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A key challenge for exporters and international marketing/purchasing managers is formulating strategic responses to deal with geopolitical disruptions during a trade war between superpowers. While past studies provide insightful analysis of the influence of changes in the institutional environment (regulatory pressures) on national and firm-level trade activities, they tend to ignore the association between inward (sourcing) or outward (export) international activities of firms during a trade war. In this study, we aim to explore various strategic options employed by third-party SME exporters in response to geopolitical disruptions, institutional pressures and constraints during a trade war.

We adopted a qualitative methodology and applied a hermeneutical approach in collecting, analysing and theorising interview findings. We conducted interviews with 15 owners or senior managers from 12 Australian and New Zealand exporters that exported or sourced significantly from at least one party of the trade war, the USA or China, between 2018 and 2020.

Our study developed a typology of fencing vs. balancing for explaining third-party SME exporters’ response strategies in terms of export market and international sourcing locations during a trade war. Fencing strategy centres on location choice decisions based on a fence or a secure buffer zone. Balancing strategy focuses on leveraging opportunities outside the conflict zone, i.e. third-party countries. Our study finds that exporters’ location choice decisions are influenced by a number of institutional factors during the trade war.

Firstly, our study examined only the early phase of the trade war under the “Trump” era. Future research may consider a longitudinal study design that examines exporters’ responses to global political uncertainty over a longer term. Secondly, we chose Australia and New Zealand as the focal context of this study. Future research could investigate exporters from other third-party countries that have different institutional conditions during the US-China trade war.

Firstly, an exporting firm should monitor and assess closely the wider changes in international relations between their home country’s major security partner and major trading partner, and the impact of these changes on the political risks of operating in international locations. Secondly, as the trade war intensifies, the fencing option needs to be given a greater weight than the balancing option in the strategic decision making of an exporter from a third-party country. Lastly, we encourage marketers and managers to reflect on and differentiate short-term and long-term benefits in strategic market-sourcing location decisions.

Our study makes a pioneering effort to theorise the linkages between institutional factors and the combined evaluation of export market selection and sourcing location selection choices under global political uncertainty based on the institution-based view. We present a conceptual framework highlighting the importance of institutional avoidance, embeddedness, comparative institutional advantages and multiple institutional logics for SME exporters’ international location selections during the trade war. Furthermore, we combine these institutional factors into two overarching constructs namely institutional buffer and institutional pluralism.

This study explores the influence of informal “psychological contracts” (PCs), (as opposed to formal contractual relationships) on exporter–distributor relationships.

Data were obtained from a sample of 127 exporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in New Zealand. The authors employed partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) for analyzing the measurement and structural models.

Psychological contract fulfillment (PCF) enhances affective commitment and calculative commitment. Moreover, affective and calculative commitments mediate the relationship between PCF and export venture performance (EVP). The authors also find that institutional distance (ID) weakens the relationship between PCF and both affective and calculative commitment. Additionally, ID moderates the strength of the mediating mechanism for affective commitment; thus, the authors present a moderated-mediation model.

To date, international relationship marketing (IRM) literature has focused on PC breach, and business-to-business (B2B) marketing literature has focused on the effects of PCs on affective/relational commitment. This study offers novel insights by demonstrating the positive indirect effect of PCF on EVP via the mediating variables – affective and calculative commitment. The authors' findings also present a conditioning role of ID on the micro-level relationships of PCs.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the cognitive appraisals, coping choices and behavioral responses by business-to-business (B2B) sales professionals confronting the acutely stressful experience of losing a customer, and their pursuit of justice in the win-back process, influences reacquisition outcomes. The paper further examines the role of sales experience as a moderator between coping choices and successful win back.

In all, 98 critical incidents were reported by sales professionals from B2B firms across various industries. NVivo 9, content analysis and logistic regression were used to analyze the data.

The results show that problem-focused coping (PFC) and pro-active responses positively affect win-back outcome. By contrast, emotion-focused coping (EFC) and re-active responses have a negative association with customer reacquisition. The findings also show that sales experience moderates the relationship between levels of EFC and win-back outcomes. Specifically, for sales professionals with low levels of EFC, sales experience helps improve chances of winning back lost customers. But for sales professionals using higher levels of EFC, more sales experience decreases win-back probability. Additionally, the findings show that procedural, interactional and distributive justice all contribute to successful customer reacquisition.

The few published studies of how B2B sales professionals deal with customer defections reveal a mixture of bereavement and drivenness in striving for new accounts. The authors’ focus and findings on the use of PFC and EFC strategies, justice mechanisms and the uneven role of experience in responding to this stressful context suggests that there is much to be gained from additional research. Specifically, probes into how sales professionals may be inadvertently skewed to EFC behaviors by either overly simplistic training systems, learning- versus performance-based incentives or their experience with prior customer defections.

The findings highlight the importance of PFC strategies and the delivery of procedural, interactional and distributive justice strategies to productively adapt to customer defections, activate switch back behavior and win back lost customers. Sales force training systems need to address the increased churning in B2B markets and integrate win-back procedures in sales training programs so that sales professionals do not default to EFC and/or strive for new accounts when facing the stress of customer defection.

The findings contribute to customer defection management and sales literature by integrating coping and justice theories in exploring sales professionals’ cognitive appraisals and coping responses to the acute stress of losing a current customer.

The purpose of this study is to develop a sales process framework to facilitate business-to-business (B2B) customer reacquisition. A comprehensive CRM process needs to include reacquisition strategies. Yet, very few firms have formal procedures to guide reacquisition efforts. This gap in the sales process reflects the relatively sparse literature on B2B customer reacquisition models. The present research intends to fill this gap and creates a sales process model to guide salespeople to regain B2B lost customers.

Using critical incident technique (CIT), this study conducted in-depth interviews with 54 B2B salespeople. Each salesperson reported one successful and one unsuccessful reacquisition incidents. A total of 108 critical incidents were collected for analysis.

A four-step sales process model to regain B2B customers was developed and empirically supported, including: Segment lost customers; Assess reasons for loss; Develop reacquisition activities; and Implement reacquisition strategies.

This study is qualitative and exploratory in nature; future research should develop dyadic surveys to validate the results.

This four-step reacquisition process allows sales firms to identify essential elements and establish protocols/policies to train and motivate salespeople. The framework can facilitate salespeople develop problem-focused solutions to correctly diagnose the situation and effectively re-negotiate with defected customers. Thus, this process may help reduce inefficiency in the reacquisition process and increase reacquisition ratios.

By considering justice/fairness from customer’s perspective, sales firm may properly recover lost business relationship, and do so in ways that are considered both just and ethical.

This is one of the first studies to examine the reacquisition of lost B2B customers. It expands on the traditional sales process to include four steps that enable a sales reacquisition process.