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The extant literature has indicated that interacting with customers to obtain their input during new service development projects is key to developing successful new services. However, the literature has focused mostly on the use of traditional face-to-face interaction with the customers. Lately, a growing trend among many B2B firms is to collaborate with the customers via various social media platforms. Yet, the literature has overlooked the use of social media as a key mode of interaction for obtaining customer input for new service development. Also, the question, how to use social media for customer interaction alongside other traditional modes of interactions has remained unanswered. Therefore, the objective of this research is to investigate the use of social media along with the traditional modes of customer interaction for developing new B2B financial services. To achieve the above research objective, we developed a multi-phase, longitudinal and robust qualitative research design. We collected data from several new service development projects being pursued by a large financial service firm in India. First, we interviewed 17 managers, who were in charge of the new service projects in the firm. In addition, we interviewed 92 customers that were involved in interaction with the managers during the new service development process. During and after the interviews, several documents and archival records were consulted to triangulate the data provided by the respondents. We also ethnographically observed social media interactions among customers and managers for about 11 months. We analyzed the data using open, axial, and selective coding and maintained a robust case study database. The findings highlight a promising new facet of customer interaction in which both traditional modes and social media can be effectively combined for obtaining rich customer input thereby increasing the odds for developing successful new services in the B2B financial services industry. The findings also suggest that social media alone cannot help a firm obtain rich customer input because social media interactions produce mainly corroborative information. Thus, to develop innovative new services a firm must combine various modes of interaction, both traditional modes and social media. The article has implications for the literature related to B2B services industry. Particularly, the findings of this study advance the current knowledge of social media interaction and new service development in B2B firms. We also contribute to the important but relatively sparse literature treating social media as a mode of customer interaction. Our study also advances the literature of new service development and global marketing by studying the new service development process in the emerging market of India. Customer interaction should be a key element in a firm's new service development activity. This article has proposed several customer interaction strategies in order to outline a course of action that the service managers can apply in their quest for successful new services. In particular, our research offers actionable guidance to the managers and companies in the emerging markets aiming to use the strategy of customer interaction and leveraging the power of social media for their NSD programs. Many B2B financial service firms in the emerging markets will find the strategy and process described in this research useful for developing successful new services for their business customers. This study reflects the current academic and practitioner interest in the emerging role of social media particularly in the B2B context. Arguably, this is the first study that bridges the gap between research on social media and customer interaction for the purpose of developing new B2B services. Particularly, combining the traditional modes of interaction with social media interaction is a unique contribution of this study. The research also adds to the emergent research theme of customer interaction for developing new B2B services in the emerging market. Overall, this study offers new insights into the current understanding of customer interaction against the backdrop of increasing digitization of various business functions including new service development in the B2B context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Factors affecting successional processes are critical determinants of the structural and compositional changes in a plant community. The present study examines the role of plant traits, such as seed size and dispersal mode, habitat factors such as canopy closure, leaf litter, soil moisture, disturbance, fire frequency, and landscape forest cover, in arrival and establishment of tree species in the oak-pine forests of the Western Himalayas. For this, we compared the regeneration, abundance, and composition of tree species in pine forests (pioneer stage) with that in oak-dominated hardwood forests (climax stage). The microsite factors and landscape forest cover varied significantly between the two stages. While species diversity was comparable across seedling, sapling, and pole stages, density of regenerating individuals was relatively lower in oak forest sites. The extent of overlap in species composition between oak and pine forest sites was also found to be low for both regeneration and adult stages. The amount of forest cover surrounding the study sites (landscape forest cover) did not significantly impact regeneration. Instead, factors related to establishment were determined to be more important. Regeneration density decreased with an increase in canopy closure (light environment) and litter depth, implying their crucial role in driving the successional trajectories. When plant traits were considered, all three regeneration stages of large-seeded and animal-dispersed species were of comparable densities in pine and oak forests, suggesting an absence of dispersal or arrival limitation. However, anthropogenic disturbance was found to negatively impact density of zoochorous species while fire frequency negatively influenced the diversity of large-seeded species. Control of extractive pressures, reducing incidence of fire, and retention of protected oak stands may be necessary to enable regeneration of zoochorous and of large-seeded species and thereby, natural succession to oak-dominated hardwood forest in this human-dominated landscape. • Successional trajectory largely dependent on microsite factors. • No evidence of dispersal limitation in oak and pine forests. • Disturbance negatively affected regeneration of zoochorous species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1. The subtropical humid forest of Meghalaya, India, has been exposed to various kinds of cultural disturbance of varying magnitude during recent years. In order to analyse the effect of disturbance on natural regeneration of a few dominant and commercially important tree species, viz. Schima khasiana and the oaks Lithocarpus dealbatus and Quercus griffithii, a study on seed production, dispersal and germination was carried out in three stands, differing in degree of disturbance, during the years 1988–91. 2. Seed production in L. dealbatus and S. khasiana varied significantly between the three stands and increased with increasing disturbance. It increased with increase in d.b.h. of the trees in all three species. Heavy seeding occurred in different years in different species. 3. Lithocarpus and Quercus spp. produced heavier seeds in the disturbed stands than in the undisturbed stand. 4. The number of seeds dispersed from the trees decreased with distance from the parent tree. The dispersal distance for Lithocarpus and Quercus was greater in the disturbed stands than in the undisturbed stand. However, the dispersal distance in the forest was very low irrespective of degree of disturbance. 5. Seed predation decreased and germination increased with distance form the parent tree in all three stands, suggesting that distance-related seed predation was not influenced by disturbance. 6. In an experiment with four treatments the greatest germination of seeds was observed on the moss layer, irrespective of species and forest stand. The presence of litter inhibited germination of seeds to a great extent in all the species. Germination of Lithocarpus and Quercus was better in the disturbed stands. 7. An analysis of the fate of seed populations of the oak species revealed that loss of seeds caused through consumption by rodents and insects and transportation by various agents accounted for more than 98% of the seeds, while fewer than 1% of them germinated. 8. The findings of the study are discussed in relation to their potential application in management of the disturbed subtropical forests/ [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]