Crosno, Jody; Dahlstrøm, Robert, Liu, Yuerong & Tong, Pui Ying (2021)

Effectiveness of Contracts in Marketing Exchange Relationships: A Meta-analytic Review

Industrial Marketing Management, s. 122- 139. Doi: 10.1016/j.indmarman.2020.11.007

Exchange partners devise and implement contracts to improve performance within a relationship. Detailed, specific contracts provide a blueprint designed to guide desired interfirm behavior, and firms may use the contract to resolve disputes and to ensure the partner fulfills its obligations. Extant research, however, reports contradictory findings on the efficacy of contracts. The objective of our research is to provide a quantitative review of contract specificity and utilization in business-to-business marketing. The findings suggest that specificity and utilization enhance economic performance, relationship quality, and relational norms. Contract specificity is found to discourage opportunism, whereas contract utilization exacerbates opportunism. Theoretical (specific investments, product complexity, and relationship length) and contextual factors (product type, market type, and study location) moderate influences of contractual properties on exchange outcomes. Discussion of these results addresses the implications of the meta-analysis for marketing theory and practice.

Crosno, Jody L.; Dahlstrøm, Robert & Friend, Scott (2020)

Assessments of equivocal salesperson behavior and their influences on the quality of buyer-seller relationships

Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, s. 1- 19. Doi: 10.1080/08853134.2020.1742134

In buyer-supplier relationships, salespeople engage in behaviors that buyers may (or may not) view as deceptive. Despite the salesperson’s underlying miscreant or innocent motives, buyers have a difficult time attributing the intentionality of salesperson behaviors after the fact. While extant research has explicated various governance mechanisms to mitigate the occurrence of opportunistic behaviors a priori, scholarship is not as well-versed in understanding (a) the relational factors that influence the buyer’s interpretation of debatably opportunistic salesperson behaviors and (b) the buyer’s retributive response within the ongoing relationship. To bring clarity to these issues, the authors examine relationship factors that influence the likelihood of perceived salesperson opportunism following equivocal salesperson acts. Utilizing data from industrial buyers in the U.S. healthcare industry, this study shows that buyer specific investments are related positively to attributions of salesperson guile, whereas contractual agreements are related negatively to attributions of guile. Relationship solidarity moderates these effects. Further, we find that attributions of salesperson guile lead to perceived salesperson opportunism, which in turn results in buyers lowering their expectations of relationship continuity and increasing their retributive responses. We corroborate these findings with cross-sectional survey data from a sample of industrial buyers. Collectively, these findings hold implications with regard to the role of the buyer’s attribution of salesperson guile for a specific behavior as a determinant of perceived opportunism in general, while also outlining conditions under which buyers are inclined to engage in retributive opportunism.

Flygansvær, Bente Merete; Dahlstrøm, Robert & Nygaard, Arne (2019)

Green innovation in recycling - A preliminary analysis of reversed logistics in Norway

World Review of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable Development, 15(6), s. 719- 733. Doi: 10.1504/WREMSD.2019.104860 - Full text in research archive

There has been an exponential growth of new electronic products in the global consumer market. New electronic consumer products generate a growing need for new methods, processes and entrepreneurship in recycling. In this study, we examine how entrepreneurs involved in the recycling of electronic products innovate to create a more sustainable circular economy. The recycling system must take care of electronics that contains hazardous materials. Also, a recycling system should prevent the waste of potentially useful materials. Thus, entrepreneurship is crucial to improve the handling of toxic material and processing technology to reuse valuable elements. Innovation therefore is essential to facilitate a sustainable recycling process. In this study, we analyse entrepreneurial innovation in the light of the organisational structure of the recycling system. Following a study of 108 recycling entrepreneurs, competition and specific investments are found to be important factors that drive the sustainable innovation that make Norway one of the countries with the highest recycling rates of electronic and electric waste.

Burki, Umar; Ersoy, Pervin & Dahlstrøm, Robert (2018)

Achieving Triple Bottom Line Performance in Manufacturer-Customer Supply Chains: Evidence from an Emerging Economy

Journal of Cleaner Production, 197(Part 1), s. 1307- 1316. Doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.06.236

The influence of sustainability on innovation is well-established, yet the efficacy of innovation as a determinant of sustainable performance in supply chains has received less scrutiny. This study examines green innovation practices as determinants of the triple bottom line performance. Moreover, the study implicates top management commitment to sustainability as a driver of green managerial and process innovation. The research employs AMOS to assess survey-based data collected from 181 Turkish manufacturers. The results offer evidence that top management commitment fosters green innovation practices, and these innovations enhance economic performance, environmental performance, and customer cooperation. Top management should therefore commit to achieving sustainable operations and follow up this commitment with green innovations that drive triple bottom line performance.

Grewal, Rajdeep; Saini, Amit, Kumar, Alok, Dwyer, F. Robert & Dahlstrøm, Robert (2018)

Marketing Channel Management in Foreign Markets: Integrative Framework for Multinational Corporations

Journal of Marketing, 82(4), s. 49- 89. Doi: 10.1509/jm.16.0335

Multinational corporations (MNCs) adopt increasingly diverse and complex marketing channels to sell their products worldwide. They strive to manage channels that confront diverse demands from headquarters, foreign subsidiaries, and local partners, as well as complex market environments. Because extant research on MNCs’ marketing channels is sparse, we propose an organizing framework to spur and guide research on MNC channel management. As a meta-theory that integrates economic and social elements of MNC channel management, we use a political economy perspective to propose two testable frameworks pertaining to determinants of (1) MNC marketing channel structures and processes and (2) MNC marketing channel outcomes. Building on these frameworks, we advance a research agenda to test substantive relationships, elaborate new constructs, and study new contexts pertaining to MNC marketing channels. A set of propositions illustrates the applicability of these conceptual frameworks.

Dahlstrøm, Robert (2019)

Market Knowledge, Specific Assets and the Efficacy of Formal Contracting in International Western Buyer-Asian Supplier Relationships

[Academic lecture]. AMA Winter Educators' Conference.

Dahlstrøm, Robert; Crosno, Jody L. & Friend, Scott (2018)

Oh No You Didn’t: Examining Antecedents to Reciprocal Opportunism in Distribution Channels

[Academic lecture]. AMA Summer Educators' Conference.

Silkoset, Ragnhild; Dahlstrøm, Robert & Nygaard, Arne (2018)

The End of Organizations? The Disruptive Impact of Blockchain Technology on Trust, Opportunism and Transactions

[Academic lecture]. SMS Special Conference.

Silkoset, Ragnhild; Dahlstrøm, Robert & Nygaard, Arne (2018)

The Blockchain Disruption: From Lemons to Peach Markets

[Academic lecture]. Blockchain Technology & Organizational Research Symposium.

Dahlstrøm, Robert & Crosno, Jody Lynn (2018)

Sustainable Marketing

[Textbook]. Chicago Business Press.