Special issue call for papers from Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing

Submission window: January 1st, 2021 – March 1st, 2021

Guest Editors

Professor Robert Spencer, Kedge Business School, Marseille, France

Associate Professor Catherine Sutton-Brady, The University of Sydney Business School, Sydney, Australia

This massive intrusion of the digital into all aspects of business life begs a certain number of questions and this special issue welcomes papers that look at interaction, relationships and networks in this digital era. Some themes of interest include are broad in nature, questioning the very theoretical foundations of business marketing and purchasing. Others cover specific issues or aspects. Themes may likewise tackle the problem from different viewpoints: methodology, theoretical frameworks, managerial consequences etc.

Industrial marketing and purchasing approaches have evolved essentially around ideas relating to the specifics of industrial buying, the importance of buyer seller relationships, and more recently the importance of taking into consideration the network concept and buyer seller relationships in their relationship context. Areas of research taking into account these perspectives vary from purchasing, with derivatives such as sustainable purchasing, international purchasing etc., through to themes such as industrial marketing, project marketing, solution selling and so on.

Over the last couple of decades however we have entered into the digital era, and in particular over the last 5 to 10 years with the appearance of such digital phenomena as the Internet, including the Internet of things, social media, digital communication, big data, and digititization. Recent events linked to Covid and associated phenomena such as social distancing have accentuated the digital effect.

This massive intrusion of the digital into all aspects of business life begs a certain number of questions and this special issue welcomes papers that look at interaction, relationships and networks in this digital era. Some themes of interest include are broad in nature, questioning the very theoretical foundations of business marketing and purchasing. Others cover specific issues or aspects. Themes may likewise tackle the problem from different viewpoints: methodology, theoretical frameworks, managerial consequences etc. Some questions of interest include but are not limited to:

• To what extent does the digital era affect the very foundation of marketing principles and concepts and in particular business marketing ?
• What is the impact of the digital era on the emergence, development and demise of buyer seller relationships ?
• What is the future role for the social dimension of exchange processes on business markets faced with digital impact ?
• How have network dynamics been shaped or changed in the digital era ?
• What are the new networks capabilities needed to succeed in a digital era?
• What role does trust play in a digitally enhanced environment?

References:

Hagberg Johan & Hans Kjellberg. 2020. Digitalized markets. Consumption Markets & Culture, 23(2): 97-109.

Kjellberg, Hans, Johan Hagberg & Franck Cochoy. 2019. ‘Thinking Market Infrastructure: Barcode Scanning in the US Grocery Retail Sector, 1967–2010’. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 62: 207-232.

Kohli, V., Paulowsky, R. & Stanley, J. (2019). How digital is powering the next wave of growth in key-account management. McKinsey &Company, Marketing and Sales Practice.

Lipiäinen, H., & Karjaluoto, H. (2015). Industrial branding in the digital age. Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing, 30 (6), 733-741.

Singh, J., Flaherty, K., Sohi, R. S., Deeter-Schmelz, D., Habel, J., Le Meunier-FitzHugh, K., & Onyemah, V. (2019). Sales profession and professionals in the age of digitization and artificial intelligence technologies: concepts, priorities, and questions. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 39(1), 2-22.

Storbacka, K. (2016). The Digitalisation Drive: Elevating strategic account management. SAMA research. Strategic Account Management Association, Chicago, Illinois.

 Ritter, T. & Pedersen, C.L., (2020)  Digitization Capability and the Digitalization of Business Models in Business-to-Business Firms: Past, Present, and Future. Industrial Marketing Management 86 (2020), 180-190

Submission

All papers should be submitted through the Journal’s submission process, i.e., ScholarOne Manuscript Central online submission system. Please make sure you select the special issue “Interactions, relationships and networks in a digital era” when submitting your manuscript. For details on how to submit using Manuscript Central, please, see the (JBIM) author guidelines. https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/jbim

The submission window for full paper submissions is January 1, 2021 – March 1, 2021. The submissions must conform to JBIM’s author guidelines. These guidelines will also steer authors through the submission process. Articles submitted should not have been published before in their current (or substantially similar) form and should not be under consideration for publication elsewhere. Please see Emerald’s originality guidelines for further details.

Further information

For questions regarding the content of this special issue, please contact the guest editors:

Professor Robert Spencer,

Kedge Business School, Marseille, France
robert.spencer@kedgebs.com

Associate Professor Catherine Sutton-Brady,

The University of Sydney Business School, Sydney, Australia
catherine.suttonbrady@sydney.edu.au