This study is to investigate the effects of support program satisfaction in the organizational trust and the management performance for the start-up business to suggest institutes and working-level officials with an theoretical and practical implication. For this, we performed empirical analysis, in particular we examined mediation effects of the organizational trust. We surveyed a questionnaire for 247 start-up companies of incubation center. We performed reliability and correlation analyses etc. through SPSS 23 and performed structural equation model analysis etc. through Amos 23. As a result, first, pilot product, marketing, financial account, education and consulting appeared effective effects in management performance but law did not appear effective. Second, education and consulting appeared positive by mediation of the organizational trust. This means the organizational trust factor has to be considered in support programs like education and consulting.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of project-based organizational resources on the business performance in the resource-based view (RBV) and dynamic capability one and analyze their relationship through an integrated model. The RBV argues that firms get competitive advantages when they have VRIN characterized resources but dynamic capability view argues that RBV has its limitation under volatility so it enables them to obtain competitive advantages in ever changing environments. This study analyzes data collected from 270 survey questionnaires on the project management related staff at the project-based organization among major companies in Korea. The result demonstrates that two project organizational resources on strategic and executional management with VRIN characteristics are found to bring positive effects on the organizational dynamic capabilities and also the dynamic capabilities such as integration & reconfiguration, organizational learning are verified to bring meaningful positive effects on the business performance. On the other hand, unlike previous studies, ambidexterity has quite a weak effect on the business performance. Therefore, we expect that the resources of the project-based organization with VRIN lead to strengthen the firm’s business performance through organizational dynamic capabilities and produce high performance through the integrated model of RBV and dynamic capability one. The study has academic meanings that widely confirm the effects and characteristics of main elements of VRIN project organizational resources on the business performance of competitive advantage through the dynamic capabilities of the organization by the regression on the precedent studies regarding the project management resources and their relationship with the VRIO characteristics. The practical implication is that it is preferentially necessary for the organization to obtain VRIN resources and organizational dynamic capabilities, especially organizational learning to have sustainable competitive advantages.

Pamperpop is a new online platform based in Indonesia that connects beauty and personal care service providers to the end customers. The business idea was triggered by Zomato, an online platform for restaurant search and discovery service. There are some competitors in the market who provides services alike Pamperpop, but they are all new players who still building their customer base. This condition puts Pamperpop in a fierce competition and forces the company to be innovative in penetrating the market. Considering the nature of this business, there are two markets to be penetrated by the company. First market is the service providers who will become the tenant, and second market is the end customers who will become the user. Pamperpop has done some marketing activities to enter both markets; however the results were far from expectation. The acquisition rate did not meet target from management. Pamperpop really need to revisit their marketing strategy in order to stay competitive in the market. This article describes the analysis on the business issues faced by Pamperpop especially problems in the market penetration. Author identified the root issues by using Porter’s 5 Forces, Business Model Canvas, S-T-P analysis, and Marketing Mix. Authors found that management focus on the product development rather than identifying customer needs when building this business. This created some gaps in the marketing strategy to penetrate the market. The New Wave Marketing framework is chosen to formulate the new marketing strategy since it is suitable for technology and internet based business model that has horizontal communication in nature. The New Wave Marketing approach refines the existing business model to introduce clear positioning and strong differentiation in the market. The solution’s set aims to achieve Low Budget and High Impact marketing techniques with the combination of Above-The-Line and Below-The-Line approach.

In recent years, maintaining transparency has become a trend among brands, and a better level of supply chain transparency has been demonstrated to positively affect consumer environmental concern and conscious behavior. Consumers may accept transparency efforts as a signal of the brand goodwill and perceive it as a visibly sustainable effort that can convert brand trust. In the information transparency trend, eco-certification plays an important role as a tool to inform consumers about sustainability. However, facing large amounts of information, consumers spend much time filtering information, so the accuracy of the obtained information can be compromised. The Higg index is a sustainable verification platform that reveals the entire activities of supply chains. However, most consumers are facing an overload of information that could confuse their processing of any information. In this context, the present study seeks to examine the effect of business transparency to conscious consumer behavior and purchase intention. Second, this study deals with the moderating effects of sustainable knowledge on the relationship between business transparency, environmental concern, and brand trust. Third, we explore the effects of high and low level of consume knowledge of sustainability on the relationship between business transparency and brand trust. In terms of the methodology used in the present study, an off-line survey of Korean consumers was conducted. SPSS 21.0 was used for data analysis aiming to test the proposed model and research hypothesis. The mains results of this study are as follows. First, business transparency has a positive effect on environmental concern, brand trust, and consumer willingness to conscious behavior. Second, consumer sustainable knowledge has a moderating effect on business transparency for environmental concern and brand trust. Taken together, the findings of the present study provide meaningful implications for marketers by highlighting the importance of transparency and introduction of a transparent eco-certification for communication with consumers. To successfully influence consumer willingness to assume conscious behavior, brands are advised to provide standardized transparency labels, rather than complicated information.

This paper investigates the adaptation of suppliers’ business models to the changing customers relationships, with a focus on the fashion industry. The analysis of business models represents an understudied topic in business to business marketing research (Ehret, Kashyap and Wirtz, 2013; La Rocca and Snehota, 2017). In this regard, the paper tries to propose an original contribution by addressing the issue of how suppliers adapt their business models to cope with the needs of their fast fashion customers. It is well known that the fast fashion formula has represented an innovative business model which has generated huge changes within the fashion industry (Barnes and Lea-Greenwood, 2006). While, the business models of global brands, such as those of Zara or H&M, have been deeply studied, minor attention has been given to the business models of the suppliers that interact with this kind of players. Consequently, the paper addresses a research gap that regards the suppliers' business model changes due to the interaction with fast fashion clients. The paper has an exploratory nature. Methodologically, it proposes two qualitative case studies of suppliers in interaction with fast fashion suppliers, pointing out the main features of the adaptation of their business models in the relationship with these clients. The paper contributes to theory and managerial practice pointing out some drivers of change for suppliers with respect to the most evident characteristics of the business model of the buyers. It describes these drivers and proposes some relevant evidences to support the study of business models in business markets.

With the advancement of digital technologies, the importance of inbound marketing in the B2B is increasing rapidly. Previous studies on B2B marketing suggested that compelling content is a key component in B2B suppliers' inbound marketing. The most representative marketing content of B2B supplier firms is BRC (business reference content). BRC refers to a content, such as a ‘case study’ and/or a ‘success story’ that describes, in detail, deliveries of existing satisfied customers. Prior researchers argued that using existing customers as referrers enhances the confidence of potential customers, lowers perception of purchase risk. For these reasons, many B2B marketing experts consider BRC as the core of B2B digital marketing. Nonetheless, little is known regarding with researches on BRC in the academic domain. Therefore, there is urgent need for empirical research and an integrated model that can clarify the underlying mechanism of BRC. The focus of this study is to identify how BRC influences prospective customers' purchase decisions. To examine the underlying mechanism of BRC, our research focused on two unique aspects of BRC: 1) BRC format (narrative formant vs non-narrative format), and 2) ‘transportation’ to explain BRC effect process. Using a scenario-based online experiment, our results provide several interesting insights on the BRC. Results showed that stronger transportation takes place in narrative BRC (vs non-narrative BRC). In addition, narrative BRC has a positive impact on a favorable attitude toward referrer through transportation, which in turn lowers purchase risks (e.g. product performance risk, psychosocial risk, potential financial risk, and potential time risk). The results provide a clear basis for why it is important to use BRC in B2B supplier firms' marketing communication.

With the development of artificial intelligence, large data and cloud computing technologies, the global trend of industrie 4.0 is coming. The key factor is IT convergence of software and hardware. From large corporations to small and medium-sized enterprises, IT companies must realize internationalization as a survival strategy effectively in the global market-based economy (Wilden & Gudergan, 2015). Recently, dynamic capability is the ultimate source of competitive advantage. Dynamic capability is the ability to integrate, relocate, and form new capabilities of an organization's resources to adapt to changing environments (Barreto, 2010; Fallon-Byrne & Harney, 2017; Teece, 2012). On the other hand, entrepreneurship is closely related to various factors such as dynamic adaptation of company, adaptation, response, and innovation to changing environments (Arend, 2013). From this viewpoint, the aim of this paper is to examine the effect of entrepreneurship on firm's dynamic capabilities and the impact of dynamic capability on business performance (Etemad, 2004; Laukkanen, Nagy et al. 2013). In addition, we explore whether the effects vary across company type, namely those of soft and hardware companies. In this model, dynamic capabilities consist of three sub-dimensions; opportunity exploration capability (DC_O), resource acquisition capability (DC_A), and resource reconfiguration capability (DC_R) (Barreto, 2010; Knight, 2000; Teece, 2007). Also, business performance is divided into financial (FP) and non-financial performance (NFP). Incorporating entrepreneurship and dynamic capabilities in the same model, the findings of this study will contribute to give a more comprehensive view by showing the entrepreneurship and dynamic capabilities mays explain business performance. For this purpose, this study examines the structural relationship between entrepreneurship, dynamic capability, and business performance and the moderating role of company type. The data were collected from 209 CEOs of soft and hardware SMEs and analyzed with SPSS 21.0 / WIN and SmartPLS 3.0 statistical package. Based on previous studies, we propose following hypotheses. H1: Entrepreneurship has a positive effect on dynamic capabilities. H1-1: Entrepreneurship has a positive effect on opportunity exploration capability (DC_O) of dynamic capabilities. H1-2: Entrepreneurship has a positive effect on resource acquisition capability (DC_A) of dynamic capabilities. H1-3: Entrepreneurship has a positive effect on resource reconfiguration capability (DC_R) of dynamic capabilities. H2: Dynamic capabilities have a positive effect on business performance. H2-1: Dynamic capabilities have positive effects on financial performance. H2-2: Dynamic capabilities have positive effects on non-financial performance. Figure 1 displays the results of analysis of structural equation modeling (SEM). The findings and summaries are as follows. First, entrepreneurship has a positive effect on DC_O, DC_A, and DC_R. DC_O has a positive effect on NFP, but does not on FP. Second, DC_A has a positive effect on both FP and NFP(Arend, 2014; Wang and Ahmed 2007). Third, the moderating test shows that the relationships between entrepreneurship and dynamic capabilities, and DC_R and FP and NFP are significantly different between across soft and hardware SMEs. This study proposed and examined the entrepreneurship – dynamic capability – business performance framework in SMEs IT context. The findings of this study reveal that entrepreneurship contributes to enhance dynamic capabilities, and in turn increase financial and non-financial performance (Soriano& Dobon, 2009). More importantly, this study integrates entrepreneurship theory and resource-based view and shows that venture firm’s business performance will be maximized when CEOs have a high entrepreneurship and build dynamic capabilities. The findings also shows that in particular, it is very noteworthy that non-financial performance is enhanced by dynamic capabilities. In summary, this study shows that SMEs' entrepreneurship and dynamic capabilities can increase the business performance of companies as the IT industry is fiercely competing with domestic companies as well as international companies (Amazon, IBM, etc.).

Introduction Retail competition in Japan has become more intense because of multiple reasons. The income and population composition are changing, and many international retailers have entered the Japanese market. It is important for Japanese retailers to differentiate from competitors and maintain a competitive advantage in the long run. To do so, Japanese retailers focus on increasing customer value by controlling their value chains. Therefore, market orientation and supply chain orientation have become very important for Japanese retailers who try to expand their market shares in the Japanese retail market. This study develops and empirically tests a model of the impact of market orientation and supply chain orientation on business performance in Japanese retailing. Theoretical Development Previous literature provides evidence on the positive impact of market orientation on business performance (e.g. Cano et al., 2004; Murray et al., 2011; Morgan, 2012; Ngo & O’Cass, 2012). There are also a few studies in the context of retailing (e.g. Griffith et al., 2006; Kajalo & Lindblom, 2015; Moore & Fairhurst, 2003; Yu et al., 2014). However, only a few studies are focusing on the relationship between supply chain orientation and marketing orientation and the impact of their interplay on business performance (e.g. Martin & Grbac, 2003; Min et al., 2007). Market orientation can be seen as the foundation for customer relationship management. The effectiveness of customer relationship management depends heavily on market intelligence. To attract new customers and retain old customers firms have to satisfy not only existing needs but also latent needs. In retailing, market orientation is very important because the organization of retailing is based on the multi-unit organization where sales staff in stores is in close contact with customers and can get direct information from the customers. Supply chain orientation (SCO) is separated into two concepts: strategic supply chain orientation and structural supply chain orientation (Patel et al., 2013). Strategic SCO is defined as the supply chain directed motivation and objectives arising from executive strategic plans and decisions. Structural SCO is defined as the behaviors and actions related to supply chain management in the implementation of its strategic plan. Therefore, strategic SCO is the antecedent of structural SCO. In retailing, many retail buyers search and negotiate with the suppliers who have the ownership of strong brands and distribution networks. In the buying process, retail buyers can get market information from suppliers. Thus, a retailer can collect market information from internal and external sources. This information is useful for the retailer to not only make marketing plan but also to revise marketing plan during its implementation process. To sum up, customer relationship management and supply chain orientation have a positive impact on marketing capabilities. Similarly, marketing capabilities have a positive impact on business performance. The theoretical framework of the study is presented in Figure 1. Data and Measurement To test the framework, we conducted a mail survey (N=243) among Japanese retailers in 2017. The scales were adapted or developed from existing literature. Market orientation (MO) was based on questions adapted from Narver and Slater (1990). Strategic SCO (STRACO) and structural SCO (STRUSCO) scales were based on Patel et al. (2013). Customer relationship management (CRM) was based on Vorhies et al. (2011), marketing capabilities (MKGCAP) was based on Morgan et al. (2003) and Vorhies and Morgan (2005). Business performance was based on Hooley et al. (2005). The measurement model was assessed using Mplus 8. The measurement model specification allows each construct to covariate with all others. The fit indexes of the measurement model were satisfactory (CFI: 0.95; TLI: 0.94; RMSEA: 0.05; SRMR: 0.05). Next, we tested the reliability and validity of measurements. The convergent and discriminate validity of the latent variables were tested by confirmatory factor analysis where all constructs are correlated (Table 1). Also, we tested the common methods variance using two methods: Harman’s single factor test and the common latent method. The results of these methods suggest that common method variance is not a problem in this study. Results and Conclusions We tested the hypotheses by applying structural equation modeling (SEM) using Mplus 8. The results are presented in Figure 1. The proposed model provides a good fit to the data (χ2= 517.1, d.f.=290, p < 0.000; CFI = 0.94; TLI = 0.94, RMSEA = 0.06, SRMR = 0.08). In addition, we assessed the mediating role of marketing capabilities by employing a bootstrapping routine (Table 2). Figure 1 presents the results of the SEM. Most hypotheses were supported, and overall the study provides evidence of the importance of market orientation and strategic SCO on business performance. The most interesting findings are related to the role of marketing capabilities and structural SCO. First, the results show that marketing capabilities serve as a mediator between business performance and customer relationship management (H7). The main aim of CRM is to establish and keep the relationship with target customers. CRM contributes to increasing the marketing capabilities by helping retailer achieve marketing objectives more effectively and efficiently (Chang et al., 2010). Second, marketing capabilities is not a mediator between business performance and structural SCO (H8). The structural SCO has a negative direct impact on business performance, while structural SCO has a positive impact on marketing capabilities which in turn has a positive impact on business performance. Japanese retailer-supplier relationships are different from that in the western economy (Chung et al., 2006). The channel members in Japan have a long-term orientation when they establish a relationship with each other. The findings of our study reflect this cultural aspect of Japanese retailing environment. Japanese retailers purchase products and services from suppliers on long-term. Economic performance is not a single decision making criteria. Instead, relationships with suppliers who do not contribute fully to economic performance continue. The result of H8 refers to this character of Japanese retailing environment.

Satisfaction paradox indicates customer satisfaction does not necessarily translate into customer repurchase. Competitor’s attractiveness and customer demographics are two main moderators for the paradoxical phenomenon. Competitor’s attractiveness exhibits customer switching effect, whereas customer demographics imply customers moored with their current service provider. Still, the cases were few investigated in B2B settings where customers are in general more complex than consumers as involving more intricate organizational network influences. In a business network, transactions may incur buyer/seller relational activities that mitigate paradoxical behavior. Nonetheless, the variable is yet identified and the interacting effects between the moderating variables are not clarified. Thus, this study aims to develop an operational model to classify satisfied customers into loyal, moored and paradoxical segments using three genres of moderators: competitor’s attractiveness, organizational and transactional variables in a B2B setting. In the model, the theoretical bases of switching behaviors are applied for four statistical analysis executed in a logic sequence, including a factor analysis to consolidate quality measurements, a quadrant analysis to locate the effect of competitor’s attractiveness, a clustering analysis to segment satisfied customers into four segments, and finally, nonparametric tests to validate the organizational and transactional segmentation variables. Empirically, we study Taiwanese manufacturers who engaged in global trade and have had experiences in choosing the global air express services that form an oligopolistic market and a strategic group so competitor’s attractiveness can be better calibrated. A total of 180 valid samples are collected and analyzed. The results contribute to the literatures of B2B service marketing.

Green crowdfunding – fundraising for green initiatives – has become a growing source of alternative finance for sustainable entrepreneurs. The current paper explores the business model of green crowdfunding from three perspectives, i.e. funders, founders and platform. We pay special attention to how green crowdfunding extends consumers‘ involvement in sustainable economy.

This paper examines the mechanisms and the determinants of cross-border partnerships formed by Japanese companies and their foreign partners. The result of the analysis suggested that four key variables, equality, fit, trust and commitment, empirically influence the outcomes of the partnerships. The research sheds additional light on the mechanism and the determinants for materializing successful cross-border partnerships.

Based on survey data from 160 importing firms from 33 countries/regions, this study examines the effects of firm-owned versus sales rep-owned commitment on firm performance across varying degrees of economic distance between import and export countries. Results reveal both firm- and rep-owned commitment have positive effects on the export firm’s financial outcomes including the current and predicted future purchase share. Moreover, findings show that the larger the economic distance, the stronger the effect of rep-owned commitment but the weaker the effect of firm-owned commitment on sales performance. We also find two important antecedents to rep-owned commitment: economic-based instruments and relationship-based instruments, whereas only economic-based instruments have positive effect on firm-owned commitment.

Successful business models have some shared attributes or features. The quality of the business model can be used to determine the feasibility and potential of the business model, which can help make decisions on how to invest and risk prevention. However, the business model is not static, but changes with external factors such as demand, competition, technology, macro policies, and internal factors such as business goals, strategies, and resources. Therefore, the requirements of the quality attributes of the business model at each stage are different. Dynamic evaluation of business model quality is essential for the development of any enterprises, but on the emerging issue, academic research has greatly lagged behind the needs of business practices. Fist in this paper, the generation and evolution of the business model is divided into four stages: blueprint design, practical modeling, application copying, and transformational change. Then, based on reviewing literature, seven key attributes of business model quality are identified, namely, uniqueness, complementary, novelty, certainty, scalability, win-win and matching degree. Thereafter, by using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (FsQCA), some configurations of key attributes of business model quality are identified, which are considered critical paths for the business success. Finally, the theory of dynamic evaluation of business model quality has been put forward and used to assess the sample business model.

Introduction Environmental problems, especially waste problem are the responsibility of the state, first of all. But in the developed countries the flexibility of the utilization system is attached to small recycling firms – ecological entrepreneurs (ecopreneurs). At the present time, a typical situation in the sphere of waste management in Russia can be characterized by total absence or minimum organization of waste selective collection (less than 5%) and almost total absence of recycling companies (Korshenko et al., 2015). Recycling companies themselves have to create a raw material market and a sales market using innovative business models. Although the literature on the entrepreneurship states that there are good openings for the entrepreneurs due to the transformation to the “green” business, ecopreneurial practices are considered to be under-investigated. The most part of the literature is focused on the identification of well-established entrepreneurs but the topic of business models received little attention. This paper investigates the characteristics of ecological entrepreneurship business models in the recycling industry in Russia. Theoretical Development The relationship between entrepreneurship and sustainable development has been addressed by various streams of thought and literature such as social entrepreneurship, sustainable entrepreneurship, ecological entrepreneurship and institutional entrepreneurship (Schaltegger & Wagner, 2011). Schaper (2010) has argued that adopting a sustainable business framework may create new opportunities for entrepreneurs, including the reconfiguration of existing business models. So far, the literature on business models for sustainable entrepreneurship has received little attention (Jolink & Niesten, 2015). It need to be answered the following basic questions that shape the business model (Morris et al., 2005). (a) How and for whom will the firm create value? (b) What is the firm’s internal source of advantage and how will this provide the basis for its external positioning? (c) How will the firm make money, and how does this relate to the firm’s scope and size and time ambitions? Jolink and Niesten (2015) have opted for those ecopreneurs that operate in the processing and retail of organic food and beverages (eco-products) in the Netherlands. They define the ecopreneurial business model and specify four varieties of this business model, which consist of different combinations of environmental scope and a focus on the mass market and profitability. Jolink and Niesten (2015) assumed that the distinguishing factor of the ecopreneurial business model is that it transforms disvalue into value, thereby creating greater customer value for environmentally concerned consumers. But in the literature, ecological entrepreneurship is understood as a wide kind of goods and services: from the development and sale of resource and energy-saving technologies, recycling, to ecotourism, the production of organic food and other products and eco-restaurants. It can be assumed that the business models, and the mechanism of transformation of negative consumer value may differ depending on the sector in which ecopreneurship is carried out. Recycling is a very specific industry, since waste itself is the source of the consumer disvalue. Given all of the above, our research question sounds like: What are the features of business models of recycling firms? Research Design Considering the research question, stage of the development of the theory of ecopreneurship, and importance of the context, we assume that case methodology are more suitable for this research. The unit of analysis – business model. Population was specific. That is Companies engaged in wastes recycling in the Primorye Territory, Russia. The sample is theoretical (nonrandom), includes the cases of two companies. Data sources include interview, documents, open sources. The interviews were subsequently coded in order to facilitate comparisons and to find a pattern or structure in the data. The data were triangulated by a variety of means according methodology of case study. Result and Conclusion The resulting business model descriptions show how business is done by the ecopreneur, and how, and for whom, the firms create value (Zott & Amit, 2007). The companies cases show that in the ecological entrepreneurship value creation can be related to what the consumer value as well as to what they don’t value. The wastes themselves are the source of the consumers disvalue. But in the case of wastes recycling the customers experiencing the disvalue and receiving the value transformed from it are quite different consumers. Abilities for solving the clients’ ecological issues due to the entrepreneurial thinking and social ideology developed as a result of the ecopreneurial practice (Jolink & Niesten, 2015) are the internal source of a firm advantages and the basis for the external positioning (Morris et al., 2005) of the recycling companies. According to Jolink and Niesten (2015) classification of business models of ecopreneurship, business models of companies combine the features of an income model and a subsistence model. So, we have drawn the following conclusions. The academic field of ecological entrepreneurship is only just developing. By combining the literature on ecological entrepreneurship with the empirical research on business models, we explore the mechanisms of value creation by green businesses, and make several contributions to the literature. First, we studied entrepreneurial practices in a specific and little explored form of ecopreneurship – in the recycling. Second, building on Jolink and Niestens’ (2015) schematic representation of replacing consumer disvalue by consumer value, we developed scheme of process of transformation of consumer value by the recycling companies. Thus, this study contributes to the conceptualization of the theory of ecological entrepreneurship.

The paper presents the longitude study of Internet technologies introduction into business model. Rapid spread of Internet technologies has a significant impact on the business models transformation. Today, information technology has become an integral part of communication with customers. In 2017 the penetration rate of the Internet in Russia reached 73%. Thus, almost 3/4 of the population is currently Internet users and be reached online. On the one hand, Internet communication speeds up and simplifies the processes; on the other hand, the key competitive advantage of direct selling business model is blurred. For ages business model was based on direct interpersonal contacts between the distributor and the customer. In this business model relationship creates more value than the product itself [Luk, Fullgrabe, Yi, 1996] and face-to-face meeting is the key descriptor [Sanan, 1997]. Direct selling is cultivated through relationships and provides customer-centric marketing opportunities [Harrison, Hair, 2017]. The question of this study is whether introduction of innovative Internet technologies into communication with customers is beneficial for traditional direct selling business model. Empirical research is based on comparative analysis of data from three survey waves (6380 respondents in 2011, 5638 respondents in 2014 and 6800 respondents in 2017). Effectiveness of Internet usage the for communicate with customers was analized in dynamics over the three waves of 2011, 2014, 2017. Using the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) method 15 (fifteen) hypotheses were checked. Nine (9) out of 15 (fifteen) hypotheses were confirmed. Research revealed that personalization determines the effectiveness of communication with customers via internet-based tools (e-mail, web site, social networks, professional social networks, video channels, blogs, microblogs, videoconferences and webinars, messaging applications and files). Nevertheless, face-to-face communication remains significant communication channel for success in direct-selling

Introduction Business model (BM) research currently represents rapidly developing area of knowledge that helps businesses in finding new sources of competitive advantage and growth drivers. Multiple studies demonstrate that BM studies are multidisciplinary by their nature as this helps better understanding complex processes happening in real life that are described by BM research (Zott, Amit, Massa, 2011; Tikkanen et al, 2005). This means that BM research is built on a basis of strategic management, marketing, sociology, psychology, logistics, institutional economics and other disciplines. Regardless the growing amount of publications in this area (more than 6 times growth for the last 15 years reaching 2100 publications per year according to Scopus) the amount of successful BM in practice remains low. BM studies are primarily linked to the notion of value that is jointly created for the final consumer by multiple participants of the value chain (suppliers, manufacturers, distribution channels). Within the interaction of BM participants the key role is played by their orientation towards the interests of the final consumer who makes the decision on whether to acknowledge or not the created value. As value chain generally consists of multiple commercial organizations, their major interest is in making profits as a result of joint value creation activities. Therefore the key role in BM analysis is played by marketing that helps searching and offering such values for the customer that enable satisfying his needs. Multiple research in marketing confirms that long term customer orientation, cooperation of value chain actors offer companies better development opportunities and lead to better financial results as well as help increasing value generated for the final consumer. However, the current level of marketing involvement into the BM research remains low. This, in turn, significantly limits the opportunities of creating successful and sustainable BM that bring profits to the commercial units of the value chain and satisfy the needs of the final consumer. To address the existing gap the current paper explores the links between BM research and marketing which are then used to develop a new approach to BM innovation. The approach is based on value chains and interfirm relationships. Literature review Regardless large and steadily growing amount of BM publications the questions related to building a unified theoretical basis for BM research are still under discussion (Teece, 2010; Zott, Amit, Massa, 2011; DaSilva, Trkman, 2014; Baden- Fuller, Mangematin, 2015). There is a lack of alignment between the researchers on a broad spectrum of questions (such as BM definition, BM components, the relation between BM and company strategy, BM boundaries, the impact of various BM types on company performance etc). At the same time some consolidation of researchers’ positions can be observed in relation to the domination of a value component within BM definition. The questions related to BM analysis that enable to evaluate the current state of a BM, understand its key components (Hamel, 2000; Johnson, Christensen, Kagermann, 2008; Teece, 2010) and find better opportunities for BM improvement (Osterwalder, Pigneur, 2010; Girotra, Netessine, 2014) are actively researched. Many authors come to a conclusion that a BM spans the boundaries of a single firm and includes a whole complex of interaction participants – suppliers, distribution channels, final consumers. This is because cooperation of various market participants enables to significantly increase jointly created value for the customer (Nenonen, Storbacka, 2010; Zott, Amit, Massa, 2011). This understanding of a BM also leads to the need of thorough analysis of mismatches and inconsistencies between value chain participants that regularly appear in the business (Gassmann, Frankenberger, Csik, 2013; Girotra, Netessine, 2014). Regardless the existing variety of BM studies, most of the papers draw the attention to the process of value creation for the final consumer, which is a zone of marketing interests, as marketing studies the directions of identifying and satisfying customer’s needs. Therefore it is hard to imagine building successful BM oriented on the final consumer and bringing stable income to the companies participating in the BM without organic inclusion of the customer into the value chain by using methods and tools from marketing. These questions are studied within multiple relationship marketing papers (Parvatyar, Sheth, 1995; Gumesson, 1999; Juttner, Christopher, Baker, 2007; Tretyak, 2013). However, nowadays the involvement of marketing researchers in BM studies is low (only 5% of BM studies are published in marketing journals (Coombes, Nicholson, 2013)) which is also confirmed by the current study. Despite the very broad spectrum of studied questions, the importance of value acknowledgement by the customer is neglected by BM researchers. At the same time in case the value is not acknowledged, the BM loses its commercial value for the other participants as it stops bringing them profits. Therefore there is a growing need to incorporating the final consumer into the value chain, understanding its interests. This is possible in case of using the results of marketing research which is demonstrated in the current study. Research design To explore the link between marketing and BM research we review the literature on relationship marketing that is specialized on the value creation process for the customer, inclusion of the customer into the value chain, cooperation and coordination of value chain participants (Parvatyar, Sheth, 1995; Gumesson, 1999; Juttner, Christopher, Baker, 2007; Tretyak, 2013). The similarities between BM research and marketing were examined from two sides. The first examination analyzes the publications statistics of BM papers. We particularly look at the amount of BM publications in marketing journals. The classification of journals by different categories is conducted according to Scientific Journal Rankings (SJR) list. For the purpose of this analysis we use Scopus publications database and all the available articles with “business model” in title published before 2018. The relative “typicality” of these papers and journals is evaluated using citation index (number of citations per article/journal divided by total number of citations). Along with this we analyze not only journals which publish BM articles, but also the journals referring to them. The second examination looks into the actual similar attributes of marketing and BM research. The BM literature is studied through the prism of seven schools of thought that are recently proposed by (Gassmann, Frankenberger, Sauer, 2016): Activity system school (Zott, Amit), Process school (Demil, Lecocq), Cognitive school (Baden Fuller, Morgan), Technology-driven school (Chesbrough, Teece), Strategic choice school (Casadeus-Masanell, Ricart), Recombination school (Gassmann, Frankenberger, Csik), Duality school (Markides, Charitou). These seven schools provide a comprehensive outlook on major BM research tendencies that help in understanding of BM essence, structure, components, goals and objectives, BM performance evaluation, and the directions of future BM studies. Additionally to better understand BM key research trends we analyzed top 25 most cited publications according to Scopus and Ebsco publication databases (the publications with “business model” notion in title were selected). For the purpose of theoretical analysis we applied the methods of comparison, generalization, methods of grouping and classification. The basis of the current research is formed by value chains studying methods that are used in both BM and marketing studies. Results and conclusions The analysis of BM research demonstrated that BM spans the boundaries of a single firm and includes the whole complex of interaction participants that jointly create and deliver value to the final consumer - suppliers, manufacturers, distribution channels. Because of that multiple BM research papers focus on the analysis of the value chains and intercompany networks. Understanding of these specifics formed the basis of a new approach to BM innovation. It is demonstrated that the existing approaches to BM analysis and improvement don’t include the final consumer as a specific BM component, and don’t focus the attention on fulfilling his needs as well as building the mechanism of BM actors’ interaction in accordance with customer’s needs. At the same time the acknowledgement of the value by the customer defines the financial wellbeing of BM actors. Addressing these questions can significantly improve BM performance and can be done through building a link between BM research and marketing. The analysis demonstrated that only 6% of BM papers are published in marketing journals, and only 8% of studies that are citing BM research are published in marketing journals which confirms limited involvement of marketing scholars in BM research. The following similarities between BM and marketing studies were identified and explored: value chains and interfirm networks (examples of marketing studies: Tretyak, 2013; example of BM studies: Nenonen, Storbacka, 2010; Zott, Amit, Massa, 2011), cooperation and partnerships between value chain participants (examples of marketing studies: Parvatyar, Sheth, 1995; example of BM studies: Zott, Amit, 2008), coordination of value chain participants (examples of marketing studies: Juttner, Christopher, Baker, 2007; example of BM studies: Girotra, Netessine, 2014), customer orientation and customer involvement (examples of marketing studies: Gumesson, 1999; example of BM studies: Johnson, Christensen, Kagermann, 2008; Teece, 2010), long term orientation of relationship marketing and sustainable BM (examples of marketing studies: Parvatyar, Sheth, 1995; example of BM studies: Girotra, Netessine, 2014). To close the existing gap a three-level conceptual model (1st level – structure of the BM, 2nd level – mechanism of BM participants’ interactions, 3rd level – results of their interactions) and new approach to BM innovation are offered within the current study. The approach demonstrates a step-by-step sequence of actions within three previously highlighted levels and is targeted on increasing the jointly created value for the customer by the BM by eliminating mismatches and inconsistencies between BM participants. Comparing to other approaches, the new approach allows orienting BM participants towards the interests of the final consumer, acknowledges different abilities of BM actors to influence the value creation process and proposes analyzing the ways of coordination of other BM actors by the dominating actor in order to improve the results of the BM. The practical implementation of the approach demonstrated that it’s key provisions could be successfully applied within different market conditions and lead to improved BM performance (Klimanov, Tretyak, 2016; Lyashchuk, Sterligova, 2016). The following sequence of actions is proposed within the approach: 1st level - structure of the BM (a. Visualization of intercompany network with its key actors and description of their roles; b. Defining and highlighting the dominating actor (hypothesis); c. Analysis of BM variety, their classification), 2nd level - interaction mechanism (a. Defining the mechanism (concrete forms) and coordination directions that are applied by the dominating actor and other BM actors; b. Definition and analysis of mismatches and inconsistencies that appear between various BM actors, and also the ways to overcome them; c. Identifying the most critical inconsistencies, their ranking (where there is the biggest gap between the value created for the customer and the value captured by other BM actors)), 3rd level - results of BM actors’ interaction (a. Analysis of the indicators that characterize BM on various levels; b. Analysis of the impact of mismatches and inconsistencies between the BM actors on the flows’ characteristics: material, financial, customer flow). The new approach to BM innovation has multiple similarities with Activity system school that is based on the approach offered in (Zott, Amit, 2010), which views BM as a system of interdependent activities conducted by the focal firm and other value chain participants in order to create value for the customer and generate profits. The approach assumes that it is possible to analyze or develop a BM by considering the components, structure and control mechanism of the activity system. However, the approach offered in the current study is different from the Activity system perspective at the level at which the activity system is analyzed - these are components of a whole value creation system, rather than a single focal firm. Thus, the proposed approach develops the Activity system perspective by proposing the use of a marketing scheme that integrates certain aspects of BM analysis into an organic whole and offers a threelevel analysis of a BM. Considerable attention in the Activity system perspective focuses on the activities of BM participants and their interaction. The activity system design element related to transaction management also reflects one of the key elements of the new approach proposed in the current study - BM participants occupy different positions in the value chain and have different opportunities to influence the value creation process for the consumer. The highlighted similarities demonstrate that the new approach to BM innovation developed in the study is organically linked to the Activity system perspective proposed by Zott and Amit and elaborates on it.

Recent headlines predict that artificial intelligence, machine learning, predictive analytics and other aspects of cognitive computing will be the next fundamental drivers of economic growth (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2017). We have evidenced several success stories in the recent years, such as those of Google and Facebook, wherein novel business opportunities have evolved based on data-driven business innovations. Our directional poll among companies, however, reveals that at present, only few companies have the keys to successfully harness these possibilities. Even fever companies seem to be successful in running profitable business based on data-driven business innovations. Company’s capability to create data-driven business relates to company’s overall capability to innovate. Therefore, this research builds a conceptual model of barriers to data-driven business innovations and proposes that a deeper understanding of innovation barriers can assist companies in becoming closer to the possibilities that data-driven business innovations can enable. As Hadjimanolis (2003) suggests, the first step in overcoming innovation barriers is to understand such barriers. Consequently, we identify technology-related, organizational, environmental and people-related i.e. attitudinal barriers and examine how these relate to company’s capability to create data-driven business innovations. Specifically, technology-related barriers may originate from the company’s existing practices and predominant technological standards. Organizational barriers reflect the company’s inability to integrate new patterns of behavior into the established routines and practices (Sheth & Ram, 1987). Environmental barriers refer to various types of hampering factors that are external to a company. Environmental barriers are caused by the company’s external environment and thus company has relatively limited possibilities to influence and overcome such factors. Attitudinal barriers are people-related perceptual barriers that can be studied at the individual level, and if necessary, separately for managers and employees (Hadjimanolis, 2003). Future research will pursue to build an empirical model to examine how these different barriers are related to company’s capability to create business based on data-driven innovations.

Internet represents an increasingly relevant marketing channel for reaching foreign countries (Sinkovics, Sinkovics, & Jean, 2013). The aim of this paper is to understand how Western firms can exploit digital platforms to enter and sell their products in the contradictory market of China: more advanced than the Western one but also with many restrictions. Drawing from a literature about Internet as communications (Bilby, Reid, & Brennan, 2016) and sales channel (Bai, McColl, & Moore, 2017; Deng & Wang, 2016; Petersen, Welch, & Liesch, 2002), we develop three propositions to be tested in China. We carry out a qualitative research based on interviews with seven key informants operating in the Chinese market. Findings discuss the peculiarities of the Chinese digital environment. We confirm that dealing with Internet in China is different from other countries, therefore even if companies already have competences related to web marketing, they need to (re)learn how to use it and adapt their marketing strategies. Moreover, despite the growing role of the Internet as retailing channel in the Chinese market, we find that digital platforms do not substitute local distributors because of their primary in guanxi established. Internet has not substituted existing channel intermediaries but it has been rather added to them in a omnichannel strategy

Food trucks are not a new idea but the significant growth in the variety of foods served and the number of trucks operating means this retail option is becoming more important. The growth of this segment can be explained by McNair’s (1958) wheel of retailing theory which indicates that growth in retailing happens when new types of retailers with low startup costs, low capital and low prices enter the market – exactly what is occurring with food trucks entering the mature food retailing market. There has been limited academic research regarding the food truck industry. To better understand this retail segment and the factors influencing it, we conducted in-depth discussions with nine food truck owner/operators in the Midwest and Gulf Coast regions of the United States. The discussions with the food truck owner/operators indicated three critical areas: marketing, growth strategy, and legal issues. Technology was found to be vital to this retail segment with social media being used to promote the business and many vendors mentioned that apps like Square (which enables credit card payments) help them get additional sales when customers lack cash. These apps also helped the owner/operators manage some of the legal/regulatory issues associated with operating within different municipalities. Our in-depth discussions with the nine food truck vendors provided insight into the food truck business and helped refine our understanding of critical concerns of this growing industry.