Recent research underlines that strong branded identities are created through co-creational processes in which multiple stakeholders are actively involved and brand identities are matched with cultural, political, and economic forces in society. However, there is a lack of in-depth research into how organizations attempt to adopt new branding logics. To address this research gap, we conduct a study of a university that is rebranding itself in accordance with a new market-oriented, service-dominant logic. While harmonic value co-creation between the brand and stakeholders is emphasized in an earlier literature, our study shows that attempts to adopt these logics trigger contradictory and adversarial interpretations among stakeholders about the role and identity of the focal actor vis-à-vis their own. We conclude that adopting new branding logics involves struggles and dynamics of power and resistance, which have passed unnoticed in earlier research. Resistance is not only targeted toward the brand's symbolic meanings and conducted by marginal consumer groups to enhance their own identities. Rather, it can also be targeted toward the tangible resource roles that stakeholders are expected to assume vis-à-vis the brand, and conducted by various stakeholder resistors – with the outcome of undermining and shifting the essence of the brand itself.

Based on the related literature in economics, organizational sociology and the sociology of finance, this article constructs a novel conceptual explanation for corporate short-termism, that is, the tendency of corporate managers to sacrifice long-term investments to improve short-term earnings (STEs). We theorize about how such corporate short-termism emerges, at least partly, from systemic, self-reinforcing processes across various communities of actors including investors, the media and managers themselves. In doing so, we refute the common notion that corporate short-termism is caused by an inherent preference of investors or other actors to focus on STEs. Consequently, the systemic perspective offered by this article questions some conventional assumptions about the roots of corporate short-termism and emphasizes the influence of coordination mechanisms and behavioural biases in giving rise to self-reinforcing loops.

Macroeconomic developments, such as the business cycle, have a remarkable influence on firms and their perfor- mance. In business-to-business (B-to-B) markets characterized by a strong emphasis on long-term customer relationships, market orientation (MO) provides a particularly important safeguard for firms against fluctuating market forces. Using panel data from an economic upturn and downturn, we examine the effectiveness of differ- ent forms of MO (i.e., customer orientation, competitor orientation, interfunctional coordination, and their combinations) on firm performance in B-to-B firms. Our findings suggest that the impact of MO increases espe- cially during a downturn, with interfunctional coordination clearly boosting firm performance and, conversely, competitor orientation becoming even detrimental. The findings further indicate that both the role of MO and its most effective forms vary across industry sectors, MO having a particularly strong impact on performance among B-to-B service firms. The findings of our study provide guidelines for executives to better manage perfor- mance across the business cycle and tailor their investments in MO more effectively, according to the firm's specific industry sector. 

Market orientation (MO) and marketing performance measurement (MPM) are two of the most widespread strategic marketing concepts among practitioners. However, some have questioned the benefits of extensive investments in MO and MPM. More importantly, little is known about which combinations of MO and MPM are optimal in ensuring high business performance. To address this research gap, the authors analyze a unique data set of 628 firms with a novel method of configurational analysis: fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. In line with prior research, the authors find that MO is an important determinant of business performance. However, to reap its benefits, managers need to complement it with appropriate MPM, the level and focus of which vary across firms. For example, whereas large firms and market leaders generally benefit from comprehensive MPM, small firms may benefit from measuring marketing performance only selectively or by focusing on particular dimensions of marketing performance. The study also finds that many of the highest-performing firms do not follow any of the particular best practices identified.

With a focus on case study research methods, this study continues the epistemological debate about qualitative research approaches in the IMP literature by reconsidering the reliance on managerial interviews as a primary empirical source in the production of knowledge claims. In this empirical approach, researchers seem to often treat the interview process and the analysis and reporting of research findings in a manner that generally gives situational credence to the veracity and factuality of the interview data. In line with several epistemological approaches that have already surfaced in IMP literature, this study further emphasizes the context-dependent, ephemeral and ultimately unstable nature of managerial “truths” imparted in the interviews. We argue that the data should be empathically and reflexively understood as the production of stories and their reporting as a form of academic storytelling of pragmatic academic and managerial value.

Over the past 50 years, a substantial interest has been put to research on how innovation spreads within social networks over time (see Rogers, 1962, 2010). Our initial aim was to examine innovation diffusion in industrial networks. We operationalized the research through a case study of an advertising network by using systematic combining as the approach (Dubois & Gadde, 2002, 2014). From the initial focus of innovation diffusion, the rematching of data and theory led us to focus on the barriers of innovation diffusion. By doing so, we found out that multilevel strategizing appears to be an important phenomenon in understanding dynamics of innovation diffusion within industrial networks. Specifically, strategizing occurs in two levels: (1) the groups within the network compete for position, and (2) actors within a group compete for position by trying to differentiate themselves from other group actors. A strategic mismatch between the two levels leads the network to become decelerated or even static in diffusing new innovations (Abrahamsen, Henneberg, & Naude, 2012). Uncovering these findings would not have been possible without the use of systematic combining and the constant matching between theoretical and empirical domains.

Competitors’ experiences of prior interactions shape patterns of rivalry over time. However, mechanisms that in uence learning from competitive experience remain largely unexamined. We develop a computational model of dyadic rivalry to examine how time delays in competitors’ feedback in uence their learning. Time delays are inevitable because the process of executing competitive moves takes time, and the market’s responses unfold gradually. We analyze how these lags impact learning and, subsequently, rms’ competitive behavior, industry pro ts, and performance heterogeneity. In line with the extant learning literature, our ndings reveal that time delays hinder learning from experience. However, this counterintuitively increases rivals’ pro ts by reducing their investments in costly head-to-head competition. Time delays also engender performance heterogeneity by causing rivals’ paths of competitive behavior to diverge.

Favoritism in the organizational context is often regarded as dysfunctional and detrimental to organizational performance. On the other hand, it could function as a tacit-knowledge-based mechanism for making sure that the right people are in right positions in an organization, especially under conditions of rapid and forceful change. This study focuses on the leadership of the controversial Admiral Sir John ‘Jacky’ Fisher (1841–1920). Fisher, as the First Sea Lord of the British Admiralty, led the Royal Navy through a signi cant but disputed technological and organizational turnaround during the pre- World War I (pre-WWI) naval arms race between Britain and Germany. Fisher saw that he would achieve his aims essentially by appointing his favorites and cronies to key positions throughout the naval organization. The aim in this study is to highlight the most important facets of the phenomenon from a strategic-leadership perspective.