Journal of Marketing Channels

________________________________________________________________________

CALL FOR PAPERS
________________________________________________________________________

Special Issue: “Strategies, Opportunities, and Challenges of Online Channels in Business-to-Business and Business-to-Consumer Contexts” 

Guest Editors: Mike Krush, North Dakota State University,
Raj Agnihotri, University of Texas at Arlington, and
Kevin Trainor, Northern Arizona University

The Journal of Marketing Channels is pleased to announce and invite submissions for a Special Issue on “Strategies, Opportunities, and Challenges of Online Channels in Business-to-Business and Business-to-Consumer Contexts.” The deadline for manuscript submission is December 31, 2018.

SPECIAL ISSUE BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Technology possesses a transformative effect on marketing channels. Today’s firms confront a variety of opportunities to harness online technologies to increasingly collaborate with partners, serve customers, and re-examine their go-to-market strategies.

Therefore, a number of opportunities exist to better understand the implications of online marketing channels. For instance, publications are replete with examinations regarding the technological transformation within the retail sector and its marketing channels. Further, firms are strategically examining the configuration of their online channel strategy and their physical channel strategy: the marketplace collaboration of Google and Walmart serves as an early exemplar of a unique omnichannel strategy in the B2C context. Similarly, industry projections suggest that the B2B online retail market will far exceed that of B2C within the next decade.

In this Special Issue we seek contributions that address the implications of online channels, welcoming quantitative, qualitative, empirical, and conceptual submissions. Examples of research that would be welcome include:

•  Examining the implications of online channels on the sales force, including lead

generation, relationship management, sales cycles, and customer retention.

•  Considering the role of technology (such as social media and CRM) within online

channels and the network of channel partners and its impact on customer relationships.

•  Understanding the effects of online channels on partner or customer relationship

quality, power, norms, collaboration, conflict, ethics, and opportunism.

•  Developing insights or testing theory regarding the transition to Internet and

omnichannel retailing and the transition’s effects on channel partners, key suppliers, the supply chain, and the supplier’s sales force, including their roles and relationships.

•  Understanding the strategic implications of combining a physical infrastructure with

online service capabilities.

•  Examining the use of e-commerce within B2B firms and its impact on customer

satisfaction and on internal functions (such as sales, marketing, and customer service).

•  Understanding and testing insights regarding the transition toward online channels and

the impact on CRM, merchandising strategies, and category management.

•  Considering how physical and virtual retailers might better meet the needs of target

Internet-linked customers with omnipresent and omnichannel strategies when faced with different customer roles, customer needs, and market types.

•  Examining the role, if any, for mobile and other Internet-enhanced modalities in

providing want gratification using modern delivery methods, developing insights regarding the role of mobile payments, providers, retailers, and customer satisfaction.

•  Devising behavioral, financial, and economic models that consider tactical / strategic

options for enhanced physical / virtual retail performance on a variety of measures as separate entities and in combinations given specific product lines and industry types.

•  Correcting or developing new retail theory to provide descriptive or prescriptive

insights about enhancing in-store and online positive customer experiences.

These examples are not intended to stifle the creativity of potential authors as papers concerning most issues related to strategies, challenges, and implications of online channels are welcome. If in doubt about the suitability of a paper’s theme for this Special Issue, please contact any of the guest editors.

 

SUBMISSION INFORMATION

1. Submitted manuscripts should not have been previously published or be currently

under consideration for publication elsewhere.

2. All manuscripts will be double-blind refereed. Manuscripts must be submitted

electronically in Word format and must be consistent with the author submission guidelines of the Journal of Marketing Channels that can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/WJMC. Click on the “Instructions for authors” tab. A complete Style Guide for Manuscript Submissions to the Journal of Marketing Channels can be downloaded at http://bit.ly/wjmc_styleguide

3. Manuscripts should be received no later than December 31, 2018, with accepted

papers published in late 2019 or early 2020. Please submit directly to all of the guest editors, preferably through e-mail as a Microsoft Word attached document.