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Value-Based Selling

Introduction

Advancing and Integrating Value-Based Selling Research in Industrial Marketing: New Theories, Methods, and Perspectives, Special issue of Industrial Marketing Management; Deadline 1 Dec 2024

INTEREST CATEGORY: INTERORGANIZATIONAL
POSTING TYPE: Calls: Journals

Author: Selma Kadić-Maglajlić

INDUSTRIAL MARKETING MANAGEMENT

Call for Papers

Advancing and Integrating Value-Based Selling Research in Industrial Marketing: New Theories, Methods, and Perspectives

Deadline for submission: December 1st, 2024

Overview and purpose of the special issue

Competing with customer value-based business strategies has been the cornerstone of business-to-business (B2B) marketing for more than three decades (Anderson & Narus, 1998; Ulaga & Eggert, 2006; Terho et al., 2017; Hinterhuber & Snelgrove, 2021; Keränen et al., 2021). As sales is strategic in B2B markets, it represents the key revenue-generating function for firms (Kassemeier et al., 2023). Therefore, value-based selling (VBS) has become the key approach to making this strategic customer value orientation operational (Terho et al., 2012; 2015). VBS is particularly critical in contexts where firms combine products, services, and software into innovative and higher value, but often also higher priced offerings, such as servitized, digital, or sustainable solutions (Macdonald et al., 2016; Raja et al., 2020; Nijssen et al., 2022; Guenzi & Nijssen, 2023).

While there is an emerging body of research on VBS, it remains undertheorized, relatively isolated, and still inadequately integrated concept in the broader value-based management research and practice. For example, as noted by a recent literature review (Keränen et al., 2023), most of the current VBS studies emphasize descriptive case studies over robust theoretical explanations and focus on behaviors and strategies in sales organizations but pay less attention to customer reactions to different VBS initiatives, especially in long-term relationships. This is a challenge, since without a better theorization and integration, it will be difficult to advance the VBS research and reach its full potential.

Therefore, this Special Issue calls for research that advances the VBS concept through more advanced theorizing, integrating it with other relevant concepts, theories, and perspectives, and creating a more comprehensive and strategic understanding of the topic. We encourage authors to go beyond exploratory and descriptive case studies that focus only on supplier organizations and apply more diverse research methods (qualitative or quantitative) and rigorous theory testing and elaboration in the VBS domain. This shift would be important in integrating and connecting VBS to established concepts and theories in other domains, thus facilitating systematic theory development and the generation of causal and more generalizable explanations of VBS.

Sample Topics

Given the still emerging state of the VBS domain and the need for more theoretically robust and methodologically diverse approaches, this special issue invites both conceptual and empirical contributions that have the potential to advance research in this area. We welcome studies that employ qualitative, quantitative, experimental, or mixed methods designs as long as they go beyond the current state-of-the-art in VBS, offer novel insights, and clearly demonstrate where and how they advance the theory and practice of VBS in contemporary B2B markets. Some potential topics include, but are not limited to:

Theoretical applications in VBS

  • How established domains such as marketing, management, strategy, purchasing, and other disciplines can inform and advance our understanding of different VBS initiatives and strategies?
  • How economic, behavioral, and psychological theories can provide complementary and contrasting insights on VBS and its effectiveness, such as equity theory, stewardship theory, agency theory, identity theory, information processing theory, institutional theory, or prospect theory?
  • How does value-based selling relate to or is contingent on other related concepts, such as market segmentation, pricing, value capture, strategy, branding, digitalization, purchasing, customer journeys, and customer success/value management?
  • How do different contexts, such as circular economy, sustainability, healthcare, social enterprises, or public management influence and inform the VBS concept and its implementation?

Methodological applications in VBS

  • Experimental research designs that assess cause-effect relationships between key variables related to VBS.
  • Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analyses that examine causal configurations of supplier and customer variables involved in VBS that lead to superior outcomes.
  • Ethnographic research designs that explain how social and cultural contexts in supplier or customer organizations impact the implementation, adoption, and outcomes of VBS.
  • Longitudinal research designs that explore how VBS strategies, behaviors, and customer responses change and evolve over time.
  • Process research that examines VBS as a dynamic and relational process.
  • Novel and unique data (for example, on failures, dark-side effects, or adverse consequences of implementing VBS or private and company-specific databases on VBS)

Cross-functional, multilevel, and dyadic/network perspectives on VBS

  • How value-based selling takes place as a multifunctional, multilevel phenomenon (digital marketing, branding, communications, accounting, operations, KAM, etc.).
  • Customer perspective on VBS and aligning buying and selling activities (for example, how do fairness and transparency considerations influence customers’ perceptions of VBS?)
  • How do different buying and usage center members participate, respond, and shape the process and outcomes of VBS?
  • What is the role of a wider network, value chain, or ecosystem actors in driving, resisting, and shaping VBS initiatives and strategies?
  • How VBS evolves in long-term business relationships.

Preparation and submission of paper and review process

Papers submitted must not have been published, accepted for publication, or presently be under consideration for publication elsewhere. Submissions should be about 6,000-8,000 words in length. Copies should be uploaded on Industrial Marketing Management’s by using the dropdown box for the special issue on VSI: Value-Based Selling Research. All papers will be handled according to the guidelines (Kadic-Maglajlic et al., 2023) for guest editing of special issues of Industrial Marketing Management.

Authors are advised to refer to the prior to submission. Papers that do not comply with the Guide for Authors or are poorly written will be desk rejected. Manuscripts within the scope of the special issue (as described above) and for which there is a reasonable chance of conditional acceptance after no more than two rounds of revisions will enter the double-blind review process.

Important dates

  • Submission opens: October 1, 2024
  • Deadline for submission: December 1, 2024

Guest editors

References

Anderson, J. C., & Narus, J. A. (1998). Business marketing: Understand what customers value. Harvard Business Review, 76, 53–67.

Guenzi, P., & Nijssen, E. J. (2023). The relationship between digital solution selling and value-based selling: a motivation-opportunity-ability (MOA) perspective. European Journal of Marketing, 57(3), 745-770.

Hinterhuber, A., & Snelgrove, T. C. (Eds.). (2021). Value first, then price: Building value- based pricing strategies. Routledge.

Kadic-Maglajlic, S., Arslanagić-Kalajdžić, M., Lindgreen, A., & Di Benedetto, C. A. (2023). Special issues in Industrial Marketing Management: Past, present, and future. Industrial Marketing Management, 109, 2-6.

Kassemeier, R., Alavi, S., Habel, J., Schmitz, C., & Wieseke, J. (2023). Guest editorial: Value-creating sales and digital technologies. European Journal of Marketing, 57(3), 653-658.

Keränen, J., Terho, H., & Saurama, A. (2021). Three ways to sell value in B2B markets. MIT Sloan Management Review, 63(1).

Keränen, J., Totzek, D., Salonen, A., & Kienzler, M. (2023). Advancing value-based selling research in B2B markets: A theoretical toolbox and research agenda. Industrial Marketing Management, 111, 55-68.

Macdonald, E. K., Kleinaltenkamp, M., & Wilson, H. N. (2016). How business customers judge solutions: Solution quality and value in use. Journal of Marketing, 80(3), 96-120.

Nijssen, E. J., Van der Borgh, M., & Totzek, D. (2022). Dealing with privacy concerns in product-service system selling: Value-based selling as fair treatment practice. Industrial Marketing Management, 105, 60-71.

Raja, J. Z., Frandsen, T., Kowalkowski, C., & Jarmatz, M. (2020). Learning to discover value: Value-based pricing and selling capabilities for services and solutions. Journal of Business Research, 114, 142–159.

Terho, H., Haas, A., Eggert, A., & Ulaga, W. (2012). ‘It’s almost like taking the sales out of selling’—Towards a conceptualization of value-based selling in business markets. Industrial Marketing Management, 41(1), 174-185.

Terho, H., Eggert, A., Haas, A., & Ulaga, W. (2015). How sales strategy translates into performance: The role of salesperson customer orientation and value-based selling. Industrial Marketing Management, 45, 12-21.

Terho, H., Eggert, A., Ulaga, W., Haas, A., & Böhm, E. (2017). Selling value in business markets: Individual and organizational factors for turning the idea into action. Industrial Marketing Management, 66, 42-55.

Ulaga, W., & Eggert, A. (2006). Value-based differentiation in business relationships: Gaining and sustaining key supplier status. Journal of Marketing, 70(1), 119-136.

[1] Please direct your questions to the managing guest editor.