Does political marketing need the concept of customer value?

Copyright 2008 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the feasibility and usefulness of adapting the concept of "customer value" from commercial marketing for use in the field of political marketing. Design/methodology/approach - A literature review of the field of customer value, and the application of a prominent "means-end hierarchy" model of customer value to the political context. Findings - From the application of the customer value approach to the political context, it is concluded that an analogous concept of "voter value" can be delineated and is the basis for a promising approach to the development of political marketing strategy. Research limitations/implications - Several important testable hypotheses emerge from the article concerning the application of "voter value" as a segmentation tool in the field of political marketing. Practical implications - "Voter value" emerges as a potentially useful tool in political marketing strategy, in particular with respect to shaping political communications messages, and segmenting voter populations. Originality/value - It is widely acknowledged that "customer value" is an important concept in commercial marketing. This article addresses the important questions of whether and how the concept can be transferred to a different area of marketing.Peer reviewe

Capability configurations for successful advanced servitization

Purpose Advanced servitization is the process that involves the combination of different services that facilitate both the use of a product and customer operations. Although servitization has emerged as a frequent strategy for manufacturers to differentiate themselves from the competition, its implementation can pose major challenges and may not always result in superior firm performance. Consequently, successful advanced servitization may require specific organizational capabilities to unleash performance-enhancing effects. To date, little is known about how to effectively configure advanced servitization to achieve such performance gains. Design/methodology/approach Adopting a fit theory perspective and using a configurational approach, we examine the interplay between servitization, organizational capabilities, contextual factors and financial performance. Specifically, we focus on advanced servitization and assess its necessity and sufficiency for achieving high financial performance. In addition, we study how the alignment of servitization approaches with organizational capabilities and contextual factors affects financial performance. We analyze data from 151 manufacturers in an emerging economy using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA). Findings Our findings indicate that advanced servitization is sufficient, but not necessary for high financial performance. In addition, the findings indicate that the alignment of servitization approaches with specific service-related capabilities unfolds complementarity effects that contribute to achieving high financial performance for manufacturers with different firm size and competitive intensity. The findings indicate three configurations that may serve as templates for managers to orchestrate resource allocation and successfully deploy advanced servitization. Originality/value Our study advances the servitization literature by further illuminating advanced servitization as a more complex servitization process. We show how high-performing manufacturers align servitization and organizational capabilities across different contexts, and thus provide design choices for managers in configuring servitization

Addressing the `Qualitative' in fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis: The Generic Membership Evaluation Template

Fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) can help researchers to address causal complexity, especially in relation to the interactions between different conditions leading to the outcome in question. FsQCA helps investigate how alternative solutions (different configurations of conditions) make up the outcome, and considers the asymmetrical nature of social phenomena. An important challenge that researchers often face when they apply fsQCA to qualitative data is the lack of distinct and operationalizable anchor points for fuzzy set calibration. This study offers the Generic Membership Evaluation Template (GMET) to support the decision making about assigning fuzzy set values to conditions, and therefore improves the transparency of the qualitative calibration process. This paper aims to highlight why and how fsQCA can be carried out to obtain a more in-depth understanding of complex problems using qualitative data, to identify some core method issues involved in this analytical process, and to develop a conceptual and empirical framework that helps in managing some methodological issues, with special regard to the calibration process. For illustration of the method we scrutinize ways in which the customer firm can achieve attractiveness in the eyes of the supplier. Our study explores configurations leading to the Relational Attractiveness of the Customer (RAC) based on 28 in-depth interviews with senior managers on the supplier side. In the interest of methodological reflections and parsimony, it is assumed that the reader is familiar with the principles of fsQCA

Understanding configurations of relational attractiveness of the customer firm using fuzzy set QCA

This study introduces the concept of relational attractiveness of the customer (RAC) which is defined as the attitude of the supplier towards the customer firm in order to maintain and/or to improve an existing business relationship. Social Exchange Theory explains relational exchanges in business markets and provides a configurational logic for RAC. Based on an empirical investigation of the RAC perception of senior managers from 617 supplier companies, this study explores conditions of relational customer attractiveness, including financial and non-financial benefits, costs, trust and dependency. Using a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), the study uncovers different configurations of these conditions that lead to high or low relational customer attractiveness. The results show that financial benefits are present in all configurations leading to high relational customer attractiveness, but other conditions also need to be present

Political marketing management and theories of democracy

Political marketing management is often criticized for devaluing democratic processes. However, no literature exists which outlines different concepts of democracies and systematically juxtaposes them with political marketing management in its varied conceptual and practical facets. In this article, we outline three different perspectives, i.e. a selling-oriented, an instrumentally-oriented, and a relational political marketing management, and analyse their compatibility with two different concepts of democracy, specifically competitive elitism and deliberative democracy. We discuss implications of political marketing vis-à-vis the theory of democracy as well as necessary further research. We find that while certain political marketing management perspectives are associated with different theories of democracy, the current normal paradigm of marketing theory shows the least overlap with democratic theories