which the effect occurs) of the mitigating effects of prior relationship on consumer responses to service failures are stronger among consumers with interdependent self-construal (interdependent consumers) than among those with independent self-construal (independent consumers). They argue that this is not because of the prior relationship per se but rather because of the trust established in the prior relationship, which poses stronger effects among interdependent than among independent consumers.

The results of two experiments indicate that prior relationship can better mitigate the complaint intentions of interdependent (vs. independent) participants. The authors reason that this is because interdependent (vs. independent) consumers have a greater tendency to avoid conflict with those with whom they are personally connected. In addition, prior relationship can better mitigate interdependent (vs. independent) participants’ switching intentions, and this effect is contingent on the types of failure. In particular, although this mitigating effect manifests among independent participants in process failures, which primarily involve sociopsychological loss, such effect is extended among interdependent participants to outcome failures, which primarily involve economic loss. This is because interdependent consumers have a greater tendency to construe interpersonal trust as both a sociopsychological and an economic resource. Importantly, the authors demonstrate that the variation in the mitigating effect of prior relationship on complaint and switching intentions can be attributed to the differential impact of trust in the service provider on interdependent and independent consumers. Collectively, these findings can help international service firms formulate their strategies and distribute more resources to interdependent (vs. independent) consumer markets, which give greater value to relationships, and can help them develop effective relationship marketing programs.

Convergence and Divergence: Developing a Semiglobal Marketing Strategy

Susan P. Douglas and C. Samuel Craig

Opportunities in developed countries have diminished because of a plateauing of growth, intense competition, and market saturation. As a result, U.S. and European multinational corporations (MNCs) have increasingly focused on expansion in emerging markets, such as the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), in particular, China and India. More recently, firms have also focused on second-tier emerging markets, including countries such as Turkey, Egypt, Mexico, and Vietnam, all of which have growth rates significantly higher than those in the United States, Europe, and Japan.

Douglas and Craig examine the implications of these dramatic changes for the marketing strategies of large U.S. and European MNCs. The new reality implies that companies need to radically revise their perspective and reformulate their global marketing strategies to focus on incorporating these new opportunities into their plans and operations. In turn, this poses several important challenges. On the one hand, MNCs need to continue to stimulate demand and compete for market share in their traditional markets in developed countries and in relation to the newly emerging global consumer market segments. On the other hand, they need to develop radically different marketing strategies, reorganize their operations, and acquire new resources in terms of capabilities and skills to target growing consumer markets in a range of different emerging market economies. Adding to the complexity, these emerging markets differ significantly in terms of the nature of consumer demand, competition, market infrastructure, and environmental context.

The authors examine these challenges, identifying five major spheres of operation, including four that encompass emerging markets. They consider the economic and cultural environment in each of these markets, emphasizing their diversity both within and across the countries. Then, they discuss strategic imperatives for each of these types of markets, emphasizing the importance of developing and implementing different strategies in relation of each.

They draw conclusions with regard to the need to develop a coherent set of divergent strategies for world markets and the obstacles to overcome in the process. They emphasize the importance of relying on local management input and know-how with regard to both understanding the local market conditions and formulating effective strategies to tap these markets. The authors advocate the development and implementation of a semiglobal marketing strategy, which entails developing divergent strategies in relation to each type of market while creating a synthesis of these strategies and operations on a worldwide basis.