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Relative Presence of Business-to-Business Research in the MarketingLiteraturePeter J. LaPlaca a; Jerome M. Katrichis a

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WBBM1051-712X1547-0628Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing, Vol. 16, No. 1, January 2009: pp. 1–45Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing

Relative Presence of Business-to-Business Research in the Marketing Literature

Business-to-Business Research in the Marketing LiteratureP. J. LaPlaca and J. M. Katrichis

PETER J. LAPLACA and JEROME M. KATRICHISBarney School of Business, University of Hartford, West Hartford, Connecticut, USA

Relative to its contribution to the U.S. and other developed countrieseconomies, industrial and business-to-business marketing havebeen underrepresented in the marketing literature. To determinethe extent of this underrepresentation, the authors have evaluatedthirty-one marketing journals beginning with the initial publica-tion of the Journal of Marketing in 1936. Without the introductionof journals whose specific focus is industrial marketing, the under-representation would have been even more severe than it is cur-rently. Six general research areas were also looked at to determinewhat trends in industrial marketing research have existed. Theseareas are: buyer behavior, sales management, marketing relation-ships, innovation and new product development, marketing strategy,and channels of distribution.

KEYWORDS industrial marketing, business-to-business marketing,marketing literature

Most firms have at least some involvement in business-to business (B2B)marketing. Consumer products firms generally sell through a channel ofdistribution. Firms in the travel and lodging business court both leisure andbusiness travelers. Insurance companies, banks, telecommunicationsproviders, and utilities all serve both businesses and consumers. Media firmsdeliver audiences of consumers, but their revenue is earned from the adver-tising sold to businesses. Retail is probably the purest form of a consumer-only business and even many retailers (e.g., Staples, Home Depot, Sam’sClub) work hard to court the business buyer. Indeed, in the just over $13.8trillion per year U.S. economy (World Bank 2007), having total retail sales of

Address correspondence to Peter J. LaPlaca, Barney School of Business, University ofHartford, 200 Bloomfield Avenue, West Hartford, CT 06117, USA. E-mail: [email protected]

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2 P. J. LaPlaca and J. M. Katrichis

less than $4 trillion (U.S. Census Bureau 2007) per year would provide con-siderable evidence that B2B economic activity is at the very least a substan-tial portion of economic activity. Excluding expenditures by governmentalunits (an area often considered as B2B), the U.S. Department of Commerceestimates the B2B and business-to-consumer (B2C) components of the U.S.economy as almost identical (U.S. Department of Commerce 2002–2007).This is shown in Figure 1.

So, while many college marketing graduates obtain their initial job ina B2B setting, American colleges and universities have emphasized con-sumer markets and marketing in their programs for decades. Indeed, onlya small percentage of business schools even offer a “business marketing”or “industrial marketing” course in their catalogues. A survey in 1984 ofAACSB schools (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business)only found 140 professors that had taught an industrial or B2B marketingcourse in the previous two years.1 On the other hand, virtually all businessschools offer at least one course on consumer behavior, and many if not amajority of marketing faculty have taught consumer behavior during theircareers. Many of the selling and sales management courses offered do pre-pare students for selling positions that encompass B2B situations, butthese courses are seldom required for all marketing majors.

Is this bias in marketing curricula reflected in research in marketing aspresented in the marketing literature? Over the years many authors havesuggested that little difference exists between B2B and consumer marketing.For example, Fern and Brown (1984) contend that while the differences

FIGURE 1

Source: United States Department of Commerce E-Stats Reports: March 18, 2002, March 19, 2003, April15, 2004, May 11, 2005, May 26, 2006, and May 25, 2007

B2B and B2C Components of the US Economy

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B2CB2B


Business-to-Business Research in the Marketing Literature 3

between consumer and industrial buying may be apparent in the details,they are not so different when looking at the overall concepts involved inthe purchase decision making. While this may be true on the conceptuallevel, small changes in marketing implementation can, and often do, spellthe difference between success and failure. For example, while many B2Cand B2B purchase decisions are initiated to solve a felt need, B2C situa-tions are far more likely to involve emotional needs than are B2B buyingsituation. Another common difference is the number of people involvedwith the purchase decision with buying committees far more prevalent forB2B than for B2C. The differences may be small, but they are important.

Coviello and Brodie (2001) also argue that the differences betweenbusiness and consumer marketing are at best superficial and can be ignoredwhen developing overall marketing concepts. However, Ames (1970) pro-vides evidence that significant managerial differences exist for marketing tobusinesses and to consumers. This is reinforced by Håkansson and Snehota(1995) who argue that buyer–seller relationships are far more prevalent forB2B situations than for B2C, and these relationships are more complex, bal-anced, and of longer duration. Other articles (Avlonitis and Gounaris 1997;Parasuraman, Berry, and Zeithaml 1983; Cummings, Jackson, and Ostrom1984) find support for separating B2B and B2C marketing. Wilson andWoodside (2001) show that the context of B2B buying behavior is suffi-ciently different from that of B2C buying and the social and economicimpact of B2B marketing warrant specialized research into this field of mar-keting. However, other researchers offer evidence that the stated differencesbetween B2B and B2C are not important to the development of marketingtheory or implementation of marketing practice (see, e.g., Wilson 2000;Wilson and Woodside 2001; Andrus and Norvell 1990; Turley and Kelley1997; Kelly and Hise 1979; Dawes and Patterson 1988).

Regardless of whether a division between B2C and B2B marketingshould exist, never have any of these authors suggested it prudent to focusresearch on one area at the expense of the other. To do so would be likesuggesting that a thorough understanding of elephants could be had byexamining only the trunk. If, after all, they both illustrate one and the sameoverall set of marketing concepts, would not our understanding beenhanced by examining each domain? Indeed, given the necessity of apply-ing marketing theory to an every growing variation of situations, it wouldseem imperative that both industrial and consumer buying situations shouldbe explored to provide as much variation in environments, motivations, anddecision-making processes as possible to provide adequate tests for pro-posed marketing theories. Because most industrialized economies seemapproximately evenly split between B2B and B2C activities, it would seemlogical that published research in marketing should also be approximatelyequally divided. Yet as we show in this article such is not the case. Indeed,the bias that is present in the literature stems primarily from practical



considerations that have nothing whatsoever to do with theory development.Whether they are the same or not is not an issue. If you can generalizethings learned from consumer marketing and apply them equally to B2B,does it not follow logically that what is learned about B2B can be general-ized and applied to consumer marketing? If it is all just marketing, should itnot all be studied?

To determine the relative representation of B2B and B2C research inmarketing one would have to look at all journals containing marketingarticles and then ascertain which articles focused on the B2B marketingarena. We have been able to identify 147 marketing journals published inEnglish around the world and another 56 journals and other publicationswith substantial marketing content. To make the task required for thisproject more manageable, it was decided that a subset of journals wouldbe examined.

Few current marketing publications have existed for any extendedperiod of time. Very few existed before the 1970s and well over half of theones we have been able to identify have come into existence in just the pasttwo decades. We decided to look at marketing journals beginning in 1936with the initial publication of the Journal of Marketing, the second oldestmarketing journal. The oldest marketing journal, the Journal of Retailing,which began publication in 1925, is focused primarily on retailing and by itsvery nature does not regularly publish research concerning B2B marketing.2

We also included the Harvard Business Review from 1936 because this pub-lication has proven to be an excellent source of leading articles on market-ing and frequently rates highly on periodic evaluations of marketingjournals. It is also one of the oldest continuously published sources of arti-cles on marketing.

Additional general marketing journals were selected that haveappeared in numerous journal ranking studies over the past twentyyears. (See Bakir, Vitell, and Rose 2000; Bauerly and Johnson 2005;Baumgartner and Pieters 2003; Browne and Becker 1985, 1991; Cheng,Chan, and Chan 2003; Coe and Weinstock 1983; Ganesh, Chandy, andHenderson 1990; Gordon and Heischmidt 1992; Hawes and Keillor2002; Helm, Hunt, and Houston 2003; Heischmidt and Gordon 1993;Hult, Neese, and Bashaw 1997; Hult, Reimann, and Schilke 2008; Jobberand Simpson 1988; Lehman 2005; Theoharakis and Hirst 2002.) Many ofthese studies have been based in the United States and additional gen-eral marketing journals published in Europe were also selected. Finallythe seven journals focusing specifically on industrial or B2B marketingwere also included in the study. A complete list of examined journalswith article totals is shown in Table 1. Articles were classified as business-to-business if they specifically addressed a business-to-business topicarea or if they utilized a business-to-business setting or business personsample.



B2B IN THE MAINSTREAM MARKETING LITERATURE

Table 1 shows that the proportion of B2B articles in the vast majority ofmainstream marketing journals is quite low. In the seventy-one-year spancovered by this study, the twenty-four studied journals published a total of

TABLE 1 Journals Included in This Study

SymbolYear

startedTotal

articlesB2B

articles Percent

General Marketing JournalsAcademy of Marketing Sciences Review AMSR 1998 65 2 3.1European Journal of Innovation

ManagementEJIM 1998 176 18 10.2

European Journal of Marketing EJM 1967 1,718 144 8.4Harvard Business Review HBR 1936b 736 75 10.2International Journal of Research

in MarketingIJRM 1984 539 22 4.1

International Marketing Review IMR 1989 515 181 35.1Journal of Business Research JBR 1973 1,335 148 11.1Journal of Consumer Research JCR 1974 1,448 0 0Journal of Euro-marketing JEM 1991 300 5 1.7Journal of International Marketing JIM 1993 337 7 2.1Journal of Marketing JM 1936 2,367 163 6.8Journal of Marketing Practice JMP 1995–1999 84 9 10.7Journal of Marketing Research JMR 1964 2,034 51 2.5Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice JMTP 1992 394 15 3.8Journal of Personal Selling and Sales

ManagementJPSSM 1981 555 107 19.3

Journal of Product and Brand Management JPBM 1992 771 14 3.0Journal of Product Innovation Management JPIM 1984 584 75 12.8Journal of Public Policy & Marketing JPPM 1982 608 1 .2Journal of Relationship Marketing JRM 2002 91 39 42.9Journal of Services Marketing JSM 1989 543 6 1.1Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science JAMS 1973 1,136 46 4.0Marketing Intelligence and Planning MIP 1989 747 64 8.6Marketing Science MS 1982 706 9 1.3Pricing Strategy and Practice PSP 1993–97 64 3 0.5

Industrial Marketing JournalsAdvances in Business Marketing &

PurchasingABMP 1986a 141 131 92.9

Industrial Marketing & Purchasing IMP 1986–1988 28 28 100IMP Journal (online only) IMPG 2006 7 5 71.4Industrial Marketing Management IMM 1972 1,638 1638 100.0Journal of Business and Industrial

MarketingJBIM 1986 549 549 100.0

Journal of Business to Business Marketing JBBM 1993 130 130 100.0Journal of Customer Behavior JCB 2002 87 60 69.0

aABMP is an annual serial but has not published an issue in every year since 1986.bHBR started in 1923, but only issues published since 1936 are included in this study.



17,853 articles of which only 1,204 (6.7%) deal specifically with B2B market-ing. The coverage of B2B issues ranges from a low of 0% to a high of 42.9%with almost half of the selected journals below average.

In some cases it seems as if editors had hoped to cover B2B issuesmore extensively. The American Marketing Association was formed in 1936by the merger of the American Marketing Society and the National Associa-tion of Marketing Teachers and published the first issue of the Journal ofMarketing in July 1936. Of the nine articles in that inaugural issue, onedealt with industrial marketing (Lester 1936).3 Likewise, the second issuecontained one article out of eleven (Leigh 1936). The net result is that the10% of the articles published in that first year of the Journal of Marketingthat focused on industrial marketing would be a high watermark notsurpassed until 1949. Between 1936 and 2006 the Journal of Marketingpublished 2,367 articles of which only 163 (6.8%) dealt with industrial orB2B marketing.

Similarly, when the European Journal of Marketing (EJM) debuted in1967, four of the eleven articles published in its first year of publicationwere focused on industrial marketing. From this high of 36%, EJM soonresembled most mainstream marketing journals. From 1967 to 2006 EJMpublished 144 industrial marketing articles out of a total of 1,718 articlespublished representing only 8.4% of the total. The International MarketingReview (IMR) began publication in 1989. IMR has had a significant propor-tion (over 35%) of the 515 articles published since then that deal with indus-trial markets. And although this concentration has declined significantly in thepast four years, it represents the second highest concentration of industrial orB2B articles in any general marketing journal.

By contrast, the Journal of Marketing Research (JMR) was first pub-lished in 1964 and it was not until the fifth issue that an article dealing withindustrial marketing appeared (Simon 1965). In fact, the editor of JMRlamented the dearth of articles dealing with industrial marketing (Lotshaw1969). He found only one article in the previous sixty-three that was con-cerned with industrial marketing. In the forty-three years between 1964 and2006 JMR published 2,034 articles and only 51 (2.5%) focused specifically onindustrial marketing. While not specifically a marketing journal, the HarvardBusiness Review has proven to be a major source of literature influencingmarketing thought. Between 1936 and 2006 there were 736 articles dealingwith marketing. Of these, seventy-five (just over 10%) dealt specifically withindustrial marketing. The first article dealing specifically with industrial mar-keting appeared in 1937 (Moore 1937).

Clearly the dominating focus of the mainstream marketing journals onconsumer marketing does not reflect the almost equal mix of consumer andbusiness markets in the U.S. economy. One has to turn to a new set of mar-keting journals to find some means to begin restoring a balance of researchin marketing to reflect the overall economy.



B2B IN THE SPECIALIZED MARKETING LITERATURE

While the bulk of content in mainstream marketing journals continues tofavor consumer marketing, the overall bias in the literature seems tocontinue with specialized journals. Currently, a total of six journalsdevote the bulk of their content to industrial or B2B marketing. Startingin the spring of 2007 the Journal of Business Market Management,published by the Freie Universität Berlin. This journal also focuses onthe B2B arena. This contrasts with the fourteen English-language market-ing journals that specifically include the word consumer in their title.Because there is no exhaustive list of journals available in the yearscovered in the analysis and some journals may have been launched andperished in the interim, it is impossible to tell the exact proportion ofB2B versus B2C representation in the literature, except to note that thereare currently at least twice as many specialized journals devoted specifi-cally to B2C.

The number of journals that have focused on research concerningB2B marketing was quite limited for many years. It was not until 1972with the introduction of Industrial Marketing Management (IMM) that acontinuous stream of research on industrial marketing became avail-able. Originally IMM was the official publication of the European Asso-ciation for Industrial Marketing Research and was edited in Englandwith an entirely European editorial board. IMM moved to the UnitedStates in 1975 as a quarterly journal and now publishes eight issuesannually.

IMM was followed in 1986 by the Journal of Business andIndustrial Marketing (JBIM), which began as a quarterly journal andnow publishes seven issues a year, and Advances in Business Marketingand Purchasing (ABMP), an annual serial publication that has pub-lished thirteen volumes between 1986 and 2006. All of the articles inJBIM and all but ten of the articles in ABMP deal with industrial andB2B marketing.

The Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing began publicationin 1993 and is a quarterly publication. All of the 130 articles from 1993to 2006 are focused on industrial and B2B marketing. From 1986 to1988 Industrial Marketing & Purchasing published a total of sevenissues containing twenty-eight industrial marketing articles. It mergedwith the International Marketing Review (IMR) in 1988 and helpsaccount for the high percentage of industrial marketing article appear-ing in the IMR.

Another recent print journal with an emphasis on B2B marketing is theJournal of Customer Behaviour. Begun in 2002 this journal is publishedthree times a year and, while it does present some articles on consumerbuying, its primary emphasis is on how business customers buy. In 2006 the



Industrial Marketing & Purchasing Group (IMP) launched an electronicjournal (the IMP Journal). The first two issues of the IMP Journal containseven articles, five of which are focused in the B2B arena.

The six existing and one expired specialized marketing journals focus-ing on industrial marketing have together published 2,580 articles of which2,541 (98.5%) have focused on various marketing topics in the industrialand B2B sector.

It is clear from the information shown in Figure 2 that without theintroduction of specialized journals emphasizing researching of industrialmarket phenomena the development of a robust field of research into atleast half of our economic activity would not exist. (As an aside, the situa-tion for the field of e-commerce is even more unbalanced. B2B commerceon the Web represents over 97% of all Web transactions [U.S. Department ofCommerce 2003/2005] yet the vast majority of research on e-commerce isconcerned with consumer transactions.)

It is interesting to note that rather than siphon off the industrial andB2B research from the mainstream journals, the appearance of B2B topics inmainstream journals has actually increased since the introduction of the spe-cialized journals. Prior to 1972 (the introduction of IMM), only 5.4% (144 of2,660) of the articles in the four selected journals that existed prior to thattime were devoted to B2B topics. That number rose to 6.9% (289 of 4,195)in those same four publications since then. Interestingly, this is very close tothe 7% (771 of 10,998) total of the twenty journals included in the study thatwere launched since that time.

FIGURE 2

Industrial Marketing Articles as a Percentage of All Marketing Articles

0.00%

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Ratio of IM articles to all marketing articles excluding IMM, JBIM, JBBM, ABMP, IM&P, IMP Journal and

Introduction of IMM, the first journal focusing on industrial marketing

Ratio of IM articles to allmarketing articles includingall journals in the study



AREAS OF RESEARCH IN INDUSTRIAL MARKETING

Clearly the discipline of marketing has continued to mature as evidenced bythe increasing number of journals available to researchers (see Figure 3).These numerous journals, especially the ones that have been focused onindustrial marketing, have lead to a significant increase in the number of arti-cles published each year (Reid and Plank 2000). There are now more industrialmarketing articles published each year than the Journal of Marketing has pub-lished in its entire history. As shown in Figure 4, there has been an average of200 newly published articles on industrial marketing published in each of thepast four years, and as new journals appear this healthy trend will continue.

While the percentage of published articles in marketing dealing withindustrial and B2B topics is still small, the number of articles has grownenormously. We next sought to determine whether the growth was theresult of whole new research areas or if it was caused simply by a propor-tional increase in previously researched areas. Table 2 shows the 74 specificresearch topics we identified. These were grouped into 28 general researchareas and were further condensed into six major research groups, includingsales management, buyer behavior, relationships, innovation and new prod-uct development (NPD), marketing strategy, and channels and distribution(plus an area for other topics). Figure 5 shows the relative frequencies ofthe 27 general areas of research.

The two most frequently published research areas are buying behaviorand sales management. The earliest published research in industrial buying

FIGURE 3

Number of Journals Containing Industrial MarketingArticles and When They Started Publication

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HBR & JM JMR

EJM IMM

JBRJAMS JPSSM

JPPMMS

IJRMJPIM

ABMPJBIMIMP

MIP

JMTP JPBM

EJIM

JCBJRM

JMP

IMPG

JCR

JEMIMRJSM

JBBMJIMPSP

AMSR



behavior was in the Harvard Business Review (Lewis 1936). This articlepresented an analysis of alternative methods of measuring the effectivenessof corporate purchasing departments. Although the highest number of arti-cles in the journals studied dealing with industrial buying behavior was only26 in 1992, the consistent stream of published research in this general areahas resulted in it being the most frequently published area of research inindustrial marketing. Over the seventy-one years included in this study,there was at least one article dealing with industrial buying behavior in fiftyyears, more years than any other of the general research areas. Overall,published research in the general area of industrial buying behavior repre-sented 13.65% of all industrial marketing articles between 1936 and 2006.

Overall, the sales management area represented 13.5% of the B2B arti-cles published. When combined with the general research area of manufac-turers’ representatives the sales management major research grouprepresented nearly 14% of all of the industrial marketing articles in thejournals studied. The first article included in this general area was also inthe Harvard Business Review (Moore 1937) and looked at the impact of var-ious merchandising techniques on selling practices for industrial equipment.Research in industrial sales management has also been fairly consistent overthe span of this study with at least one article appearing in forty-five of theseventy-one years (see Figure 6).

The only area that stands out in terms of proportional growth is thearea of marketing relationships. While an article on marketing networks andrelationships appeared as early as 1940 in the Journal of Marketing (Trynin1940), research on marketing relationships really took off in the mid 1990s.

FIGURE 4

Total Published Articles Dealing With Industrial Marketing1936–2006

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Introduction ofIndustrialMarketing

Management



Between 2004 and 2006 there were 145 articles published dealing withsome aspect of marketing relationships in industrial or B2B applications inthe selected journals. This was more than the number of articles concernedwith industrial buyer behavior, industrial sales management, and industrialinnovation and new product development combined. Several factors havecontributed to the growth of research into marketing relationships. On the

TABLE 2 Research Areas and Topics Used in This Study

Research groups

General research areas Specific research topics

Sales Management

Manufacturers Reps Manufactures representatives, sales representatives

Sales Management Sales management, selling, telemarketing, trade practices, trade shows

Buyer Behavior

Buying Behavior Buyer behavior, buying center, procurement,purchasing, customer satisfaction

Relationships Customer RelationshipManagement

CRM, national accounts, key accounts

Marketing Relationships

Buyer–seller relationships, marketing relationships

Networks Networks, alliancesInnovation and

NPDInnovation Adoption, diffusion, innovationNew Product

DevelopmentNPD processes, NPD systems

Marketing Strategy

Marketing Management

Evaluating marketing, marketing control, marketing effectiveness, marketing organizations, marketing systems

Marketing Strategy Marketing planning, marketing strategyChannels and

DistributionDistribution Channel management, distribution, logistics

Other Areas Communications General communications, advertising, promotionsGlobal Marketing Global marketing, exporting, countertrade/barter,

developing countriesComputers in

MarketingComputers in marketing, expert systems,

information systemsDirect Marketing Direct marketing, direct mailEconomics, Applied Economics applied to industrial marketsE-Commerce E-commerce, Internet marketing, Web-based

marketingHigh Tech Marketing Marketing of high tech industrial productsMacro Marketing Entrepreneurial marketing, environmental (green)

marketing, ethics, industrial marketing (general), marketing processes

Marketing Research Analytical techniques, questionnaires, surveysMarketing Theory Marketing theoryPricing Auctions, bidding, pricing, reverse auctionsProduct Management Product management, product life cycleQuality Product quality, TQM, Six SigmaForecasting Demand estimation, sales forecasting, technology

forecastingSegmentation Market segmentationServices Industrial services, business servicesSupply Chains Supply chains



B2C side there has been a tremendous interest in relationship marketing.While most of this interest has been in customer relationship managementand how B2C companies can use information technology to improve rela-tionships with specific customers, a fair share of the research has involvedB2B companies and their relationships with business customers. For

FIGURE 5

Relative Frequency of Research Topics1936–2006

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14CommunicationsBuying BehaviorGlobal Marketing

Computers in MarketingCustomer Relationship Management

Direct MarketingDistribution

Economics, AppliedE-Commerce

High Tech MarketingInnovation

Macro MarketingMarketing Management

Manufacturers RepsMarketing Relationships

Marketing ResearchMarketing Strategy

Marketing TheoryNetworks

New Product DevelopmentPricing

Product ManagementForecasting

Sales ManagementSegmentation

ServicesSupply Chains

FIGURE 6

Relative Areas of IM Research

505 500 501

407

297231

1387

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

SalesManagement

Buyer Behavior Relationships Innovation andNPD

MarketingStrategy

Channels andDistribution

Other Topics

Num

ber o

f Art

icle

s Pu

blis

hed

14.76% 14.61% 14.64%11.89%

8.68%6.75%

40.53%



example, one of the earliest customer relationship management (CRM)articles to focus on industrial customers appeared in Industrial MarketingManagement in 1976. In “Use of Customer Analysis for Better MarketPenetration,” Robert Hartley (1976) discusses the use of customer data todetermine such items as customer purchase concentration, individual cus-tomer profitability, trends affecting individual customers, and identificationof lost customers and the reasons for their defections. From this beginningof a single article in 1976, research in industrial CRM has grown to as manyas 34 articles published between 2004 and 2006. The establishment of theCustomer Relationship Management Association (CRMA) in 20004 and itstremendous growth are indicative of the interest in advancing the science ofmarketing relationships.

Another component in the rise of research in industrial marketing rela-tionships has been a strong interest in key account management for industrialsales situations. The National Accounts Management Association (NAMA)5

was founded in 1964 and has grown to over 3,000 members. While primarilya practitioner organization, NAMA (now the Strategic Accounts ManagementAssociation [SAMA]) has through its members helped many academicresearchers conduct research into national account relationship management.

A third factor has been the growth of the Industrial Marketing andPurchasing Group (IMP) in Europe.6 This group of over 200 academicresearchers from throughout Europe has focused almost entirely on rela-tionships and networks between business entities. In addition to its annualconference, IMP members contribute hundreds of papers, available on itsWeb site, as well as many papers published in Industrial Marketing Man-agement, Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing, European Journal ofMarketing, and the Journal of Relationship Marketing. With the introductionof the new Web-based IMP Journal in 2006, we can expect the contributionof IMP researchers to continue to grow and add to the body of knowledgeconcerning industrial marketing in general and marketing relationshipsmore specifically.

The next three general areas within which researchers have focusedtheir efforts are: innovation and new product development, industrial mar-keting strategy, and channels of distribution (see Figure 7 and Figure 8).With the introduction of the Journal of Product Innovation Management(JPIM) in 1984 the number of published research studies into innovationand new product development dramatically increased. While most of thearticles published in JPIM deal with the general new product developmentprocess (i.e., applicable to new product development for both consumerand industrial goods and services), a significant proportion were focusedspecifically on industrial products and services. However, it has been Indus-trial Marketing Management that has provided the highest number of inno-vation and new product development articles that have focused on theseprocesses for industrial goods and services. In fact, the 168 articles in IMM



more than double the 69 that have appeared in JPIM. Taken together thesetwo publications have provided well over half of all published articles deal-ing with innovation and NPD for industrial goods and services in the studyjournals between 1936 and 2006.

By its very nature marketing strategy is a general topic and much ofthe writing in marketing strategy can be applied to both consumer andbusiness markets. Nevertheless, articles that have focused on specificapplications of marketing strategy to B2B situations have appeared in theselected journals a total of 297 times in the study period. This representsover 8.5% of all of the industrial marketing articles. From an early articlediscussing marketing strategy for machine tool builders under war condi-tions (Hurley 1941), authors have presented a wide spectrum of market-ing strategies in diverse environments faced by industrial marketersincluding the impact of regulation, dealing with scarcity of supply, buyersmarkets and sellers markets, and a host of factors impacting specificindustries.

The last general research area that has accounted for at least 5% of thearticles identified as focusing on industrial marketing is channels of distribution.

FIGURE 7

Comparison of Research in Industrial Distribution, Industrial MarketingStrategy and Industrial New Product Development

02468

101214161820

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DistributionNew Product DevelopmentMarketing Strategy

FIGURE 8

Comparison of Buyer Behavior, Marketing Relationships and SalesManagement Research

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25

30

35

40

45

1936

1938

1940

1942

1944

1946

1948

1950

1952

1954

1956

1958

1960

1962

1964

1966

1968

1970

1972

1974

1976

1978

1980

1982

1984

1986

1988

1990

1992

1994

1996

1998

2000

2002

2004

2006

Buying BehaviorMarketing RelationshipsSales Management



There were 231 articles concerned with various aspects of industrial channelmanagement in the selected journals between 1936 and 2006.

Figure 9 shows the relative concentration of the six general researchareas over the seventy-one years covered in this study. Prior to 1972 therewere so few articles published that looking at which of the six areas wasrelatively more frequent is not a meaningful exercise. However, following1972 and the introduction of journals focusing on industrial marketing onecan see definite trends (Johnson and Lewin 1997; LaPlaca 1997;Lichtenthal, Wilson, and Long 1997; Plank 1997). Published research onindustrial channels of distribution has been consistently the smallest areaof interest over the years. Prior to 1996, buyer behavior and sales manage-ment had been the two most frequent areas of research. In 1996 more arti-cles were published dealing with networks and relationships than anyother topic and this general area has been the most frequently researchedone since then.

DISCUSSION

Clearly we can see that interest in industrial and B2B marketing, as evi-denced by published research in marketing journals, does not reflect the rel-ative economic importance of B2B activities. Published research in

FIGURE 9

Relative Concentration of General Research AreasAnnually 1936–2006

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

1936

1938

1940

1942

1944

1946

1948

1950

1952

1954

1956

1958

1960

1962

1964

1966

1968

1970

1972

1974

1976

1978

1980

1982

1984

1986

1988

1990

1992

1994

1996

1998

2000

2002

2004

2006

Sales ManagementRelationships

Marketing Strategy

Buyer BehaviorInnovation and NPD

Channels and Distribution



consumer marketing is far more numerous than is published research inbusiness marketing. Whether or not a distinction between B2B and B2C isappropriate, if we are to gain a thorough understanding of the phenomenaof marketing, we must examine it in all its venues and domains. If it is alljust marketing it should all be studied.

There are a number of practical issues that contribute to the bias in ourdiscipline in favor of consumer over industrial marketing. It begins withwhat draws people to our discipline in the first place. Few of us are drawnto the discipline because of a passion to discuss ball bearings and materialhandling equipment. Most of us were initially drawn to the disciplinebecause of our experience as consumers. While many of us have overcomethat initial draw and became fascinated by the complexity of industrial mar-keting, our students are far more familiar with the music players, beer, bas-ketball footwear, and sports cars that are central to their consumptionexperiences. As academics, we are a species propagated by the demand forour (primarily undergraduate) courses, so as long as students are moreinterested in consumer marketing, there will be more consumer specialistson our faculties than industrial specialists.

The tenure clock also tends to be kinder to those researching consumertopics. It is simply easier to obtain data for consumer-oriented studies thanit is for industrial or other B2B environments. This ranges from the availabil-ity and enormous supply of scanner data to the availability of human sub-jects in our classrooms. Any subjects or informants in an industrial studywould be equally qualified as subjects or informants in a consumer study.The opposite is rarely true. Because industrial purchasing tends to be morecomplex, just describing the sample and purchase context of an industrialstudy can add length to a manuscript, creating an unfavorable length tocontribution comparison to a similar consumer study.

There is no easy solution to correcting this imbalance in the literaturebetween consumer and industrial marketing. Part of the solution is just therecognition that different disciplines, and even parts of disciplines, havevery different challenges to overcome. Cognitive psychologists have differ-ent challenges than social psychologists and they both have different chal-lenges than sociologists and anthropologists. They just need to overcomethem differently. The predominant paradigm in any field is very likelydriven to at least some extent by practical expediency.

The imbalance can also be addressed by making research undertakingsmore practical. This could be accomplished by creating data sources similarto consumer scanner data for industrial products. Such an undertakingcould be most likely accomplished through professional and industry asso-ciations. Further research that combines interest in B2B markets and two ormore additional areas of management concern, such as strategic manage-ment or new product development, can open up additional opportunitiesfor cooperative research and can direct research findings to a broader field



of academic journals. This could stimulate more interest and research intoaspects of B2B marketing and, therefore, further develop the field.

The most important step that can be taken to address the imbalance isthrough promotion. One important promotional step was the creation ofnew journals and research outlets for industrial marketing. Without theseven journals that have specialized in the field, the presence of publishedresearch in industrial marketing would continue to underrepresent the sig-nificance of B2B activities in our economies. Indeed, if additional marketingjournals had been included in this study, the proportion of industrialresearch articles would have been even lower. Hopefully the new industrialmarketing journal that will soon appear will help provide a more appropri-ate representation of the field, but as new outlets appear for publishingindustrial marketing research, new journals will also appear that focus onconsumer marketing. Those researching industrial and B2B marketing willhave to maintain their efforts and continue to advance the field as much aspossible. Industrial marketing scholars must also, to at least some extent,become consumer marketers and promote their product to their ultimateconsumers, their students. We must make students aware of the intricaciesand opportunities in industrial marketing.

IMPLICATIONS FOR BUSINESS MARKETING PRACTITIONERS

While the primary audience for an article such as this is B2B marketingacademics, there are considerable implications to be found in it for thebusiness marketing practitioner as well. When exposed to marketing the-ory, a common sentiment among business marketers is, “that may be truein theory, but you don’t know my business.” Such a sentiment does havesome basis in reality. In general, marketing theory does apply equally toboth business-to-business and consumer marketing, but our theories andknowledge regarding business-to-business marketing paint a ratherincomplete picture relative to the picture they paint for consumer firms.Given that only about 7% of our knowledge base as a discipline has beenderived from the study of business markets, it is true that we really don’tknow your business, or at least, not as well as we know the business ofyour peers in consumer firms. This has implications for both how muchguidance the discipline can give to business marketers and how well wecan prepare students to take on instrumental roles in firms engaged inbusiness marketing.

What steps can the practitioner take to help rectify this imbalance?There are two primary stumbling blocks to our knowledge developmentregarding business-to-business marketing. The first is the issue of dataavailability within the domains of business-to-business marketing and thesecond is the issue of the popularity of business marketing relative to



consumer marketing among students. Fortunately, business-to-businessmarketers can help with both issues.

The data availability issue can be addressed in a number of ways andon a number of levels. First, on an individual level, business-to-businessmarketers can help simply by being more responsive to requests for infor-mation. This is also the simplest way that business-to-business marketerscan be of help. Second, this issue can be addressed at the firm level.Businesses involved in business marketing are also customers of businessmarketing. Within their own firms business marketers can help by promot-ing an attitude of responsiveness to requests for information.

Researchers in the area of consumer marketing have widespread accessto large ongoing databases of information and this has been instrumental infueling the growth of research in consumer markets. There are no corre-sponding readily available databases in business markets. There is little thatan individual can do in this respect, but there is much that firms, industries,and trade associations can do. Firms can make their customer databasesavailable to researchers (with disguised or deleted customer names, ofcourse). Business marketers need to be more supportive of efforts by theseassociations to create and maintain similar databases, not only for the sakeof academic inquiry but also because they can help the business marketerunderstand their own businesses better. Once collected and disseminated,such information should also be made available to those involved in aca-demic inquiry.

Assistance in promoting the popularity of business marketing to stu-dents is probably the easiest area where business marketers can be of assis-tance, and probably the area where the most immediate payback can occurfor business marketers. We are in the business of educating and preparingstudents of business marketing and the more academics and practitionersshare that responsibility the better will be the results. Practitioners can assistin that endeavor in a number of ways. The first way they can help is by vis-iting our classrooms. Nothing makes material come alive for students betterthan real-world applications. Participating in student projects and beingavailable as guest speakers in classes goes a long way in generating excite-ment among students. A second and less obvious way to help promote thepopularity of business marketing among students is by sponsoring intern-ships and scholarships. Students come back to the classroom after intern-ship opportunities and help spread the word to other students regarding theopportunities they have experienced and seen. If you or your firm or tradeor industry association is considering sponsoring a scholarship, those schol-arships can be designated for specific majors and even for specific interestswithin majors.

Finally, a simple fact of academic life is that academics can’t exist with-out publications and publications can’t exist without publication outlets. Inturn, publication outlets can’t exist without the revenue that is produced by



subscriptions. While it is certain to sound self-serving coming from such apublication, practitioner support of this and publications like it through thesimple subscription process are essential to the growth and vitality of busi-ness-to-business marketing theory. The growth in the number of publishedarticles on business marketing is completely tied to the growth in the num-ber of publications. The growth of our knowledge base on business market-ing is completely reliant on it and continued support in this regard issomething that is greatly appreciated, not only by this publication but alsoby all academics involved in this line of inquiry. Practitioners can help inthis regard by considering subscriptions in as many publications as theirbudgets will allow.

NOTES

1. Survey undertaken by the author to promote a textbook written for a major publisher.2. While the Journal of Retailing seemed an obvious “straw man” and was not included in the

sample of journals for analysis, 2.9% of the articles published since its inception have dealt with B2Bissues. Such a proportion is below average, but several of the presumably more general journalsincluded in this study scored lower.

3. Mr. Lester was assistant industrial sales manager at Westinghouse Electric & ManufacturingCompany.

4. For more information, see the CRMA Web site at http://crmassociation.org/5. For information about SAMA in Europe, see the SAMA Web site at http://www.strategicac-

counts.org/public/about/mission.asp. For information about SAMA in the United States, see http://www.strategicaccounts.org/public/europe/index.asp

6. For more information, see the IMP Web site at http://www.impgroup.org/

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relative presence of business-to-business research in the marketing literature

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