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Purpose
In developing economies, 30% of the gross domestic product on average is undertaken by unregistered businesses. The informal economy leads to high opportunity costs by preventing gains from trade with strangers. To overcome this obstacle, sellers who usually operate in the informal economy should strive to move to formal markets. Current theories are drawn from a view of markets as institutions governed by formal and informal rules. In a nutshell, informal-formal market transitions must be met with a regulative solution. However, the overall results have been disappointing. This failure invites a re-diagnosis of the problem that informal sellers face to act in formal markets and suggesting novel solutions. This paper aims to address this gap.


Design/methodology/approach
This is a conceptual paper. The authors adopt MacInnis's (2011) framework to characterize the approach to theory development.


Findings
The authors argue that extant views of formal/informal markets differences address only one of Scott's (2014) three pillars (regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive). By drawing on Bourdieu's legacy, the authors propose a cultural-cognitive reading of institutions and suggest it offers a lens to understand the problem as an access challenge, and thus a marketing problem. This perspective allows us to conceptualize informal/formal markets as two distinct institutional fields and argues that all individuals inhabit a particular habitus and contend that moving between markets requires a habitus shift. Thus, acting in formal markets involves bridging a habitus gap. Finally, the authors argue the need for a market-facing intermediary that takes on a market habitus bridging role.


Research limitations/implications
The authors suggest future research efforts could benefit from this new conceptual lens as a means of re-diagnosing other forms of market access that have produced disappointing results.


Practical implications
By looking at differences between formal and informal markets as a habitus gap, the allocation of public funds to support transitions can be better targeted and spent.


Social implications
The concept of market-facing intermediaries suggests that the beneficiary (e.g. informal seller) and target populations can be different. This insight could catalyze social innovation and trigger novel perspectives to design systemic solutions.


Originality/value
Conceptualizing the formal-informal market transition as a habitus gap suggests new directions to resolve access challenges and a new mediator solution.

To date, the discourse about service dominant (S-D) logic has been largely theoretical, with the main focus on exploring the foundations for an integrating general theory of markets and marketing. Little attention has been given to the role of theorizing, and how empirical evidence can be used to inform the theoretical development. This paper explores the bridging role of middle range theory in this process. First S-D logic is examined as a foundation for general theory. This leads to a discussion about the use of middle range theory to link general theory and empirical findings. The following sections examine the role that contemporary marketing practices (CMP) research plays in providing a bridge between S-D logic and empirical evidence. The paper concludes by considering implications for further research.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate how and why staying on the edge of emerging and converging technologies is significant for businesses to create the most vibrant, adaptive and complex behaviors, including a wider range of business relational initiatives (e.g. outsourcing, opportunistic partnership, merger and alliance, acquisition), and a better sense of which initiative to choose.Design/methodology/approachThis is an inductive, interpretative case study complemented by hands‐on experience with the industry.FindingsAppreciating why existing proprietary technologies need to be replaced with new robust and open technologies is important. Knowing when and how existing and emerging technologies would converge is even better. Developing an understanding of the likely impact of this convergence on existing network structure and network position is critical.Originality/valueFor practitioners the paper presents a framework for examining business relational initiatives at any given point in time and identifying a positioning path over time to shift the firm's network position. For academics it advances one's understanding on how various business relational initiatives are influenced by network structure and network position at the network level.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to extend existing theories of b2b networks over non‐profit networks.Design/methodology/approachThe paper sheds light on the network organisational forms recently implanted in the academic community. the analytic induction method is used to extend b2b network concepts to a non‐profit context. The concepts of b2b networks are critically analysed and applied to explorative case studies of networks in academia. The paradox of open knowledge exchange in these networks is revealed and an attempt is made to elucidate it.FindingsB2b network concepts should be modified before being extended to non‐profits. Propositions are suggested to adapt b2b network concepts to explain non‐profit networks. Questions to address in further research are developed.Research limitations/implicationsThe main conclusions are only applicable to specific types of networks. Only academic networks are reviewed. The case study approach does not allow for generalizing the findings and deriving a set of concepts for non‐profit networks, and thus, calls for further research.Practical implicationsThere may be space for achieving excellence in research by facilitating interpersonal rather than interorganisational research networks. This is important, since by facilitating interpersonal networks one can escape from organisational bureaucracy.Originality/valueThe study reports networking between the non‐profits, an issue largely neglected by marketing researchers, and contributes to its understanding in the frame of existing b2b network concepts.

This paper examines the marketing practices of Argentine business‐to‐business firms and compares them with the marketing practices of US and New Zealand firms. While the results show marked similarities in the practices for a certain proportion of Argentine firms, there are also some differences. Overall, Argentine firms tend to have lower use of information technology in marketing and a greater emphasis on face‐to‐face interaction. There is also a group of Argentine firms that operates in the traditional business environment where less emphasis is placed on marketing activity. Implications of these results for managers and academics are discussed.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present how the construct of relationship value (RV) has the potential to help suppliers understand how to create superior value in their customer relationships and ultimately improve their competitiveness. Nowhere is this truer than in the Canadian wood products industry, where sales to its most important market, the USA, have recently been dwindling. The paper seeks to present how RV was adapted in this research context and extended over elements of scope, range of potential applications, scale of measurement, and computational techniques.Design/methodology/approachA multiple‐case study was undertaken and consisted of the evaluation of 58 customer relationships for three wood products manufacturers.FindingsFindings highlight the necessary distinction between "value for" and "value of" customers when measuring relationship value from a supply perspective. Based on the value and orientation of exchange, a new segmentation of customer relationships emerges which differentiates "questionable", "supportive", "promising", and "strategic" relationships.Originality/valueThe case study will serve in the development of value‐driven relationship management approaches, which are likely to become a major source of competitive advantage, not only in the wood products industry, but in business in general.

Several researchers have pointed out that if marketing is to develop as a discipline and contribute to solving complex business and societal challenges, it should question the neoclassical view of markets and develop its own theory of markets. Efforts in this direction indicate an emerging view of markets as dynamic, subjective, and subject to multiple change efforts. However, the neoclassical view of objective, detached, and deterministic market still influences the dominant models used to describe market change. We argue that in order to better understand market dynamics, both academics and practitioners need new concepts and constructs that go beyond existing linear process and development stage models. We seek to contribute to improved understanding of markets by studying a special characteristic of markets that enables market dynamics. Borrowing a term used by Alderson (1957: 277), we propose that markets are characterized by plasticity, that is, a "potentiality for being remolded and responding in a different way thereafter." Even though the plasticity concept was introduced into the marketing literature nearly 60 years ago, the plastic character of markets remains underresearched. This article investigates the meaning and manifestations of market plasticity, drawing analogies from the physical, natural, and social sciences. We define market plasticity as the market's capacity to take and retain form and propose that the dialectic between market stability and market fluidity lies at the heart of market change.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the use of value strategies among international and national firms in Brazil by exploring the trends in value strategies for use in future marketing relationships and the capabilities necessary to implement those value strategies.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses a Delphi technique to elicit the opinions and perceptions from a group of B2B marketing experts. An iterative data collection with 30 senior executives of national and foreign, mid‐ and large size firms in Brazil was used to explore the strategies firms use, the types of key capabilities, and the capabilities that drive performance.FindingsThe findings show that both national and international firms in Brazil expect to continue to use commodity strategies as their primary relational form, but move toward the higher value added strategies. Higher value added strategies are expected to account for 42 per cent of the respondent firms' relationships in the coming years. Firms rated "methods to identify and monitor" and "marketing intelligence" as the two most important capabilities for driving performance. An additional finding is the distinction between firms' self‐evaluations of capability competence and the capabilities that drive performance.Practical implicationsThe study provides insight into the links between value strategies practiced and the marketing capabilities required to support those strategies.Originality/valueThe study provides practitioner insights into the practices and trends in the use of value‐driving and value‐creating strategies among firms in a big emerging market, Brazil.