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Previous research has identified customer satisfaction and customer–company identification as two of the most important concepts in relationship marketing. Despite their proclaimed importance, research on their long-term effectiveness is surprisingly scarce. Furthermore, comparative research acknowledging the concepts' different theoretical roots and illuminating the differences in their long-term effectiveness is lacking. Also, little is known about how competitive actions affect the long-term effectiveness of both concepts. This study makes a first attempt to address these research voids and offers a comparative analysis of the effectiveness of customer satisfaction and customer–company identification in driving important customer outcomes over time. Latent growth analyses of rich longitudinal data from customers over nine measurement points spanning 43 weeks (n = 6930) show that customer satisfaction and customer–company identification have positive initial effects on customers' loyalty and willingness to pay, but differ in their ability to maintain these positive effects over time. While the positive effects of customer satisfaction decrease more rapidly, the effects of customer– company identification are significantly more persistent. Analysis of the moderating effects of relative competitive advertising suggests that customer–company identification is more effective at immunizing customers against competitive actions.

With the permission of the American Marketing Association

This paper is the first to empirically examine the effect of customer loyalty in retail price negotiations. Across three field studies and one negotiation experiment, the authors establish what they call the loyalty-discount cycle: in price negotiations with salespeople, loyal customers realize deeper discounts that in turn increase customer loyalty, resulting in a downward spiral of a company’s price enforcement. The reason for the positive effect of customer loyalty on discount is twofold: (1) loyal customers demand a reward for their loyalty and invoke their elevated perceived negotiation power; (2) to retain loyal customers, salespeople grant discounts more willingly. Furthermore, the mechanisms are moderated by the basis of a customer’s loyalty (price vs. quality) and the length of the relationship between the salesperson and the customer. To escape the loyalty-discount cycle, salespeople can use functional and relational customer-oriented behaviors. The study helps managers and salespeople to optimize their price enforcement and servicing of loyal customers.

With the permission of the American Marketing Association

The literature on organizational learning asserts that external learning is often limited geographically and technologically. We scrutinize to what extent organizations acquire external knowledge by accessing external knowledge repositories. We argue that professional service firms (PSFs) grant access to non-localized knowledge repositories and thereby not only facilitate external learning but also help to overcome localization. Focusing on patent law firms, we test our predictions using a unique dataset of 544,820 pairs of EP patent applications. Analyzing patterns of knowledge flows captured in patent citations we find that accessing a PSF’s repository facilitates the acquisition of external knowledge. As the effect is more pronounced for knowledge that is distant to a focal organization we conclude that having access to a knowledge repository compensates for localization disadvantages.

© 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The 12-minute video demonstrates a peer coaching conversation between John (a peer coachee) and Petra (a peer coach). John and Petra first met in the same Executive MBA program, the current coaching conversation takes place at an Alumni meeting several years after graduation. The conversation serves as a vivid demonstration of the practice of peer coaching and can be used as a supplement to the introduction of the principles of peer coaching for a managerial audience.

This video demonstration offers a vivid and concrete example of a peer coaching conversation and helps these participants to overcome the anxiety associated with the belief of not fully understanding the necessary concepts. Thus, the peer coaching demonstration aims at achieving the following learning objectives: The illustration of the method of peer coaching and concepts relating to it and the illustration of the GROW model. The video can be used as part of a preparation package or during a classroom session, primarily to prepare participants to exercise peer coaching themselves, either in the context of the same education intervention or thereafter.

Patent-based measures are frequently used indicators in empirical research on innovation and technology as well as firms’ strategies and organizational choices. We contribute to their validation in a unique setting that allows us to combine data on product commercialization in the pharmaceutical industry with the underlying patents on the level of individual products. Our findings draw a complex picture regarding the information content of various patent indicators are bear important implications for the use and the proper interpretation of these indicators in settings where they are employed to describe outcomes beyond the patent system itself.

With permission of the Academy of Management

Empirical scholarship on the standards-trade relationship has been held up due to methodological challenges: measurement, varied effects, and endogeneity. Considering the trade-effects of one particular standard (ISO 9000), we surmount methodological challenges by measuring standardization via national penetration of ISO 9000, allowing standardization to manifest via multiple (quality-signaling, information/compliance-cost, and common-language) channels, and using instrumental variable, multilateral resistance and panel data techniques to overcome endogeneity. We find evidence of common-language and quality-signaling augmenting country-pair trade. Yet, ISO-rich nations (most notably European) benefit the most from standardization, while ISO-poor nations find ISO 9000 to represent a trade barrier due to compliance-cost effects.

With permission of Elsevier