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GUEST EDITORIAL Digital

marketing and
B2B
Digital marketing and business- relationships

to-business relationships: a close 1161

look at the interface and a Received 7 April 2020

roadmap for the future Revised 9 April 2020

Accepted 9 April 2020

Charles Hofacker
Department of Marketing, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA
Ismail Golgeci
Department of Business Development and Technology, Aarhus Universitet,
Herning, Denmark
Kishore Gopalakrishna Pillai
Amrita School of Business, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore, India, and
David Marius Gligor
Department of Marketing, University of Mississippi, Oxford, Mississippi, USA

Abstract
Purpose – This study aims to introduce the special issue on digital marketing and business-to-business
(B2B) relationships. In general, only modest attention has been devoted to the study of digitalization in the B2B
sector and even less on the importance of the perils and promises of digitalization for B2B relationships. This
study’s goal is to help focus scholarly attention on the implications of digitalization on B2B relationships.
Design/methodology/approach – In this conceptual paper, the authors’ approach is to carefully review
relevant literature, and to lay out the field of digital marketing and B2B relationships, conceptualizing it for
future research.
Findings – The authors find that the following areas are critically important to understanding future trends
in digital marketing and B2B relationships: coopetition, value co-creation, B2B branding, servitization,
innovation networks, relationship dynamics and power and trust.
Originality/value – The intersection of digitalization and B2B relationships is an under-researched topic.
With this paper and the accompanying special issues papers, the authors hope to begin to fill this critical gap.
Keywords Digital marketing, Relationship marketing, Business-to-business marketing, Digitalization
Paper type Editorial

Introduction
Digitalization is a pervasive force in the marketplace (Hofacker et al., 2016). Along with (big)
data analytics, digital marketing now occupies a central place in marketing research and European Journal of Marketing
practice. Not surprisingly, over the past couple of decades, a large body of research has Vol. 54 No. 6, 2020
pp. 1161-1179
examined digitalization and its implications for marketing theory. However, much of this © Emerald Publishing Limited
0309-0566
research has focused on the implications of digitalization on business-to-consumer (B2C) DOI 10.1108/EJM-04-2020-0247
EJM marketing. Among the critical areas examined by scholars include online/mobile retailing
54,6 (Pagani et al., 2019; Shankar et al., 2010), online advertising (Goldfarb and Tucker, 2011),
online branding (Murphy and Scharl, 2007), online reviews (Sparks and Browning, 2011),
online communities (Park et al., 2018) and gamification (Hofacker et al., 2016). Compared to
this stream of research, much less attention has been devoted to the study of digitalization in
the business-to-business (B2B) sector. Recent developments in digitalization hold
1162 considerable promise for B2B relationships (Kannan, 2017). There are also threats that need
better understanding. Consequently, the purpose of this special issue is to focus scholarly
attention on the implications of digitalization on B2B relationships.

Emergent domain of digital marketing vis-à-vis business-to-business

marketing
Scholars started examining the implications of digitalization on B2B marketing in the 1990s,
and research in this stream came to the fore by the turn of the century. Early research noted
the implications of digitalization on fundamental relationship issues in the B2B context such
as relationship evolution and trust (Pavlou, 2002) and the reversion to transactional
orientation from a relational orientation (Sharma and Pillai, 2003). B2B exchanges and
market places, given their potential to disrupt the prevailing market structure, attracted
considerable scholarly attention during this time (Day et al., 2003; Kandampully, 2003; Pillai
and Sharma, 2004). Technological aspects of digital relationships such as customer
relationship management in B2B e-commerce (Zeng et al., 2003) and technology adoption
(Pires and Aisbett, 2003) were among other topics studied.
Subsequently, a large body of research examined these and other pertinent issues such as
digital branding in the B2B sector (Kuhn et al., 2008; Lipiäinen and Karjaluoto, 2015). A
discernible trend during this period was the broadening of the cultural context of inquiry
with studies being conducted in non-US countries (Gurau, 2007). Additionally, dictated by
the evolution of technology, new themes of scholarly inquiry emerged. For example, recent
research has examined issues such as harnessing automation for B2B content marketing
(Järvinen and Taiminen, 2016), adoption of big data technology for innovation in B2B
marketing (Wright et al., 2019) and determinants of social media adoption by B2B
organizations (Siamagka et al., 2015).

Role of digitalization in business-to-business relationships

As noted above, B2B relationships have not escaped the overwhelming transformative force
of digitalization that has been upending the way markets function and the way customers
behave and make sense of firms’ value offerings (Confos and Davis, 2016; Kannan, 2017;
Vendrell-Herrero et al., 2017). Artificial intelligence, blockchain, data security/integrity,
internet of things and big data analytics are just some possible digital trends that can shape
how B2B relationships are understood and managed. Below we delve specifically into
important research domains in B2B marketing and discuss what role digitalization and
digital marketing can play in each domain. Some of these domains, such as coopetition and
servitization, represent emergent themes in B2B marketing research, while others, such as
relationship dynamics and power/trust concepts, have traditionally constituted fundamental
research streams. Nonetheless, they are all subject to a pervasive influence of digitalization
and digital marketing, and thus, have the potential to be extensively informed by research
tackling the digitalization–B2B marketing interface. Figure 1 shows the important domains
of B2B relationships where different aspects of digitalization and digital marketing have a
strong potential to influence.
 It needs to be clarified here that we use the term digital marketing and B2B relationship Digital
broadly. Thus, by former, we denote trends in digitalization, such as the emergence of marketing and
blockchain, which might not yet be a marketing channel or a medium of communication, but
have important implications for digital marketing. Similarly, regarding the latter, our focus
B2B
is on the broader context of the B2B sector, where relationships contribute to value creation relationships
and go beyond the specific relational dynamics or relationship-specific factors.
1163
Coopetition
Coopetition is a dynamic and paradoxical manifestation of simultaneous competition and
cooperation between B2B partners (Rai, 2016; Raza-Ullah et al., 2014). In the sophisticated
world of B2B relationships, coopetition is a prevalent practical phenomenon and
increasingly recognized research domain (Bengtsson and Kock, 2014). Because of
technological advancements and the increasing connectedness of the global marketplace,
firms are compelled to compete with their partners and collaborate with their competitors
(Gnyawali and Park, 2009; Gnyawali and Park, 2011). As such, coopetition is virtually an
inevitable component of B2B relationships and is subject to a strong influence of
digitalization, given its dynamic and paradoxical nature.
Research on coopetition in B2B relationships is rapidly developing and taking a new
mold in light of the recent developments in the global marketplace. For example, coopetition-
based business models and organizing coopetition for innovation are influenced by digital
platforms and emergent digital technologies (Ritala et al., 2014; Yami and Nemeh, 2014). As
new digital technologies emerge, firms find new ways to access and use information, and
such developments influence both means of collaboration and competition across
organizational boundaries.
Coopetition has been traditionally prompted and sustained by the geographical
proximity of competitors (Rivera et al., 2016). For example, industry evidence indicates that
governments have been devoting significant resources to the creation of logistics clusters.
Such clusters have allowed competitors to both compete and collaborate to generate wealth
within a particular geographical area by facilitating the pooling of logistics capabilities
(Sheffi, 2012b). Similarly, industrial clusters have facilitated interfirm networking and the
pooling of various resources through co-locating (Sheffi, 2012a).
However, the co-locating aspects of such logistics and industrial clusters have also
created unwanted interdependence among the participating firms (Rivera et al., 2016). Firms
have to devote significant resources to re(locate) their operations to such clusters. Further,
once firms re(locate) their operations to take advantage of coopetition opportunities, it

Figure 1.
Major B2B research
domains that are
(likely to) be
influenced by digital
marketing
EJM becomes more difficult to leave in the future should their strategic needs dictate it. That is
54,6 because of the sunken resources and interdependencies created with other firms in the
respective clusters. Digitalization can help address some of these challenges associated with
co-location. Specifically, it can allow firms to engage in various forms of coopetition without
the need for physical co-location by enabling virtual co-location (Iyer and Pazgal, 2003). As
such, firms can not only reduce the initial sunk cost of engaging in coopetition by physically
1164 locating operations to a logistics or industrial cluster, but also reduce inherent
interdependencies resulting from physical colocation while facilitating new forms of
coopetition.

Value co-creation
Value creation is at the epicenter of marketing (Woodruff, 1997). Along with the research on
service-dominant logic (Grönroos and Voima, 2013; Vargo et al., 2008), B2B marketing
research has a strong emphasis on value co-creation as an interactive set of business
activities across B2B partners and customers that are aimed at creating superior customer
value creation and use experience (Cossío-Silva et al., 2016; Jaakkola and Hakanen, 2013;
Ramaswamy and Ozcan, 2018). In fact, the essence of B2B marketing is embedded in the
notion that suppliers and customers work together to create superior value that cannot
singlehandedly be provided by suppliers.
As the digitalization and related technological advancements drive the next era of
business value creation, we argue that digital marketing can fundamentally shape how
value is co-created and how customers experience value co-creation. The fact that today
value is dominantly seen through intangible attributes rather than tangible benefits (Vargo
et al., 2008) highlights the potential role of digitalization and digital technologies in B2B
value co-creation. While the use of digital technologies such as the internet of things and
blockchain can enhance value co-creation activities and eliminate human involvement in
mechanistic processes leading to greater value, they also are likely to raise new challenges
that would amplify the soft behavioral aspects of B2B relationships. In this vein, extant
research has noted that digitalization provides new opportunities for value co-creation but
also harbors threats that firms cannot address with existing business models (Ehret and
Wirtz, 2017).
Furthermore, the increasing use of digital technologies in B2B relationships can help
transcend challenges related to time and space discontinuities in interorganizational
collaborations to co-create value. Digital e-commerce sites such as Alibaba, Amazon and
eBay are not only digital marketplaces for buyer–supplier transactions but are increasingly
used as a rich platforms for multifaceted collaboration across different geographies and time
zones to co-create relevant value, because of better use of data analytics, increasingly
sophisticated online services and buyers’ and sellers’ improving capabilities to use such
platforms. Likewise, new digital technologies such as partner relationship management
systems and computer-mediated communications can facilitate B2B relationships in the
pursuit of value co-creation (Obal and Lancioni, 2013).
The core premise of value co-creation is customers’ engagement in dialog with suppliers
during each stage of value design, creation and delivery (Payne et al., 2008). Digital
technologies can not only facilitate buyer–supplier communication for value co-creation but
also shape the way it is executed. Blockchain can help keep track of and integrate each
value-creating activity, while reducing the need for manual monitoring by B2B partners
(Queiroz et al., 2019).
Business-to-business branding Digital
Brands have been the primary means for customers to identify and recognize a firm’s marketing and
offerings and for firms to be influential in shaping customers’ beliefs and actions and deliver
functional, emotional and self-expressive benefits (Ramaswamy and Ozcan, 2016). Brand
B2B
mechanisms also engender and facilitate buyer–supplier relationships, as brands enable relationships
obtaining a priori information about potential partners, help achieve legitimacy, support
reputations and establish expectations for engaging in B2B exchange (Czinkota et al., 2014;
Leek and Christodoulides, 2011). Although branding has traditionally been examined more 1165
extensively in B2C settings (Confos and Davis, 2016; Lee et al., 2017; Pappu and Quester,
2016), B2B research has recently acknowledged its importance and made significant
inquiries into its role in B2B markets (Leek and Christodoulides, 2011).
For B2B branding to be effective, all the stakeholders must share a common and unified
perception of the brand (Leek and Christodoulides, 2011). While smaller B2B firms may rely
more on face-to-face interactions with customers to promote their brands, larger firms may
need to rely on alternative ways of communicating the brand (Bengtsson and Servais, 2005).
Digitalization can help firms address these issues by helping to provide the platform to
deliver a cohesive brand image to all stakeholders. Recent research shows that digital media
can be a crucial enabler of B2B branding (Lipiäinen and Karjaluoto, 2015). Industry
examples supplement academic evidence.
Digitalization has also increased competition and has further pushed firms to seek
unique ways to distinguish themselves in the B2B market (Hsiao and Chen, 2013). Further, it
has changed how B2B branding is executed. In fact, digital interactions are quickly
replacing the traditional salespeople contacts that have long been the hallmark of B2B
branding (Zahay et al., 2015). The rise of digital media has made brand building
multidirectional. Firms and their business customers are interconnected, can contribute to
online discussions and create and exchange content (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2010). Social
media allows authentic, experiential stories to be told by business customers, not just for
marketing messages to be delivered by firms. As such, digitalization allows for
conversations around the brand, as opposed to the pushing of marketing messages (Österle
et al., 2018). In essence, because of digitalization, B2B branding is co-created with business
customers.

Servitization
Servitization can be seen as a business trend and a set of transformative business processes
that go in line with digitalization (Coreynen et al., 2017). Servitization covers an important
domain in B2B marketing, as it involves deep and extensive collaboration with multiple
suppliers, partners and customers in product–service networks (Jaakkola and Hakanen,
2013; Windahl and Lakemond, 2006). B2B markets are heavily populated by firms that have
traditionally developed product-centered customer value with product-driven marketing
logic. However, many of such firms are undergoing a serious servitization transformation to
respond to market demands that have direct implications for B2B relationships.
In developed countries, more than two-thirds of product firms have adopted a
servitization strategy (Neely, 2008). This allows firms to differentiate their offerings further
and boost customer engagement. Servitization enhances the firm’s innovative capabilities
and creates further value at the customer level by allowing the firm to offer a balance of
services and products (Visnjic and Van Looy, 2013). However, firms must be cautious that
firm performance might not necessarily improve through the addition of services
(Benedettini et al., 2017). Threats, such as new competitor entry or product life cycle, can
negatively impact a firm’s ability to derive value from service implementation (Cusumano
EJM et al., 2015). Further, digital technology disrupts the way firms offer their products and
54,6 services. For example, such technologies can lead to higher unemployment as the need for
human intervention is reduced (Brynjolfsson and Mcafee, 2011).
Digitalization plays a crucial role in servitization (Vendrell-Herrero et al., 2017). In fact, a
growing stream of research examines the role of digital technologies in servitized products
under the umbrella of digital servitization (Vendrell-Herrero and Wilson, 2017). In sum,
1166 digital servitization can be defined as the offering of digital services rooted in a physical
product (Holmström and Partanen, 2014). While digital services are both an enabler and a
driver of servitization (Vendrell-Herrero et al., 2017), digitalization also poses a couple of
challenges to servitization. First, once they are created, digital services have a very low cost
of producing new units. While this might be viewed favorably by the seller firm, it might
also reduce the customers’ perception of value offering (Rifkin, 2014). Second, digital
services can cannibalize or substitute traditional products (Greenstein, 2010). As such, B2B
firms must also pay close attention to these challenges to ensure they truly benefit from
digitalization.

Innovation networks
Innovation networks are loosely coupled systems of autonomous firms (Dhanaraj and
Parkhe, 2006), and they “encompass a number of cooperative relationships between firms,
with constituent members engaged in innovation-supporting activities ranging from R&D
to commercialization and diffusion” (Dodgson et al., 2008, p. 431). Key elements of
innovation networks include network membership, network structure and network position
(Dhanaraj and Parkhe, 2006), all of which shape the way network members behave, and
innovation takes place. Each participant in innovation networks adds to the behavioral
and structural complexity that could be witnessed in networks of substantial size (Borgatti
and Halgin, 2011). Actors with different types of network ties such as kinships, affective,
transactional and interactive ties practice a multitude of activities across a multitude of
members and positions. Hence, innovation networks exhibit a manifold of complexity that
stems from the complex nature of innovation (Ritala and Hurmelinna-Laukkanen, 2009) and
a complex nature of networks (Chakkol et al., 2018).
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Smart Cities Project offers a good
example of innovative networks with its design of a City Car. The City Car is a prime
example of how digitalization in service and product innovation brings together a plethora
of heterogeneous resources blurring industry boundaries. It features an open-design
approach that allows third-party innovators to contribute to its design (Lyytinen et al., 2016).
The City Car features can be folded and stacked because of its decentralized power train; it is
entirely digitized and can be integrated within a city’s intelligent transportation service
(Mitchell, 2007). The vehicle is stacked at various locations throughout the city and can be
obtained for short-term use through payments made via mobile devices. It uses pricing
mechanisms to buy driving rights in certain areas to reduce congestion. Digitalization
enables the formation of innovation networks to contribute to the design of the City Car
through the pooling of physical and intellectual resources outside of MIT, such as experts in
electrical engineering, urban planning, industrial design, mechanical engineering, material
science, energy policy and software engineering.
Recent research indicates that advances in digital technologies pose noteworthy benefits
for innovation networks. First, they reduce communication costs and increase reach and
scope, thus enhancing innovation network connectivity. Second, they increase network
knowledge heterogeneity by enhancing the scope and speed of digital convergence. In
essence, these developments expand innovation networks and increase knowledge
coordination across space and time (Lyytinen et al., 2016). As such, digitalization facilitates Digital
the development of four types of emerging innovation networks across the dimensions of marketing and
digital connectivity through operant resource and level of heterogeneity within operant
B2B
resources that must be identified and deployed for product innovation:
 project innovation networks;
relationships
 clan innovation network;
 the federated network; and 1167
 the anarchic network (Lyytinen et al., 2016).

Relationship dynamics
Relationship dynamics comprise the interactions of multiple individuals that operate and
interact within and across organizational boundaries on an evolving and dynamic basis
(Palmatier et al., 2013). One of the central tenets of B2B relationships is that they are
dynamic (Autry and Golicic, 2010; Palmatier et al., 2013). They are not linear but have ups
and downs along the space–time continuum. Likewise, B2B relationships host politically
driven behavioral elements (Lancioni et al., 2005; Wilson and Barbat, 2015) that bound
rational decision-making and complicate relationship undercurrents. Firms and their
boundary-spanning representatives go through changing experiences of B2B relationships
throughout time, and digital elements of marketing such as the use of social media platforms
can inform how relationship dynamics between partners take shape within the lifespan of
B2B interactions. Accordingly, concepts such as commitment velocity (Palmatier et al.,
2013), actor role and role ambiguity, relationship quality, as well as boundary-spanning
capabilities and activities (Chakkol et al., 2018) are concepts germane to B2B relationship
dynamics that entail further attention vis-à-vis digital marketing.
Dwyer et al. (1987) seminally recognized that relationships go through stages (i.e. grow
and mature) and operate differently across the different stages. Digitalization has
completely changed how actors within a B2B network can develop relationships, and has
also strongly influenced relationship stages (Vendrell-Herrero et al., 2017), thus playing a
direct role in relationship dynamics. Digitalization of business relationships has been
triggered and sustained by the plethora of digital and electronic commerce tools and can be
described as the process of making business activities, information and offerings related to
exchanges between two firms digital (Salo, 2006).
Business relationship digitalization can yield significant benefits for the parties involved,
including lower transactional cost and increased customer value (Peppard and Rylander,
2006). Digital technologies allow downstream and upstream supply chain actors to connect
directly, blurring the boundary between customer and supplier firms, and promoting
alliances between supply chain parties (Pagani and Pardo, 2017). However, fully digitalized
business relationships are not without pitfalls. Digitalization can eliminate the need for
human intervention, thus profoundly affecting B2B relationship dynamics, with a direct
impact on sales professionals (Singh et al., 2019). Without the human element, the
relationship stages described by Dwyer et al. (1987) can be profoundly altered, resulting in
both positive and negative implications. Hybrid sales organizations, which employ
traditional salespeople and digital channels, have become quite prevalent. Although several
theoretical frameworks have been put forth to explain hybrid sales organizations, their
impact on B2B relationship dynamics is not well-understood (Thaichon et al., 2018).
Similarly, recent research has highlighted the negative effects of strong relationships
EJM (Pillai et al., 2017). Strong relationships fostered by greater connectivity following
54,6 digitalization can lead to negative consequences, which need to be examined in detail.

Power/trust
Power and trust are fundamental concepts both within and outside of marketing (French
and Raven, 1959; Hunt and Nevin, 1974; Sturm and Antonakis, 2015) and have traditionally
1168 been bedrocks of B2B research (Galinsky et al., 2017; Hingley, 2005). Power is an inherently
relational concept (Zhao et al., 2016), and so is trust (Guenzi and Georges, 2010; Selnes, 1998).
Nonetheless, beyond being essential phenomena of interest in B2B relationships, power and
trust are also elusive and subjective concepts that change over time and do not have a
uniformed set of drivers. As such, both power and trust are contextual and can be
underpinned by technological advancements like digitalization along with socioeconomic
changes.
Probably the most relevant and controversial elements of digitalization to power and
trust dynamics in B2B relationships are data integrity and security. Data is often touted as
the new most important economic resource and the next big source of power (Economist,
2017). When virtually every behavior can be codified and stored as data, firms that have
means to access big data and are able to analyze it are likely to obtain power advantage
within their B2B dyads or networks. However, having access to and using such data sources
come with ethical and behavioral caveats. While the use of big data as a source of
competitive advantage can benefit firms’ power position in B2B relationships, it may also
hurt interorganizational trust – an essential building blocks of B2B relationships (Jain et al.,
2014; Selnes, 1998). Accordingly, especially big data analytics, a pillar of digitalization, may
have fundamental implications for power/trust equilibrium in B2B relationships that need to
be treaded diligently.
Digitalization has affected B2B power relationships in multiple sectors. In the hotel, taxi
and music industries, new digital platforms such as Airbnb, Lyft and Spotify have
penetrated the market as downstream retailers and have proposed competitive offerings by
exercising control over consumer interaction while also making upstream resource owners
reliable suppliers. Amazon is another prime example of digital servitization. The firm uses
its scale to establish power dominance in its relationship with its suppliers. In essence, the
upstream–downstream power balance has shifted in many industries where digital
servitization has occurred (Vendrell-Herrero and Wilson, 2017).
Digitalization has also led to the creation of digital trust (Mazzella et al., 2016). Several
crowdsourcing applications are enabling the establishment of this new type of trust. As
such, “the key building block of society-interpersonal trust-is being transformed from a
scarce resource into an abundant one” (Mazzella et al., 2016). Consumers use services such as
Uber or Lyft and trust the providers of these services because of the digital platform the
providers use to offer their services. Research also shows that applications of online
feedback mechanisms serve to build trust in B2B platforms (Dellarocas, 2003). That is,
online applications help establish trust so business relationships can be developed (Arnott
et al., 2007).
Furthermore, emergent technologies, such as blockchain, facilitate trust-free
cryptographic transactions (Beck et al., 2016). Digitalization allows economics transactions
to be guaranteed by the blockchain, thus creating trust-free systems (Hawlitschek et al.,
2018). Participating entities to transactions executed via blockchain no longer need to spend
time to form trust prior to engaging in economic exchanges. In essence, blockchain is
making the traditional notion of trust obsolete and entails further research to be better
understood. The foregoing discussion leads to the following specific questions for future Digital
research. marketing and
B2B
Future research agenda
Despite growing research interest in the interface of B2B relationships and digital
relationships
marketing, there are many unexplored or underexplored phenomena within this research
domain that highlights a rich future research potential. In this section, we discuss the
research potential of digital marketing in B2B relationships in line with the seven
1169
noteworthy domains of B2B relationships that were discussed earlier.

Coopetition
As a dynamic and paradoxical phenomenon that is manifested at multiple levels and across
many contexts (Rai, 2016; Raza-Ullah et al., 2014), coopetition remains little understood. The
emergence and increasing prevalence of digital technologies and digitalization-driven
business models can potentially change the way coopetition is understood and manifested in
B2B markets and have distinct future research implications. First, the question of how
digital technologies underpin coopetition dynamics between firms can enable scholars to
explain the (supportive or hindering) role of various digital technologies in the way
coopetition between B2B partners evolve over time. Different types and degrees of
coopetition may emerge as a result of the use of digital platforms by B2B partners, and
scholars are advised to examine how B2B coopetition changes amid the growing adoption of
digitalization.
Furthermore, beyond dyads, coopetition may be subject to network effects (Czakon and
Czernek, 2016), and digital technologies such as blockchain that have network applications
may influence coopetitive behaviors and outcomes. Accordingly, we suggest that
circumstances under which the use of blockchain lead to productive or unproductive forms
of coopetition require further attention. Likewise, coopetition is, in part, about a dynamic
juxtapose of collaborative and competitive roles boundary spanners assume in B2B
relationships. In this vein, investigating the role of digital technologies in collaborative and
competitive roles in interorganizational interactions may be another fruitful research pursuit
to undertake.
Finally, but not exhaustively, as one of the main functions of digitalization is
transcending space discontinuities, the interplay between geography and digitalization in
explaining coopetition may reveal interesting insights. Geography and space-related factors
may play an instrumental role in the nature of coopetition in B2B relationships (Luo, 2007).
For example, the challenges related to the psychic, cultural and institutional distances
between B2B partners may instrumentally shape how they see each other as collaborators
and/or competitors (Klimas, 2016; Monticelli et al., 2018). However, once digital tools,
platforms and business models are in the picture, the role of geography in coopetition may
be fundamentally reshaped. Therefore, we call for greater attention to the potential role of
digitalization in the relationship between geography and coopetition.

Value co-creation
While value co-creation is the essence of B2B relationships (Cossío-Silva et al., 2016;
Jaakkola and Hakanen, 2013; Ramaswamy and Ozcan, 2018), the transformative role of
digitalization in B2B value co-creation needs further attention. For example, the role of big
data analytics in open innovation as a value co-creation strategy has not yet been
thoroughly explored. As such, little is known about how B2B firms can unleash the potential
big data analytics in open innovation communities and realize the potential of open
EJM innovation more effectively. We suggest that B2B marketing scholars embed themselves
54,6 more deeply in the world of big data and develop informed frameworks on the role of big
data analytics in value co-creation in open innovation networks. Likewise, as the advances
in digital technologies enabled transcending place discontinuities in value co-creation (Iyer
and Pazgal, 2003), more research is needed to reveal whether and when virtual team
collaboration leads to a higher degree of value co-creation.
1170 Furthermore, we earlier noted that B2B firms are more and more compelled to develop
digital media presence for building their brand and competing more effectively in the
marketplace. However, many B2B firms struggle to optimize their digital media presence,
and there is not sufficient research to inform and guide practitioners within this domain. We,
therefore, propose further research on technical and behavioral tools for collaborative B2B
digital media optimization and deployment.
Finally, boundary-spanning individuals in B2B relationships may experience
digitalization as a double-edged sword. While, on the one hand, digital technologies may
facilitate their work and make value co-creation easier, on the other hand, such technologies
may render some of them redundant and no longer needed by their organizations. As such,
there is a need for further research in B2B marketing on the implications of digitalization for
individual boundary-spanners and their work life. Such research may enable a more
balanced view and use of digital technologies in B2B value co-creation and ease potential
challenges boundary spanners face when dealing with digitalization.

Business-to-business branding
Research indicates that digital media can be an essential enabler of B2B branding (Lipiäinen
and Karjaluoto, 2015). In fact, digitization has transformed how firms can distinguish
themselves from competitors in the B2B market (Hsiao and Chen, 2013). A noteworthy
change has been in the area of the directionality of the brand building, with brand building
evolving from unidirectional (i.e. firm to customer) to multidirectional (i.e. firm to customer
and customer to firm) (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2010).
A fruitful area of future research is in the domain of social media. This platform allows
business customers to actively engage in B2B branding with firms (Österle et al., 2018).
However, little is known about how B2B firms engage in branding via social media
platforms. Such insights could offer firms a new source of competitive advantage. Future
research should also explore the potential payoffs of mobile advertising in B2B markets and
the effectiveness of mobile viral marketing campaigns for B2B branding. Current research
efforts have primarily focused on these phenomena in the B2C context. In addition, little is
known about the underlying mechanisms of building brand equity for B2B technology
firms. Qualitative studies can help uncover these mechanisms. Finally, the underexplored
area of B2B branding could benefit from future studies investigating the digital
underpinnings of co-branding in B2B markets. Considering the costs associated with
branding efforts, such insights can offer firms additional avenues for achieving their
branding needs while lowering their costs.

Servitization
The interface between servitization and digitalization in B2B markets has been receiving
increasing attention (Coreynen et al., 2017; Vendrell-Herrero et al., 2017). One might argue
that servitization can serve as a force for further digitalization, and digitalization may
facilitate servitization transformation. However, many relevant issues on servitization and
digitalization in B2B markets remain to be explored further. For example, the question of
when digitalization benefits the servitization success of industrial firms, and when it hurts is
an intriguing one. This perspective acknowledges that the interplay between servitization Digital
and digitalization does not always have to be positive, and potential negative aspects are marketing and
also worth investigating.
Furthermore, as the contemporary landscape of services and servitization depends more
B2B
and more on ecosystems (Akaka et al., 2013; Koskela-Huotari et al., 2016), the underexplored relationships
linkage between digital platforms and business ecosystems during servitization processes
comes forth. Thus, we suggest that researchers delve deeper into the mechanisms that
connect digital platforms and business ecosystems in sophisticated ways. In a similar vein, 1171
when servitization is seen as a business model (Palo et al., 2019), whether digital
technologies can complement strategy making in achieving servitization success requires
further attention. Hence, exploring the role of digital technologies in enabling servitization-
driven business model innovation may provide interesting insights to scholars and
practitioners alike.

Innovation networks
The impact of social media networks on consumer engagement is fairly well explored
(Sheng, 2019). Marketing and management scholars have so far done less work in
uncovering the role of digital technologies in orchestrating innovation networks among
firms. It is, therefore, unclear as to whether user-generated content supports the
development and diffusion of innovation in B2B markets the way that it does in the B2C
realm (Mallapragada et al., 2012), and the types of network structures that are conducive to
promoting innovation in B2B markets. The ideal mix of collaborating users, producers and
business and non-business actors is unclear as well.
As reviewed above in our section on the role of digitalization in B2B relationships, digital
communication is characterized by low communication costs and the fact that real-world
networks tend to be characterized by relatively short paths (i.e. their small world property)
between two randomly chosen nodes (Jackson and Rogers, 2005). We thus expect to see
heterogeneous knowledge sources enter into contact in B2B innovation networks. The view
that innovation is generated through the recombination of previous knowledge (Solé et al.,
2016) would further suggest that digitalization will generate accelerating innovation growth
as networks form. As the sheer quantity of innovation and the data it generates increases,
the question will naturally arise as to how the various sources of and approaches to big data
analytics can be harnessed to catalog, measure and optimize innovation networks. Another
topic that ought to be addressed is the way in which the knowledge management process –
now also digitalized along with innovation networks – will influence firms’ ability to search.
We imagine that both search depth and search breadth through innovation networks will
change and will impact important business outcomes.

Relationship dynamics
If one looks at the lifespan of B2B relationships during the past few decades, it would be fair
to say that external circumstances that condition such relationships have dramatically
changed. For one, the role of digital technologies in B2B relationships has been both that of
facilitating and disturbing. However, the research has been falling behind to explore
sophisticated aspects of this role. For example, the question of how buyers and suppliers
approach data integrity and security challenges during the lifetime of their relationships has
not been properly examined. As such, there is room for a better examination of
digitalization-driven data integrity and security concerns in B2B relationships. For another,
while some partners excel at the adoption and use of digital technologies, others lag behind.
Nonetheless, little is known about what happens when B2B partners are uneven in their
EJM adoption and effective use of digital platforms. Therefore, the issue of how asymmetric use
54,6 of social media platforms influence relationship quality between B2B partners emerges as
an important relationship dynamics related issue to resolve.
In a similar vein, as shortly discussed within the domain of value co-creation above,
when human intervention is and is not needed in the evolution of digitalization-based B2B
relationships may be an essential area to dwell on as artificial intelligence gradually takes
1172 over human’s role in governing B2B exchanges. This question can be placed within the
bigger discussion around what type of human skills can and cannot be replaced by artificial
intelligence in the future and what implications such transformation may have for
individual businesses, marketing channels and society at large. Hence, the behavioral
underpinnings of omnichannel B2B digital media strategy and adoption emerge as a
potential area of research to tackle such issues in the future. The examination of behavioral
underpinnings of digitalization-driven B2B relationships may also lead to collateral
opportunities for understanding the dark side aspects of strong relationships that arise from
digitalization and the ensuing connectivity, given the fact that increased digitalization may
foster stronger connectivity between B2B partners.

Power/trust
As noted in the above discussion, we expect that digitalization may have a pervasive
influence on power and trust-related phenomena in B2B relationships. However, researchers
examining power and trust in B2B marketing have somewhat been slow to catch up with
recent developments in digital technologies. For example, interfirm monitoring has often
been seen as an unpleasant and challenging but necessary tool for governing B2B
relationships (Heide et al., 2007). However, we still do not know how new tools for
monitoring (e.g. blockchain and artificial intelligence) change interfirm behavior. Future
research can, therefore, examine the way digital monitoring tools are implemented and
shape buyers’ and suppliers’ behaviors in business markets. Nonetheless, beyond being a
monitoring mechanism, blockchain, in specific, may facilitate interorganizational trust
(Hawlitschek et al., 2018), and more research is needed to examine whether and how
blockchain support trust-building activities in marketing channels. Similarly, research can
revisit the conceptual properties and outcomes of trust in digital settings and explore
whether and how digital trust is different from conventional trust in B2B markets. While
digital trust has gained growing attention on digital marketing research, we believe there is
need for a better understanding of the concept and its outcomes in B2B relationships.
An increasingly prevalent notion suggests that data is power more so than ever before
(Economist, 2017). However, still little is known about the interplay between big data use
and interfirm power dynamics. As such, we suggest that research exploring this interplay
can make noteworthy contributions to both streams of research on power and on digital
marketing. Likewise, research on the sources of power, while seminal, is quite outdated and
relies on conventional assumptions (Hunt and Nevin, 1974; Turker, 2014). In the meantime, a
plethora of research has examined online reputation/word of mouth, especially in consumer
settings (Dellarocas, 2003; Proserpio and Zervas, 2017). We suspect that online reputation/
word of mouth can be a new source of power in B2B relationships and suggest scholars
explore the role of online reputation/word of mouth in obtaining and exercising power in
business networks.

Articles in the special issue

The articles in the special issue take a close look at some important items within the topic of
digital marketing and B2B relationships. In an interesting article, Zhu et al. (2020) examine
the patterns of B2B digital referrals inscribed in business’s digital content. These authors Digital
find that businesses are more likely to give referrals to peers residing in the same region. marketing and
The article provides useful insights into competition in the digital space.
Social presence currently plays an increasingly important role in digital marketing.
B2B
Koponen and Rytsy (2020) examine social presence in B2B chat conversations. These relationships
authors identify different types of social presence. The findings provide useful insights for
managers regarding training salespersons for a chat. In services management, scholars have
long assumed that loyalty is the result of a chain of effects. What has not been so clear is 1173
how this chain changes when service delivery is modified by replacing or adding to social
relationships with technology relationships and digitalization. In Kingshott et al. (2020), the
authors carefully distinguish between social chains of effect and technical chains of effect.
Their analysis suggests the overarching importance of trust in the relational exchange, and
also suggests the counterintuitive result that managers need to carefully separate social
from technical resources rather than integrate the two types of resource.
Digitalization has amplified the prevalence of different types of online marketing,
including social media marketing, for B2B firms. In Drummond et al. (2020), the authors
identify the digital engagement strategies and tactics in developing social media marketing
capability. They explore different digital engagement strategies and tactics for the four
essential layers of social media marketing capability and contribute to research on social
media use in B2B marketing. Likewise, Karampela et al. (2020) focus on advancing research
on the consequences of using social media sites in B2B markets. They investigate the role of
B2B brands’ social media presence, interactivity and responsiveness in customers’
perceptions of commitment, intimacy, satisfaction and partner quality. They find that a
supplier’s presence on social media sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook plays a
positive role in each of the brand relationship strength aspects of commitment, intimacy,
satisfaction and partner quality. They also reveal that interactivity boosts perceived partner
quality, while responsiveness positively affects commitment.
The goal of our special issue was to recognize the increasingly instrumental role of
digitalization in B2B relationships and provoke new research avenues at the interface of
digital marketing and B2B marketing. In this editorial, we outline seven major domains
of B2B relationships that are being shaped by digitalization, and we develop a roadmap for
future research to explore the interface more closely. Likewise, the articles in this issue both
provide unique insights into the role of digitalization and digital technologies in B2B
marketing and offer new avenues for future research.

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Corresponding author
Charles Hofacker can be contacted at: chofack@business.fsu.edu

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