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This conceptual paper argues that the marketing discipline should move away from its rather restrictive focus on customers toward a view of marketing that acknowledges the interrelatedness of stakeholders. Building on multiplicity theory, this paper presents stakeholder marketing as a revised perspective on marketing that views stakeholder networks as continuous instead of discrete multiplicities. This revised perspective offers a better understanding of stakeholder networks where (1) value exchange has become complex rather than dyadic, (2) tension between stakeholder interests has become explicit rather than implicit, and (3) control over marketing activities has become dispersed rather than centralized. The paper conceptualizes capabilities required by firms for dealing with each of these three transitions: systems thinking, paradoxical thinking, and democratic thinking. The paper discusses implications for firm performance, marketing theory, empirical research, and marketing practice and argues that embracing stakeholder marketing helps to reclaim territory for marketing in academia and business., Author(s): Bas Hillebrand[sup.1] , Paul H. Driessen[sup.1] , Oliver Koll[sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) Institute for Management Research, Radboud University Nijmegen, P.O. Box 9108, 6500HK, Nijmegen, The Netherlands (2) School of [...]

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2006.02.001 Byline: Edwin J. Nijssen (a), Bas Hillebrand (b), Patrick A.M. Vermeulen (c), Ron G.M. Kemp (d) Keywords: Innovation; New product development; New service development; Cannibalization; SMEs Abstract: This paper aims to provide an initial step towards a synthesis of new service and new product development research. Using a baseline model of innovation, applicable to innovation in general, we hypothesize differential context effects between new service and product development in order to better understand their differences and similarities. We argue that R&D strength is more important for new product than service development, while a company's willingness to cannibalize organizational routines and prior investments is more important in the case of new service than new product development. The model and hypotheses are tested using data from 217 service-based and 105 product-based companies in The Netherlands. The results provide initial support for the integrating perspective. Directions for future research are discussed. Author Affiliation: (a) Nijmegen School of Management, Radboud University Nijmegen, P.O. Box 9108, 6500 HK Nijmegen, The Netherlands (b) Nijmegen School of Management, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands (c) Tilburg University, The Netherlands (d) EIM Small Business Research and Consultancy, Zoetermeer and Wageningen University, The Netherlands

A study, analyzing the relationship between trust and formal contract in the management of inter-organizational relations, is presented.

The nature of relationship between internal and external cooperation is explored. The findings of literature review are classified into five perspectives on the relationship between internal and external cooperation.

Audience are scrutinizing companies and making them accountable for internal practices and supplierEs behavior. The developments of purchasing practices based on six consecutive steps are discussed.

Addressing the interests of a wide set of stakeholders is important because it may have positive effects on financial performance. At the same time, however, it is also very complex because managers may face conflicting stakeholder issues, much more so than organizations that listen to only one stakeholder. Little is known about how multiple stakeholder issues are dealt with in the context of new product development ( NPD). The objective of this study is to delineate the elements of stakeholder integration in the context of NPD. A combination of insights from stakeholder theory and market information processing serves as a theoretical perspective to guide the empirical exploration in this study. The authors take the development of green (ecological) products as an empirical context for their qualitative multiple case study. Specifically, they selected four case studies with different expected levels of stakeholder integration, based on literature about green NPD. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with key informants, collecting documents, and obtaining artifacts. In total, 28 informants from various domains were interviewed. Transcribed interviews were coded using qualitative analysis software. The results show that a distinction needs to be made between market and nonmarket stakeholders, and that not all organizations are equally capable of identifying issues that are important to both categories of stakeholders. Organizations that identify issues that are relevant to both market stakeholders and nonmarket stakeholders are more likely to face tensions between stakeholder issues in NPD. Organizations manage these tensions using several, sometimes redundant, coordination mechanisms and using multiple prioritization principles in conjunction. Based on the results, the authors conceptualize stakeholder integration capability in an NPD context as the combination of stakeholder issue identification techniques, coordination mechanisms, and prioritization principles. They propose that stakeholder integration capability is the result of a learning process. Moreover, they propose that proactivity of environmental management and environmental impact of the industry help to explain why stakeholder issue identification techniques are developed, and that the identification of more stakeholder issues leads organizations to develop coordination mechanisms and prioritization principles. Finally, the authors propose that stakeholder integration capability leads to competitive advantage through organizational identification by stakeholders. The study implies that integrating multiple stakeholder issues is not just a matter of feeding additional information into NPD processes, but of changing the nature of these NPD processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]