Inaugural Lecture by Professor Ad de Jong

Frontline Marketing: The New Hinge Factor!?

Marketing scholars have identified the organizational frontline as an important emerging research field and a key battleground for companies. Organizational frontlines are those interfaces and interactions that connect organizations with their customers. Recent advances in the organizational frontline have significantly altered the ways in which organizations and customers interact. Traditionally the interaction with customers typically involved face-to-face meetings. The emergence of numerous digital communication technologies has amplified the opportunities of organization-customer interactions to an almost infinite number of options. Organizational frontlines have evolved from rather static settings to dynamic ones engaging frontline employees and customers together to enhance customer experiences and stimulate value (co)creation. These changes have profoundly challenged the ways in which frontline employees should sell and service their products to customers and imply an ongoing need for more academic research. Ad de Jong’s research has specifically focused on the management and performance of two key frontline actors in this dynamic setting: the service employee and the salesperson. In this inaugural lecture Ad de Jong will highlight how his research contributes to this emerging field of marketing, what challenges lie ahead in effectively managing the organizational frontline to secure competitive advantage, and how we can integrate new insights into teaching and communicating them to the outside world.

Program:
15.30-15.35 Welcome by Professor Søren Hvidkjær, Dean of Research
15.35-15.45 Introduction by Professor Adam Lindgreen, Head of Department
15.45-16.30 Lecture by Professor Ad de Jong
16.30-17.30 Reception in Rotunden (Solbjerg Plads)

Please register at reception.marktg@cbs.dk