How technology intensive B2B firms customize through modularity

Technology Intensive (TI) firms often customize their offerings through engineer-to-order projects. However, intensified competition and technological developments drive them to become more efficient. Following trends in consumer markets, many TI firms turn to modularity. Yet, while previous research has examined customization in consumer settings, it remains unclear what the impact of customizing through modularity is for TI firms in business-to-business markets. This study synthesizes the various types of customization proposed in the literature with respect to modularity and complements these with findings from a qualitative field study. A grounded typology of four offerings demonstrates that these represent different levels of combining customization and modularity. Important antecedents add to our understanding why TI firms increasingly follow a specific approach. We extend this through identifying managerially relevant challenges

Implementing an ambidextrous sales strategy at the front line: an internal marketing perspective

Ambidextrous sales strategies, wherein managers pursue the concurrent sale of new and existing products, often fail at the front line. A proposed internal marketing perspective accounts for the role of two vertical relational mechanisms (manager ambidexterity and salesperson organizational identification) that transfer an ambidextrous strategy to the front line. The findings demonstrate that both mechanisms have crucial roles in the implementation of an ambidextrous selling strategy. They enhance salespeople’s proactive selling of new and existing products; in addition, they interact, such that the effect of manager ambidexterity depends on organizational identification. In turn, this two-part empirical study links salespeople’s proactive selling of new and existing products to their commensurate forms of objective performance and shows that combining the behaviors does not impair performance