B2B Marketing Research Cluster (B2BMRC)
The B2B Marketing and Sales Research Cluster (B2BMSRC) advances research on business-to-business marketing and sales through interdisciplinary collaboration, long-term partnerships, and a commitment to research excellence.
About B2BMSRC
Members of the B2B Marketing and Sales Research Cluster work to challenge established assumptions in business-to-business marketing. The cluster brings together researchers who examine marketing, marketing management, and marketing strategy between organisations through interdisciplinary approaches and long-term collaboration.
Mission
Members of the Business-to-Business Marketing and Sales Research Cluster are dedicated to advancing business-to-business marketing through interdisciplinary collaborations and long-term partnerships. The cluster brings together researchers who investigate different aspects of marketing, marketing management, and marketing strategy between organisations.
Vision
The cluster aims to be the undisputed leader in business-to-business marketing in Scandinavia and one of the leading research clusters globally. In line with the Department of Marketing’s mission, the cluster seeks to produce impactful marketing research that helps organisations become more competitive at national and global levels.
Our Values
The cluster has defined five core values that support its mission and vision. These values shape the identity of the research cluster and guide its purpose:
- Excellence in research and teaching
- Diversity
- Partnership
- Interdisciplinarity
- Relevance
Focal Research Areas
The BMSRC serves as a hub for research on business-to-business marketing, focusing on the marketing of products and services to organisations. Current areas of research include commercial capabilities, organisational buying behaviour, sales management and value-based selling, the management of frontline employees and teams, customer relationship management, servitisation and customer solutions, and the interplay between marketing, purchasing, and innovative technologies.
Each research area is represented by one or several cluster members and supported by networks of internal and external collaborators. Several areas overlap with one another and with other research clusters within the department.
Cluster members engage in conceptual research on topics such as multi-dexterity in customer relationship management, new product selling, and interactions between purchasing and marketing. They also conduct empirical studies using case-based, qualitative, experimental, and quantitative analytical approaches.
Examples of current research projects include work on corporate social responsibility and sustainability in business-to-business marketing, the determinants of successfully selling access-based services, methodological reflections on conducting and publishing research in business-to-business marketing, and studies on solution complexity in business markets. Cluster members also collaborate with researchers from STEM disciplines.
Internal and International Collaboration
The cluster embraces diversity across research topics, methods, backgrounds, and career stages. Members have extensive international experience, including holding positions in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Bosnia and Herzegovina, France, and Finland.
The cluster maintains a high level of research productivity, with AJG 3 and AJG 4/4 publications in leading journals. Members hold editorial roles at Industrial Marketing Management, the premier journal in business-to-business marketing, reinforcing the cluster’s international visibility and attracting visiting scholars from around the world.
Collaboration across the national and international academic and business communities is central to the cluster’s ambition to be a global leader. Members collaborate widely with business-to-business marketing researchers in Denmark and abroad and engage in transdisciplinary research with scholars from service research, innovation research, and circular economy.
Research at B2BMSRC
Teaching and Research Activities (Panel content)
Cluster members deliver innovative and research-based teaching in business-to-business marketing and sales. Teaching activities span classroom-based, blended, and online formats and often involve business partners through guest lectures and business games. Teaching takes place across several CBS programmes, including the PhD course Advances in B2B Marketing Research, delivered together with international colleagues.
Business-to-business marketing perspectives are incorporated into undergraduate and graduate programmes, including courses such as B2B Marketing, Business Intelligence and Customer Insights, Business Models for Digital Platform Ecosystems, Creating Innovation and Customer Value, Managing the Customer Journey, Sales Management, and Sales Implementation.
Michel van der Borgh coordinates the MSc in Sales Management, where cluster members contribute extensively. The programme focuses on digitalisation in customer and commercial development, enabling students to apply state-of-the-art academic insights through real-life cases. It is one of the few European programmes offering Sales Management from a B2B perspective.
Cluster members also address major challenges such as sustainability in business-to-business selling and the infusion of circular economy principles in business-to-business marketing. These efforts involve both individual initiatives and collaborative research projects.
Members collaborate across disciplinary boundaries with scholars from service research, innovation research, and circular economy, enriching the business-to-business field with new perspectives.
Academic Engagement (Panel content)
Researchers affiliated with the BMSRC are active members of the global academic community within business-to-business marketing. Cluster members have twice contributed to hosting the Industrial Marketing Management Summit, an interactive forum for discussing developments in industrial and B2B marketing, and they have also taken part in hosting the IMP Conference.
Editorial responsibilities form a central part of the cluster’s academic engagement. Members hold roles such as Co-Editor in Chief at Industrial Marketing Management and Associate Editor at Industrial Marketing Management and the European Journal of Marketing.
Cluster members also serve on the editorial boards of the Journal of Service Research, the Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, Industrial Marketing Management, the Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing, the Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing, and European Business Review. They are frequently involved in co-chairing tracks at major international conferences such as the American Marketing Association Academic Conference and the Academy of Marketing Science Annual Conference.
Industrial Marketing Management is a leading outlet for theoretical, empirical, and case-based research in industrial and business-to-business markets. The journal attracts contributions from scholars and practitioners across North America, Europe, Australia/New Zealand, Asia, and other regions, and aims to balance theoretical and applied work. The journal is co-edited by Adam Lindgreen and Tony Di Benedetto. Since 2020, Selma Kadic-Maglajlic, Michel van der Borgh, and Tobias Schäfers have served as Associate Co-Editors.
Publications (Panel content)
Bond III, E. U., de Jong, A., Eggert, A., Houston, M.B., Kleinaltenkamp, M., Kohli, A.K., Ritter, T, & Ulaga, W. (2020). The Future of B2B Customer Solutions in a Post-COVID-19 Economy: Managerial Issues and an Agenda for Academic Inquiry. Journal of Service Research, 1-8.
Arslanagic-Kalajdzic, M., Kadic-Maglajlic, S., & Miocevic, D. (2020). The power of emotional value: Moderating customer orientation effect in professional business services relationships. Industrial Marketing Management, 88, 12–21.
Bodlaj, M., Kadic-Maglajlic, S., & Vida, I. (2020). Disentangling the impact of different innovation types, financial constraints and geographic diversification on SMEs’ export growth. Journal of Business Research, 108, 466–475.
de Jong, A., De Ruyter, K., & Lemmink, J.G.A.M. (2005). Service Climate in Self-Managing Teams: Mapping the Linkage of Team Member Perceptions and Service Performance Outcomes in a Business-to-Business Setting. Journal of Management Studies, 42(8), 1593-1620.
de Jong, A., Zacharias, N., & Nijssen, E. (2020). How Young Companies Can Effectively Manage Their Slack Resources Over Time to Ensure Sales Growth: The Contingent Role of Value-Based Selling. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (forthcoming)
De Ruyter K., de Jong, A., & Wetzels, M. (2009). Antecedents and Consequences of Environmental Stewardship in Boundary-Spanning B2B Teams. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 37(4), 470-487.
Geersbro, J., & Ritter, T. (2012). Antecedents and consequences of sales representatives' relationship termination competence. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 28(1), 41-49.
Kadic-Maglajlic, S., Micevski, M., Lee, N., Boso, N., & Vida, I. (2019). Three Levels of Ethical Influences on Selling Behavior and Performance: Synergies and Tensions. Journal of Business Ethics, 156(2), 377–397.
Lindgreen, A., Vanhamme, J., Raaij, E. van, & Johnston, W.J. (2013). Go configure: the mix of purchasing practices to choose for your supply base. California Management Review, 55(2), 72-96.
Pattinson, S., Nicholson, J., & Lindgreen, A. (2018). Emergent coopetition from a sense-making perspective: a multi-level analysis. Industrial Marketing Management, 68, 25-35.
Ritter, T., & Geersbro, J. (2018). Multidexterity in customer relationship management: Managerial implications and a research agenda. Industrial Marketing Management, 69, 74-79.
Ritter, T., & Geersbro, J. (2011). Organizational relationship termination competence: A conceptualization and an empirical test. Industrial Marketing Management, 40(6), 988-993.
Schaefers, T., Ruffer, S., & Böhm, E. (2020). Outcome-based contracting from the customers' perspective: A means-end chain analytical exploration. Industrial Marketing Management. (in press).
Song, M., de Jong, A., Di Benedetto, C.A., & Zhao, Y.L. (2019). Enhancing Supplier's Involvement in Startup's Innovation through Equity Offering and Trust Building. International Journal of Innovation Management.
Van der Borgh, M., De Jong, A. & Nijssen, E.J. (2017). Alternative Mechanisms Guiding Salespersons’ Ambidextrous Product Selling. British Journal of Management, 28(2), 331-353.
Van der Borgh, M., De Jong, A., & Nijssen, E.J. (2018). Why Helping Peers Does Not Always Make You Poor: The Contingent Role of Common and Unique Position Within the Sales Unit. Industrial Marketing Management, special issue on ‘Understanding Theory and Practice of Sales Teams’, 27, 23-40.
Van der Borgh, M, De Jong, A., & Nijssen, E. (2019). Balancing Frontliners’ Customer and Coworker Directed Behaviors when Serving Business Customers. Journal of Service Research. 22(3), 323–344
Van der Borgh, M., Xu, J. & Sikkenk, M. (2020) “Assigning leads effectively: Information processing factors as antecedents of actual lead follow-up.” Industrial Marketing Management, 88(5), 136-151
Van der Borgh, M. & Schepers, J.L.L. (2018). Are Conservative Approaches to New Product Selling a Blessing in Disguise? Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 46(5), 857-878.
Schepers, J.J.L. & Van der Borgh, M. (2020) “Antecedents and consequences of frontline employees’ in-role and customer-directed extra-role behavior: A cross-cultural meta-analysis”, Journal of Service Research, Vol. 23(3) 255-280
Members
Affiliated Members / Collaboration Partners
Constant Pieters, Assistant Professor
Peren Ozturan, Associate Professor