Journal of Business Research
Special Issue on “Supplier-Buyer Relationship Management in Marketing and Management Research: An Area for Interdisciplinary Integration”Guest Editors:
- Prof. Chenting Su (City University of Hong Kong)
- Prof. Haibin Yang (City University of Hong Kong)
Motivation
Researchers in both Marketing and Management areas have approached the question of supplier-buyer management from different perspectives and methodologies. For example, marketing scholars have often referred to the two parties in the channel management as manufacturers and distributors (Anderson & Narus, 1990; Gu, Namwoon, Tse, & Wang, 2010; Yang, Su, & Fam, 2012), while management scholars have often examined the vertical relationship between suppliers and buyers (Mesquita, Anand, & Brush, 2008). Apart from the terminology difference, marketing researchers tend to focus more on the dyadic relationship management such as contractual and relational governance between manufacturers and distributors (e.g., Yang et al., 2012), while management researchers put more emphasis on the value creation and value appropriation process between suppliers and buyers as well as with related stakeholders (e.g., Chatain, 2011).Although each stream of research has contributed significantly to our understanding of supplier-buyer management, they have largely run independently without much interaction. Accordingly, our knowledge in this area has been constrained by the disciplinary barriers between these two areas. For example, marketing researchers seldom pay attention to the management issues such as the tension between value creation and appropriation, while management researchers rarely touch upon the demand-side in supplier-buyer management (Priem, Li, & Carr, 2012).
Researchers can benefit tremendously by exchanging and integrating insights from these two different disciplines. For instance, one unifying perspective emerging in channel management investigates networks (Gu et al., 2010) or triadic relationships such as network governance (Wathne & Heide, 2004), triadic trust (distrust) (Vissa, 2012), etc. We believe these interdisciplinary findings would enlighten both areas and will be managerially important.
This call for paper will encourage submissions that cut across the two disciplines and have the potential to bring new perspectives, approaches, or findings that are difficult to achieve from either discipline. Researchers may explore the fundamental question of how marketing research may inform management studies in supplier-buyer management, or vice versa. Meanwhile we encourage new methods that move beyond the dominant practice of multiple regression analysis toward using algorithms in solving new problems in marketing and management such as fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis, which helps deal with complex relationships in supplier-buyer relationship management (Woodside, 2013).
Topics
Topics could include but are not limited to the following:
·
How different
governance mechanisms are generated, managed, and complemented or substituted
among related parties in supplier-buyer management
·
How triadic
trust or network trust is generated, managed and transferred among related
parties in supplier-buyer management
·
What are
different value creation and appropriation mechanisms developed in
supplier-buyer management
·
How firms
strategically balance the value creation and appropriation with related parties
in supplier-buyer management
·
How customers
may play a role in the relationship between suppliers and buyers
·
The new
challenges of supplier-buyer management in different institutional contexts
·
The new
governance mechanisms of supplier-buyer management in virtual marketplace
Submissions and Deadline
All manuscripts should
apply the general author guidelines (http://www.elsevier.com/journals/journal-of-business-research/0148-2963/guide-for-authors#20100) for the Journal of
Business Research (JBR). Manuscripts should not have been previously
published or be under consideration by other journals. Please
submit your manuscript electronically via the JBR electronic submission system
by October 15, 2015. Any
inquiries can be sent to the two special issue co-editors:
Prof. Chenting Su, mkctsu@cityu.edu.hk, City University of Hong Kong.
Prof. Haibin Yang, haibin@cityu.edu.hk, City
University of Hong Kong.
Biographies of the Guest Editors:
Dr. Chenting Su is Chair
Professor of Marketing at the College of Business, the City University of Hong
Kong. His research interests include institutional issues in marketing channels
and Guanxi management in Chinese business circles. His research works
have appeared in prestigious journals such as Journal of Marketing, Journal
of Marketing Research, MIS Quarterly, Strategic Management Journal,
Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of the Academy of
Marketing Science, and among others. He serves as the Guest Editor
for Journal of Business Research and Industrial Marketing Management
as well as the Associate Editor of Asian Journal of Business Research.
He sits in the editorial boards of Journal of Business Research and Customer
Needs & Solutions, among others.
Dr. Haibin Yang is
Professor of Management/Marketing at the College of Business, the City
University of Hong Kong. His research interests include strategic alliances,
innovation, entrepreneurship, and transition economy. His
research works have appeared in some top-tier management journals such as Academy
of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal, Management Science,
Journal of Management, Research Policy, and among others. He serves as the
editorial board member of Strategic Management Journal, Journal of
World Business, and Long Range Planning.
