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Word-of-mouth in business-to-business marketing: a systematic review and future research directions

Word-of-mouth in business-to-business marketing: a systematic review and future research directions Purpose – The purpose of this study is to review and analyze the status of word-of-mouth (WOM) research in the business-to-business (B2B) context and discuss and identify new possible future directions. Design/methodology/approach – A systematic review was conducted and 36 articles on B2B WOM were collected to evaluate the current state of the literature and clarify possible future research directions. Findings – This thematic analysis categorize these articles into three themes: WOM generation, WOM usage and reference marketing. Under each theme, the authors reveal research findings unique to B2B research and different from business-to-consumer (B2C) WOM research. This study identifies several research questions that should be addressed by future research. Originality/value – Both academic researchers and business practitioners recognize that WOM plays an essential role in B2B marketing. However, no review paper focuses on WOM in the B2B context. Findings in the B2C WOM literature suggest that WOM substantially influences firms’ performance, but that managers cannot simply attempt to extrapolate B2C findings to the B2B arena. By synthesizing and assessing prior research on WOM in the B2B context, this study contributes to a better understanding of the B2B WOM phenomenon and facilitates future research on this topic. Keywords Business-to-business marketing, Recommendation, Reference, Referral, Systematic review, Word-of-mouth Paper type Literature review product (Money et al.,1998; Tot  h et al., 2020). B2B buyers have 1. Introduction begun forming online communities and use electronic WOM In the field of business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing, it is from other buyers in the community (Steward et al.,2018). widely accepted that word-of-mouth (WOM) has a meaningful Given that WOM plays a vital role in the purchasing decisions of influence on consumers’ buying decisions. Whether face-to- buyer firms, seller firms proactively use it to promote their face or electronic, WOM has a more substantial impact on sales products and services. For example, they ask their existing than other elements of the marketing mix, such as advertising customers to recommend their products to potential customers and personal selling (Kim and Hanssens, 2017; You et al., (Hada et al.,2013; Hada et al.,2014) and post customer reviews 2015). The volume of consumer reviews on a particular of their products on their websites as case studies (Jaakkola and product improves product awareness and drives consumers to Aarikka-Stenroos, 2019; Jalkala and Salminen, 2009). This purchase it (Babic Rosario et al.,2016; Chevalier and Mayzlin, practice, referred to as reference marketing or referral marketing, 2006; Zhu and Zhang, 2010). Both positive and negative is widely used in business markets. WOM can improve product evaluations and purchase Therefore, the topic of WOM has attracted the attention of intentions (Allard et al.,2020; Berger et al.,2010). marketing managers and academic researchers because of its key Furthermore, from a long-term perspective, consumers influence on both B2C and B2B marketing. Indeed, to date, many acquired through WOM bring about twice as much value to a company as other consumers (Villanueva et al.,2008). WOM has a considerable influence on purchasing decisions, © Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori. Published by Emerald Publishing not only in B2C but in business-to-business (B2B) marketing as Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons well (Money, 2004). For example, purchasing managers in Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial buying firms often obtain WOM information from their internal and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original coworkers (e.g. salespersons and other purchasing managers) or publication and authors. The full terms of this licence maybe seen at http:// external partners (e.g. exchange partners and business friends) creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode when searching for a new supplier or evaluating a novel industrial The authors would like to thank the Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Wesley Johnston, and anonymous reviewers for providing valuable insights and The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald constructive comments. Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/0885-8624.htm Funding: This work was financially supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP18K12883. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Received 24 February 2022 38/13 (2023) 45–62 Revised 6 September 2022 Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 0885-8624] [DOI 10.1108/JBIM-02-2022-0099] Accepted 30 November 2022 45 Business-to-business marketing Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori Volume 38 · Number 13 · 2023 · 45–62 reviews have been published on WOM (BabicRosario et al., 2020; Figure 1 WOM phenomenon Berger, 2014; de Matos and Vargas Rossi, 2008; Donthu et al., Pure WOM process 2021; King et al., 2014). However, all these reviews focus on WOM in the B2C context and not in the B2B context. Findings in the B2C WOM Sender Receiver WOM literature suggest that WOM substantially influences firms’ performance, but that managers cannot simply attempt to Reference marketing process extrapolate B2C findings to the B2B arena. Thus, it is essential to synthesize research findings and identify future research directions Supplier ontheroleofWOMinB2Bmarketing. Choice Therefore, the purpose of our study is to review and analyze the WOM Sender Receiver status of WOM research in the B2B context, synthesize research findings to date and identify possible future directions using a systematic review method. This method differs from a traditional narrative review in that it removes the subjective bias of the involved by incentivizing a sender to generate WOM about researcher. It ensures exhaustive and comprehensive literature themselves or their offerings. “Reference marketing” is the searches through a replicable, scientific and transparent process. process where a supplier uses WOM from a sender (i.e. The rest of the paper is structured as follows. We first define reference customer) to provide information to a receiver (e.g. a and clarify the concept of WOM along with relevant concepts, potential customer). Suppliers can intervene in this process by such as referrals, recommendations and references in the choosing the sender as a reference customer. Section 2. Next, we describe the systematic review method and B2B WOM marketing involves three parties: the data collection procedure in the Section 3. Subsequently, 1 WOM sender; we conduct descriptive and thematic analyses of the reviewed 2 WOM receiver; and articles in the Sections 4 and 5. Finally, we present managerial 3 supplier. implications, discuss our analysis, and show possible directions A WOM sender (e.g. an existing buyer or reference customer) for future research in the Sections 6 and 7. sends positive or negative WOM to internal colleagues or external buyers or provides experiential information related to suppliers. A 2. Word-of-mouth in the business-to-business WOM receiver (i.e. a potential customer) receives and processes context WOM information from the senders and uses it for purchase- WOM is defined as: related decision-making. A supplier encourages existing customers to send WOM to prospective customers or to use WOM An oral or written communication process between a sender and an individual or group of receivers, regardless of whether they share the same information from reference customers as a marketing tool. In the social network, with the purpose of sharing and acquiring information on an next section, we conduct a systematic review while considering informal basis (Barreto, 2014, p. 647). these terminologies and classifications. Marketing scholars have used various terms to refer to the WOM phenomenon in the B2B context, such as WOM (Faroughian et al., 3. Methodology 2012; Kim, 2014), referral (Hartmann and de Grahl, 2011; We adopted the systematic review method to analyze the status quo Wallenburg, 2009) and recommendation (Olaru et al.,2008). of B2B WOM research. The advantages of this method are Several authors have even used a combination of these terms, such described in recent studies published in the Journal of Business & as WOM referrals (Money et al., 1998; Roth et al.,2004)and Industrial Marketing (Chawla et al., 2020; Minerbo and Brito, 2021; WOM recommendation (Chenet et al.,2010). However, these Yaghtin et al., 2021)and others (Hulland and Houston, 2020; terms are often used interchangeably in the B2B WOM literature Transfield et al., 2003). We searched and reviewed articles based (Aarikka-Stenroos and Sakari Makkonen, 2014; Tot  h et al.,2020). on the procedure established by Transfield et al. (2003). First, we Thus, we only use the term “WOM” here. However, we need to developed a review protocol, which included a review question, the draw a clear line between the terms WOM and reference. As focus of this research and the data collection strategy for relevant discussed earlier, in B2B marketing, selling firms often use articles. We searched, collected and assessed the quality and customers’ WOM as a marketing and sales tool. Such seller- relevance of the identified articles based on this protocol. We then initiated active utilization of customers’ WOM is referred to as conducted both descriptive and thematic analyses to reveal specific reference marketing. Although reference marketing is included in and detailed information on reviewed articles and summarized the the WOM phenomenon, B2B marketing scholars distinguish key findings of the literature. Finally, we synthesized the findings between “WOM,” which is informal communication among into an integrated conceptual framework to investigate the WOM customers wherein the seller does not intervene, and “reference,” phenomenon in the B2B context and identified possible directions which is communication using WOM in which the seller intervenes. for future research. In this section, we describe the process of data Based on the above discussion, the WOM phenomenon in collection and synthesis. B2B marketing can be classified into two categories: “pure WOM” and “reference marketing.” As shown in Figure 1, “pure WOM” is the process where a sender (e.g. an existing 3.1 Review question A systematic review is driven by a review question from which buyer or a salesperson) sends WOM to a receiver (e.g. a potential customer or an internal colleague). Suppliers do not search strings for scientific database searches are defined, directly intervene in this process, but they can be indirectly criteria for inclusion or exclusion are specified, and an overall 46 Business-to-business marketing Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori Volume 38 · Number 13 · 2023 · 45–62 process for collecting relevant literature is established. As stated Business Source Complete, 32 from Science Direct and 38 from earlier, we aim to synthesize research findings and identify Emerald. After removing duplicate articles, 111 articles remained. future research directions on the role of WOM in B2B marketing. Therefore, we set two review questions: (1) “What 3.3 Inclusion and exclusion criteria To ensure an unbiased selection of literature for our review, we do we know about WOM in B2B marketing?” and (2) “What established clear inclusion and exclusion criteria. We focused do we not know about WOM in B2B marketing?” on peer-reviewed, full-text accessible, original research articles published in English. Therefore, non-peer-reviewed business articles and editorials were excluded. We included journals 3.2 Database and search terms Based on recent systematic reviews (Cartwright et al.,2021; from two widely recognized international journal lists: the Christofi et al.,2021; Dobrucalı, 2019; Novais et al.,2019), the Academic Journal Guide (Chartered Association of Business Schools) and the Journal Quality List (Australian Business initial investigation was conducted using three online Deans Council). We included articles that address the WOM databases: phenomenon as the explained object (e.g. studies that treat 1 EBSCO Business Source Complete; WOM as the dependent variable in quantitative studies) and 2 Science Direct; and articles that use WOM to explain a specific phenomenon (e.g. 3 Emerald. quantitative studies that have WOM as an independent variable These databases have a worldwide reputation as reliable in quantitative studies). We excluded articles that focused on platforms; cover most of the published articles on business and the B2C context rather than B2B. We decided to include marketing; and allow us to search for articles using the title, articles that considered WOM in both B2B and B2C contexts abstract and keywords. (e.g. comparing WOM effects in B2B and B2C contexts). We Given that the review questions are about the findings and also decided to exclude articles that discussed WOM in general, research gaps in B2B WOM, it is necessary to choose articles since, at least in the academic field, WOM refers to B2C focusing on the context of business markets or B2B marketing. WOM, not B2B WOM. A key term associated with WOM is Therefore, we set two groups of keywords: the first group focused social media. Although communication among customers on WOM, including four keywords: “WOM,”“referral,” on social media can be viewed as a WOM phenomenon, the use “customer reference” and “customer review”; and the second of social media by firms is difficult to capture as a WOM group was about B2B, also including four keywords: “business-to- phenomenon. Hence, studies focusing on WOM in social business,”“industrial markets,”“industrial marketing” and media were included in the review, whereas studies on social “supplier.” We used the three databases to search for published media usage were excluded. articles containing WOM-related keywords in the first group and B2B-related keywords in the second group, either in the title, 3.4 Selection of relevant articles abstract or keywords. We conducted our initial search in January Two researchers reviewed 111 literature summaries. Based on 2021 with no publication time limit. As shown in Figure 2, 141 the inclusion and exclusion criteria, they screened the articles articles were obtained as the set of initial samples: 71 from EBSCO relevant to our review questions. However, for several Figure 2 Search strategy Keyword group 1 (WOM) word of mouth, referral(s), customer review(s), reference(s) Keyword group 2 (B2B) business-to-business, industrial markets, industrial marketing, supplier(s) EBSCO Business Source Science Direct: Emerald: Complete: 71 articles found 32 articles found 38 articles found Total articles found: 141 articles 30 duplicates removed 111 articles screened 78 articles excluded –Papers non-relevant to B2B WOM were excluded (e.g., B2C WOM, social media in B2B marketing) 33 articles screened 3 articles included based on cross-referencing Final sample: 36 articles 47 Business-to-business marketing Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori Volume 38 · Number 13 · 2023 · 45–62 references, it was difficult to determine whether to include commonplace, and communication about products and them in our review based solely on reading the abstracts. In services has become active in buyer communities and those cases, we manually read the full text to obtain the professional networks. Third, the spread of the internet has information needed to decide. Disagreements between the two increased the need for companies to establish their own researchers were resolved through consultation. websites and to post customer feedback as a form of Most of the 111 references focused on WOM in a B2C testimonials on those websites. context and the use of social media by B2B firms. Based on the As shown in Table 1, the 36 articles included in this review inclusion/exclusion criteria, these references were excluded. were published in 15 separate journals. Of the 15 journals, 11 were rated three and above in the Academic Journal Guide Similarly, applying that criterion, editorial and economic (AJG; Chartered Association of Business School, 2021). articles were also excluded. Among the 111 articles, many According to the ABDC Journal Quality List (JQL), eight were focused on WOM in the B2C context and social media in the A journals, five were A and two were B (Australian Business B2B context. Because the latter studies focused on the usage, design and management of social media by B2B companies, Deans Council, 2019). In the Scimago Journal Rank indicator, they were also removed, and 33 articles were extracted. most journals (80%) belonged to the Q1 category. These results indicate that the articles included in this review are of Finally, by examining the citations of these 33 articles, 3 good quality and that the editors and reviewers of top-level additional important articles were identified. Occasionally, journals are paying attention to this topic. Regarding the review articles that focused on WOM in general were also cited; number of articles, approximately half the articles (44%) were however, we did not add them as key references because the published in the two leading journals specializing in B2B review articles implicitly focused on the B2C context (e.g. marketing: Industrial Marketing Management (31%, n = 11) and individual consumer reviews, informal communication among Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing (14%, n = 5). This consumers). Consequently, there were 36 studies in total. suggests that B2B marketing scholars have contributed considerably to our understanding of the WOM phenomenon 3.5 Extraction, analysis and synthesis in the B2B context. Other journals that feature in our study and After determining the literature to be included in the review, are of international repute include Journal of Marketing (6%, the last step in the data collection process was to create a data n = 2), Journal of Marketing Research (6%, n = 2), European extraction form. To extract the data, we used a Microsoft Excel Journal of Marketing (8%, n = 3), Journal of Supply Chain spreadsheet. This sheet contained the following information for Management (8%, n =3) and Journal of Services Marketing (6%, the collected literature: title, authors, publication journal, year n = 2). Other articles were also published in internationally of publication, article type, sample size, industry context, recognized journals in the field of marketing and business, such country, major research findings, type of WOM, etc. To reduce as the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science and Journal of subjective bias as much as possible, each author reviewed all 36 Business Research. Most of these journals are general journals on references and completed the required fields in the spreadsheet. marketing and business. The appearance of articles on B2B When disagreements arose among the authors regarding coding WOM in such journals suggests that various marketing and classification, decisions were made through discussion. researchers are interested in this topic. The final spreadsheet was helpful in conducting the descriptive Figure 3 shows the trend over time and current proportion of and thematic analysis that followed. each methodology used by the selected articles. According to the present proportion of methodologies used, of the 36 4. Descriptive analysis articles, most were empirical studies (94%, n = 34), with the Literature on WOM in B2B marketing emerged in the 1970s, most common method being quantitative analyses with data when academic scholars paid great attention to industrial collection by mail or an online survey (47%, n = 17). This trend buying behaviors and investigated the difference between B2B is similar to that of other topics in B2B marketing. The and B2C marketing strategies (Sheth, 1973; Webster and qualitative interview method (25%, n = 9) was also often used Wind, 1972). The pioneering works of Martilla (1971) and by the selected articles. Compared to quantitative methods, Webster (1970) revealed that WOM is generated either by qualitative methods are used in the early stages of a particular internal colleagues (i.e. intrafirm WOM) or external firms (i.e. research field because they are better at examining new and interfirm WOM) and is an essential factor that influences complex phenomena in an exploratory manner (Granot et al., business organizations’ decision-making processes. For almost 2012; Woodside and Wilson, 2003). Indeed, several articles in three decades after these works, very little research focused on our review stated that they use qualitative methods because WOM in B2B marketing. Since the 2000s, however, more than there are few studies on B2B WOM, and there is an insufficient 30 WOM-related articles have been published. Specifically, 2 description of the phenomenon and elaboration of the concepts articles (5.6%) were published between 2001 and 2005, 9 (Jaakkola and Aarikka-Stenroos, 2019; Jalkala and Salminen, (25%) between 2006 and 2010, 11 (30.6%) between 2011 and 2010). Therefore, a relatively large proportion of qualitative 2015 and 11 (30.6%) between 2016 and 2020. There were at studies in the selected articles suggests that the study on B2B least three causes of the widespread recognition among WOM is in its early stages. researchers and the gradual increase in the number of WOM- No literature reviews (e.g. systematic reviews or meta- related articles. First, online review websites have increased in analyses) were found. Notably, the time-series trends indicate a B2B marketing, and WOM communication among buyers has gradual increase in the number of experimental methods in influenced purchasing decisions. Second, in the context of B2B recent years. This is because B2B marketing is beginning to pay marketing, the use of social networking services has become more attention to experimental methods: the use of 48 Business-to-business marketing Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori Volume 38 · Number 13 · 2023 · 45–62 Table 1 Journals included in the analysis AJG JQL SJR Journal (2021) (2019) (2020) 1970–2000 2001–2005 2006–2010 2011–2015 2016–2020 Total Industrial Marketing Management 3A 2.0 (Q1) 3 2 6 11 Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing 2 A 0.7 (Q2) 1 3 1 5 European Journal of Marketing 3A 1.2 (Q1) 1 2 3 Journal of Supply Chain Management 4 A 3.8 (Q1) 1 2 3 Journal of Marketing 4 A 7.8 (Q1) 1 1 2 Journal of Marketing Research 4 A 6.3 (Q1) 2 2 Journal of Services Marketing 2 A 1.2 (Q1) 2 2 Asia Pacific Journal of Management 3 A 1.1 (Q1) 1 1 Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing 2 B 0.4 (Q3) 1 1 Journal of Business Research 3 A 2.0 (Q1) 1 1 Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing 1 B 0.9 (Q2) 1 1 Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 4 A 5.5 (Q1) 1 1 Journal of World Business 4A 3.6 (Q1) 1 1 Marketing Science 4 A 5.9 (Q1) 1 1 Organization Science 4 A 7.0 (Q1) 1 1 Total 3 2 9 11 11 36 Notes: AJG, Academic journal guide (Chartered Association of Business School); JQL, Journal quality list (Australian Business Deans Council); SJR, Scimago journal rank Figure 3 Research methods used in selected articles Survey Interview Experiment Content analysis Others 47% 8 25% 14% 2 8% 6% 1970 –2000 2001–2005 2006 –2010 2011–2015 2016 – 2020 experimental stimuli in a B2B context is difficult because the on organizational behaviors of developed Western countries. purchase of B2B products/services involves multiple persons, Such overall trends indicate that researchers in the USA and and the buying process is a long one. Hence, experimental Western Europe are the main contributors to research on B2B methods tend to be shunned in B2B marketing research. WOM. Additionally, we should be cautious about applying However, the experimental method is a valuable gold standard such research findings to WOM behaviors in other regions such for analyzing causal relationships (Hada, 2021). In fact, as Asia and Africa. experimentation is used extensively in B2C WOM research. Table 2 shows the industries that the empirical studies in this Figure 4 shows the loci of the empirical studies analyzed in review considered as the research context. Overall, most studies this review. Of the 34 empirical studies, 25 explicitly indicated focused on B2B services, which, unlike tangible industrial the country where data were collected. The two major regions products, are characterized by their intangible and variable were Europe (32%, n = 8, three studies in the UK, two in nature, making it difficult to assess their quality before buying Germany, two in a particular European country, and one in or experiencing them. Therefore, WOM information plays a Finland) and the USA (28%, n = 7). Four studies were crucial role in the evaluation and purchase of B2B services. conducted in China and one each in Australia, Canada and Previous studies (Faroughian et al., 2012; Hada et al., 2014; India. Moreover, three studies collected data from multiple Jalkala and Salminen, 2009; Money, 2004) have often focused countries (i.e. USA and Japan) to compare the organizational on three services: “IT and software procurement,”“logistics buying behaviors. Overall, most extant literature has focused and transportation” and “financial service.” In the information 49 Business-to-business marketing Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori Volume 38 · Number 13 · 2023 · 45–62 Figure 4 Researched contexts in selected articles Table 2 Industry breakdown Industry Citation IT and software procurement Jalkala and Salminen (2009, 2010), Brock and Yu Zhou (2012), Hada et al. (2013, 2014), Ruokolainen and Aarikka-Stenroos (2016), Terho and Jalkala (2017), Mo et al. (2020), T oth et al. (2020) Logistics and transportation (logistic, freight and transportation Money et al. (1998), Money (2004), Roth et al. (2004), Molinari et al. service) (2008), Wallenburg (2009), Hartmann and De Grahl (2011), Friend and Johnson (2014), Steward et al. (2018) Financial services (banking, insurance) Money et al. (1998), Money (2004), Roth et al. (2004), Chenet et al. (2010), Faroughian et al. (2012), Lussier et al. (2017) Telephone services Hansen et al. (2008), Mo et al. (2020) Food services Friend and Johnson (2014), Lussier et al. (2017) Other B2B services (printing, building maintenance, cleaning, uniform, Money et al. (1998), Money (2004), Roth et al. (2004), Wang and Huff trash and recycling, education, health care, consultancy, packaging, (2007), Olaru et al. (2008), Aarikka-Stenroos and Sakari Makkonen (2014), architectural design, aerospace, advertising, real estate, R&D) Friend and Johnson (2014), Steward et al. (2018), Jaakkola and Aarikka- Stenroos (2019), T oth et al. (2020) B2B goods (machinery, equipment, materials) Martilla (1971), Jalkala and Salminen (2009, 2010), Aarikka-Stenroos and Sakari Makkonen (2014), Kim (2014), Lussier et al. (2017), Terho and Jalkala (2017), Steward et al. (2018), Jaakkola and Aarikka-Stenroos (2019), Mo et al. (2020) technology (IT) and logistics service industries, it has been 5. Thematic analysis found that sellers and buyers actively use WOM, the latter in Recall that we have classified the WOM phenomenon in the making purchasing decisions. Several studies have focused on B2B context into “pure WOM process” and “reference reference marketing in the context of IT procurement or marketing process” (Figure 1). Basedonexisting studies logistics services. This suggests that in the IT and logistics on WOM in the B2C context, “pure WOM process” is industries, selling firms actively use WOM information as a divided into two phases: generation and usage. According marketing tool, whereas buying firms rely on it to make to the B2C WOM literature (Babic Rosario et al.,2020; purchasing decisions. Further, start-up companies often face King et al.,2014), at least two entities are involved in the purchasing decisions regarding logistics and financial services “pure WOM process”: the sender and the receiver. The (Money et al.,1998; Roth et al., 2004). Other services that sender is involved in WOM generation, while the receiver is frequently appear in empirical studies are telephone and food involved in WOM usage. The mechanisms, related services, which were investigated in two studies. Other services concepts, and theories used in WOM generation and usage include printing, advertising and packaging. Some studies have are very different.Therefore,B2C WOMresearchers have focused on the transactions of tangible industrial goods rather categorized WOM research into the two phases. Following than services. Specifically, they have examined the role of this categorization, as well as the classification of “pure WOM in the purchasing decisions of pharmaceuticals, WOM process” and “reference marketing process,” we electronic machinery and processing equipment. identified three themes: 50 Business-to-business marketing Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori Volume 38 · Number 13 · 2023 · 45–62 1 WOM generation; repeated violation respond negatively and sensitively to a 2 WOM usage; and violation of trust. 3 reference marketing. Overall, prior studies have shown that firm characteristics and interfirm factors generate WOM or moderate the effects of Table 3 presents an overview of research findings from the WOM. However, there has been no attempt to examine who reviewed articles. This section offers the contributions and generates WOM within a firm or what happens to buyer firms discusses the main research findings for each theme. and purchasing managers as a result of WOM generation. These are research questions to be addressed in the future, and 5.1 Theme I: word-of-mouth generation we discuss them in detail in the next section. The first theme is WOM generation and focuses on the sender or source of WOM; 16 (44%) of the 36 studies in this review 5.2 Theme II: word-of-mouth usage come under this theme, where the research question is, “Why Research under the theme of WOM usage has addressed the do customer firms send positive or negative WOM messages?” following questions: What types of WOM messages do These studies investigate the antecedents of WOM customer firms use? Why do customer firms use WOM communication. This theme has two characteristics: first, prior messages as a source of information for purchase decision- research on this theme has often treated positive WOM making? What are the consequences of WOM usage? These messages, such as recommendations and referrals, as positive questions are rarely addressed in B2C WOM research and are outcome indicators, along with repurchase intention, specific to the field of B2B marketing. satisfaction, loyalty and relationship continuity. By stating that As shown in Table 4, WOM information used by customer “a widely studied outcome variable within the relationship firms is classified into four types based on the sender–receiver marketing literature is word-of-mouth,” Brock and Yu Zhou relationship (within-firm versus between-firm) and (2012, p. 372) emphasized the importance of WOM as a communication mode (face-to-face versus internet). The first performance indicator in B2B research. Second, 13 (81%) of type is the intrafirm offline WOM. Martilla (1971) conducted the 16 studies used a quantitative survey as the empirical exploratory interviews with 66 managers in the paper industry method. Most of these survey studies focused on B2B services, and found that there are opinion leaders in each company who such as logistics, IT, and finance. This suggests that B2B have a considerable influence on the purchasing decisions for service marketers emphasize WOM generation. industrial products through WOM communication within the Prior research on B2C marketing identifies satisfaction, company. The second type is the intrafirm online WOM. loyalty, quality, perceived value and trust as essential Steward et al. (2018) showed that sellers’ scorecards antecedents of WOM generation (de Matos and Vargas Rossi, (performance appraisal systems) available on company 2008). WOM studies in B2B marketing extend these research intranets can be regarded as WOM information within a findings of B2C WOM by identifying moderating variables company and that they influence purchasing decisions in B2B specific to B2B marketing. Olaru et al. (2008) showed that the markets. The third is interfirm offline WOM, which has been the effect of service value on positive WOM generation is focus of many studies. Money et al. (1998) and Roth et al. moderated by organization type (government versus private (2004) found that start-up firms often refer to WOM firm) and contract length (long versus short). Anaza and information from relatives, friends, and business acquaintances Rutherford (2014) considered both individual and when they make purchase decisions for B2B services such as organizational levels of the interorganizational relationship logistics, advertising and finance. Hada et al. (2014) also between seller and buyer. They found that positive WOM is focused on the face-to-face WOM prompted by suppliers (i.e. created by loyalty to individual salespersons and satisfaction face-to-face reference) in B2B markets and showed that B2B with seller firms. marketers often use such reference information from other Studies under this theme have identified the antecedents of companies in the purchase process. Fourth is interfirm online WOM generation, such as firm strategy, organizational WOM. According to Steward et al. (2018), professional B2B capabilities, strategic orientation and interfirm relationships, buyers have formed online communities in recent years and which have not been assessed in WOM research in the B2C refer to other buyers’ reviews of B2B products and services. context. Hartmann and de Grahl (2011) focused on the Many studies in this review examine online reference concept of organizational flexibility and indicated that logistics marketing, where sellers post buyers’ WOM reviews on their service providers can promote customer referrals by responding own website and use it as a marketing tool (Jalkala and flexibly to customers’ needs and changes in the environment. Salminen, 2009; Terho and Jalkala, 2017). They show that Mo et al. (2020) found that an increase of out-of-the-channel- online WOM from other companies (i.e. interfirm online loop perception, which means a channel member’s perception WOM) is often used in B2B marketing. of exclusion from a supplier’s distribution channel networks, Previous studies also address the research questions: Why do decreases positive WOM generation. customer firms use WOM messages as sources of information Prior research has also investigated the generation of negative for purchase decision-making? What are the consequences of WOM messages when B2B service failure occurs. Wang and WOM usage? These studies investigate the antecedents and Huff (2007) identified the conditions under which buyers consequences of WOM usage. The former focuses mainly on generate negative WOM when a seller violates the buyer’s trust firm characteristics as a factor influencing WOM usage. For by failing to meet the buyer’s confident expectations. example, Money et al. (1998) conducted exploratory interviews Specifically, they showed that buyers in the early stages of trust with purchasing managers of 48 start-up firms in Japan and the development and/or those who perceive a high likelihood of USA and showed that organizational culture plays a vital role in 51 Business-to-business marketing Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori Volume 38 · Number 13 · 2023 · 45–62 Table 3 Overview of the findings from the reviewed articles Author Context Country (sample size) Method Major findings Theme I: WOM generation Wang and Huff Printing service USA (n = 390) Experiment Focuses on the effect of a seller’s violation of trust. (2007) The stage of trust (early/mature) and perceived likelihood of repeated violation are positively related to negative WOM Hansen et al. (2008) Telephone service A European country Survey Investigates the antecedents and consequences of (n = 264) customer perceived value in a B2B service setting. Corporate reputation, information sharing and flexibility are related to high customer perceived value, which leads to positive WOM Molinari et al. Freight service USA (n = 215) Survey Service quality and positive disconfirmation are (2008) related to positive WOM; however, service value and satisfaction are not significantly related to positive WOM Olaru et al. (2008) R&D industry Australia (n = 918) Survey There is a positive relationship between service value and recommendations to others. This relationship is enhanced if the buyer is a government organization (vs. private firm) and/or has longer contracts with the seller Wallenburg (2009) Logistic service Germany (n = 311) Survey Cost and performance improvement of logistic service are positively related to referral when the outsourced services are complex. Additionally, the effect of logistics innovation depends on the contract duration; cost improvement is a driver of referral in a short contract, while performance improvement plays a pivotal role in a long contract Chenet et al. (2010) Financial service A European country Survey Trust enhances commitment through a mediator of (n = 302) service differentiation. In turn, commitment leads to positive WOM Hartmann and De Logistic service Germany (n = 166) Survey Logistics service provider flexibility is positively Grahl (2011) related to customer referral, which is an element of customer loyalty, along with retention and extension Faroughian et al. Banking UK (n = 167) Survey Three types of risk (performance, financial, and (2012) psychological) are related to benefits and sacrifices (the two components of value). Positive WOM is positively related to benefits and satisfaction Brock and Yu Zhou IT procurement UK (n = 141) Survey Conceptualizes and operationalizes customer (2012) intimacy, a multidimensional construct of mutual understanding, closeness, and value perception. It generates positive WOM Friend and Johnson Various services (e.g. N/A Content analysis Business referral behaviors are observed in the key (2014) logistics, cleaning, account relationships characterized as trust, building maintenance) commitment, and positive partnership (e.g., close collaboration, long-term orientation) Anaza and Various industries USA Survey Focuses on both individual and organizational levels Rutherford (2014) (n = 177) in the buyer-seller relationship; namely, the buyer– salesperson and – selling firm levels. This study shows that positive WOM is generated by a buyer’s loyalty to a salesperson and satisfaction with a selling firm Zhang et al. (2016) Various industries China (n = 258) Survey B2B service firms with strong brand orientation can increase positive WOM communication by enhancing internal branding and strengthening customer experience (continued) 52 Business-to-business marketing Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori Volume 38 · Number 13 · 2023 · 45–62 Table 3 Author Context Country (sample size) Method Major findings Gao et al. (2016) Various industries China (n = 263) Survey Business friendship, the integration of business dealings and personal friendship, is formed by congeniality, rule adherence and business reputation. It promotes positive WOM Lussier et al. (2017) Pharmaceutical, food N/A (n = 149) Survey Examines the role of humor usage in a B2B selling and beverage, industrial context. This study shows that humor usage is positively and financial industries related to customer trust, leading to positive WOM Mo et al. (2020) IT services, automobiles, China (n = 183) Survey Out-of-the-channel-loop perception, a channel home appliances and member’s perception of exclusion from a supplier’s telecommunications distribution channel networks, decreases the generation of positive WOM Zhu et al. (2020) Winery sector Canada (n = 487) Content analysis Focuses on digital referrals inscribed in businesses’ digital content. This study shows that businesses give digital referrals (i.e. hyperlinks) and exhibit greater strategic similarity with peers located closer to each other Theme II: WOM usage Webster (1970) Various industries USA (n = 50) Qualitative The first study focusing on informal communication in industrial markets. A series of interviews with industrial purchasing agents showed that WOM communication in industrial markets may be much lesser than that in consumer markets, and that manufacturers’ salesmen play a key role as information sources Martilla (1971) Paper industry USA (n = 197) Mixed method WOM communication within firms influences the (interview and later stages of the product adoption process. survey) Opinion leaders in industrial firms were exposed more frequently and in greater depth to impersonal sources of information than other buying influential within the firm Money et al. (1998) B2B services (e.g. Japan and USA Mixed method Culture and location influence on the level of WOM advertising, distribution, (n = 434) (interview and referral activity. Specifically, buyers of services in banking, real estate, survey) Japan consult WOM referral sources more often than insurance) American buyers, and buyers in a foreign market tend to use WOM referral sources Money (2004) B2B services (e.g. Japan and USA Mixed method Switching behaviors of industrial services customers advertising, distribution, (n = 434) (interview and is affected by WOM sources usage, national culture banking, real estate, survey) (Japanese vs American), location of operation insurance) (foreign vs domestic) and tie strength with sources (e.g. frequency, likability, expertise) Roth et al. (2004) B2B services(e.g. Japan and USA Mixed method Investigates the purchasing process of B2B services. advertising, distribution, (n = 434) (interview and Referral usage is influenced by national culture and banking, real estate, survey) service characteristics, and the types of referral sources insurance) are associated with national culture. Additionally, this study identifies three types of services buying segments: networkers, opportunists and independents Vissa (2012) Various industries India (n = 59) Survey Focuses on the effects of entrepreneurs’ interpersonal networking style on the initiation of interorganizational exchange ties. Entrepreneurs using more network-deepening actions initiate fewer new economic exchanges, due to their increased reliance on referral-based search, whereas entrepreneurs using more network-broadening actions initiate more new economic exchanges due to their decreased reliance on referral-based search (continued) 53 Business-to-business marketing Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori Volume 38 · Number 13 · 2023 · 45–62 Table 3 Author Context Country (sample size) Method Major findings Aarikka-Stenroos Knowledge-intensive N/A (45 managers of Qualitative Investigates how buyers use experience-based and Sakari services (e.g. industrial eight firms) information to solve complex buying problems. Makkonen (2014) design) and technical References offer information on a supplier’s innovation (e.g. a new performance and competence. In contrast, WOMs packing machine) provide more specific and sensitive information. Buyers gather WOM from experts, colleagues, other customers and even competitors Kim (2014) (Mainly) electronics and N/A (n = 267) Survey WOM information characterized as expertise and machinery similarity enables industrial buyers to build strong relationship quality and continuity with a selected supplier Yang et al. (2017) N/A China (n = 112) Survey Outperforming buying firms are more likely to select suppliers by relational referrals while underperforming buyers are more likely to take risks and search for new suppliers without referring to relational referrals. This relationship is enhanced by the intensity of market competition and specific investment in the buyer–supplier relationship Steward et al. Various industries (e.g., USA (n = 48, 293, 82, Mixed method Examines the impact of two types of online reviews (2018) education, health care, 587) (interview and (external reviews posted on online professional manufacturing, natural experiment) communities and internal reviews in the format of resources and mining, vendor scorecards) on B2B purchasing professionals. transportation) An external negative review prompts more learning, better attitudes, enhanced purchasing intentions and more sharing than an internal negative review. Moreover, a positive internal review and a negative external review are more effective than a negative internal review and a positive external review Toth et al. (2020) Various industries (e.g. UK (n = 22, 165) Mixed method Both corporate online references and WOM IT, consultancy, (interview and recommendations exert a positive impact on the packaging, architectural experiment) customers’ intention to initiate a business design, aerospace) relationship with the supplier, and increase attractiveness in the partner selection phase. More elaborately written references tend to be preferred across small and large SMEs; however, in the case of small SMEs, less elaborated references, such as logos, appeared to be sufficient to evoke attractiveness if they occur in combination with a WOM recommendation Theme III: Reference marketing Salminen and N/A N/A Conceptual Discusses reference marketing practices identified in Möller (2006) marketing textbooks and reviews scientific marketing articles. This study then develops a conceptual framework assessing the key modes of reference utilization in business marketing and identifies the factors influencing the need and relevance of reference marketing Jalkala and Process and information N/A (165 references of Content analysis The structures of reference descriptions on company Salminen (2009) technology six companies) Discourse analysis websites are formed by themes such as product/ project details, results and benefits, customer’s problem and suppliers’ responsibilities. Additionally, this study identifies three types of discourses: benefits, relationship commitment and technical expertise (continued) 54 Business-to-business marketing Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori Volume 38 · Number 13 · 2023 · 45–62 Table 3 Author Context Country (sample size) Method Major findings Jalkala and Process and information N/A (38 interviews of Qualitative Customer references can be leveraged externally to Salminen (2010) technology four companies) obtain status effects, concretize complex solutions and offer indirect experience information. They can also be leveraged internally to promote organizational learning, advance offering development, motivate personnel and develop understanding of customer needs and firm competencies Godes (2012) N/A N/A Analytical model Manufacturers’ use of reference program leads to exclusive use of the technology. When the firm has private information about the quality of the technology, a reference program can serve as a signal to early adopters of high quality Hada et al. (2013) Networking, USA (n = 480) Experiment Focuses on supplier-selected referrals which telecommunication and suppliers’ existing customers give to purchasing electronics managers. This study identifies the purchasing manager’s experience and positive referral including negative information as the antecedents of the purchasing manager’s perceived bias Hada et al. (2014) Enterprise resource N/A (n = 154, 40, 83) Experiment Examines whether the influence of the supplier- planning software selected referral on a potential customer depends on supplier uncertainty. This study shows that an all- positive referral (vs a two-sided referral) is more influential for an outsupplier who has never worked with the potential customer than for an insupplier who has worked with the potential customer before, but on an unrelated solution. This study also shows that referrer credibility has no effect on the potential customer for a reputed outsupplier Ruokolainen and Software N/A (two companies) Qualitative Examines start-up firms’ use of references by using Aarikka-Stenroos the principals of rhetoric; logos (rational aspect), (2016) pathos (emotional aspect) and ethos (source credibility). Reference information for a start-up comprises includes the basic reference data, the reference customer’s long-term orientation, value-in- use experiences, indirect benefits, the supplier’s competencies and the customer’s commitments Terho and Jalkala Process and information N/A (38 interviews of Mixed method Conceptualizes customer reference marketing and (2017) technology four companies) (interview and develops its measurement. Customer reference Mainly ICT industry, ICT, Finland survey) marketing can be regarded as a market-based materials and machinery (n = 124) resource, which is developed by external and and equipment Finland internal leverage of references. This resource leads industries (n = 96) to high selling performance especially when firms offer innovative products/services Jaakkola and Knowledge-intensive N/A (76 interviews of Qualitative Customer referencing influences three actors: the Aarikka-Stenroos business services 76 firms) seller, reference customer, and prospective buyer. It (2019) leads value creation at three levels (i.e. actor, dyadic relationship and business network levels) in the triad selecting B2B service providers. Specifically, Japanese expectations tend to choose suppliers based on partners’ companies are more likely to use WOM information sources referrals because they are more inclined to maintain the status than US companies because Japanese companies have a strong quo and are less willing to take risks. culture of collectivism and uncertainty avoidance. In addition, Existing studies focusing on the consequences of WOM Yang et al. (2017) found that firms performing above usage investigate the effects of WOM usage and WOM type on 55 Business-to-business marketing Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori Volume 38 · Number 13 · 2023 · 45–62 Table 4 Four types of WOM Source–receiver relationship Communication mode Within-firm Between-firm Face-to-face Intrafirm offline WOM Interfirm offline WOM Internet Intrafirm online WOM Interfirm online WOM 1 the supplier (i.e. selling firm); outcome variables such as satisfaction and relationship 2 reference customer (i.e. WOM source, WOM sender); continuity. In thesecases, the supplier is selected through WOM information. For example, Money (2004) indicated that and 3 potential customer (i.e. WOM receiver). buyer firms’ switching behaviors are influenced by the use of WOM and tie strength between the sender and receiver (buyer Figure 5 shows how the three parties are involved, depending firms). Specifically, firms that use WOM information to select on whether the communication mode is online (internet) or B2B service providers are less likely to switch to existing offline (face-to-face). In offline reference marketing, the suppliers than those that do not. In addition, Japanese firms in supplier first asks the reference customer to spread positive Japan do not tend to change service providers when they WOM about the products or the supplier. The reference consult WOM sources with high likability and/or expertise. customer then shares their experience with the supplier’s brand Furthermore, Kim (2014) found that the higher the expertise of with potential customers (Hada et al., 2014; Jaakkola and the WOM source and the more similar the buyer and the WOM Aarikka-Stenroos, 2019). In the case of online reference source, the more likely that the buyer will establish a strong marketing, the supplier posts the reference customer’s reviews relationship and continue business with a supplier. on their website as success stories or testimonials. The website In summary, prior research has shown that using WOM to is then used to encourage potential customers to initiate a select business partners allows firms to form strong business relationship with the supplier and buy the brand relationships with them and reduce the likelihood of switching (Jalkala and Salminen, 2010; Toth  et al., 2020). to other firms in the future. In addition, prior research has Research on reference marketing can be divided into three shown that firms use WOM to reduce uncertainty and maintain categories: their current favorable performance. However, there is 1 supplier-focused; insufficient empirical evidence on the relationship between 2 reference customer-focused; and WOM usage and firm performance. Insights are needed on 3 potential customer-focused research. how firms should use different types of WOM and under what Supplier-focused research investigates how B2B firms conditions WOM usage is effective. implement reference marketing and whether such practices lead to high firm performance. Jalkala and Salminen (2010) 5.3 Theme III: reference marketing conducted exploratory interviews with 38 companies in the Studies on reference marketing have addressed the question of information and communication industry and showed that how a B2B firm implements reference marketing. What are the consequences of this? Compared to Themes I and II, this B2B firms use WOM (online references) collected from reference customers in two ways: the external use of customer theme is more recent in B2B marketing research. references to promote sales and enhance the firm’s reputation Approximately 70% of the studies under this theme have been published within the past 10 years. Since almost half (44.4%) of and the internal use of customer references for employee these studies use qualitative interviews, this topic is training and customer understanding. Terho and Jalkala (2017), using quantitative survey data collected from 220 B2B characterized by being in its early stages and is oriented toward theory building. firms, found that both external and internal uses of customer Reference marketing involves three types of parties: references lead to high sales performance (e.g. new customer Figure 5 WOM flowchart in reference marketing Offline reference marketing Online reference marketing Supplier Supplier (selling firm) (Selling firm) Asking for WOM Posting customer’s WOM WOM Reference customer Reference customer Supplier’s website (WOM sender) (WOM sender) WOM WOM Prospective customer Prospective customer (WOM receiver) (WOM receiver) 56 Business-to-business marketing Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori Volume 38 · Number 13 · 2023 · 45–62 acquisition and large market share). Reference customer- obtain from sending WOM to other firms (Themes 1 and 3) focused research is limited: Jaakkola and Aarikka-Stenroos and when firms should use WOM as a source of information (2019) conducted interviews with 76 B2B firms in the (Theme 2). Jaakkola and Aarikka-Stenroos (2019) show that knowledge-intensive services industry and examined the value the dissemination of WOM as a customer reference allow firms of reference marketing to the supplier, reference customer and not only to build close business relationships with supplier potential customer. They showed that reference customers try firms, but also to form strong relationships with potential to strengthen their business relationships with suppliers by customers. Kim (2014) reveals that using the WOM of other sharing their experiences with potential customers, but they firms that have high expertise and are similar to one’s own firm also experience the risk of leaking information that could to select business partners reduces the likelihood of switching potentially harm the reference. Potential customer-focused business partners; thus, WOM from such firms should be research has been conducted to understand B2B customer considered important in making purchasing decisions. behaviors. Hada et al. (2014) examined how reference valence Throughout this review, we indicated that WOM has a and source credibility affect potential customers’ evaluation of considerable influence on purchasing decisions in the B2B suppliers. Through multiple experiments, they found that the context. Although some B2B marketing managers may effect of a positive reference is more meaningful when underestimate the role of WOM, online review websites for prospective buyers and source firms (i.e. reference customers) B2B products/services are widespread and online communities have previous business experience. They also showed that among purchasing managers are formed. Considering these source credibility plays an important role only when the trends, it is anticipated that WOM is more and more likely to reputation of reference customers is high. drive purchasing decisions in the B2B context, just as WOM is In sum, prior research has investigated the effectiveness of a powerful influence in B2C marketing. Therefore, B2B reference marketing from the perspective of three parties: marketing managers are required to use WOM as a strategic suppliers, reference customers and potential customers. tool for firm success. Although these studies have advanced our understanding of reference marketing, further work is needed to examine its 7. Discussion and future research directions impact on firm performance. New insights are required on what references firms should use and how to encourage their own We conducted a systematic literature review of 36 articles to salespeople to use references. determine the current state of research on WOM in the B2B context. The following section discusses the future research directions for WOM research within all the three themes; that 6. Managerial implications is, WOM generation, WOM usage and reference marketing. By identifying three themes and summarizing the findings in For each theme, we identify several research questions that each theme, we offer some useful suggestions for business should be addressed in future works. In addition to the three managers. Specifically, we provide practical insights to sales themes above, we identify promising research directions in two managers of firms who sell goods/services and purchasing emerging themes not addressed by previous studies: collecting managers who buy them, respectively. and managing WOM information about the supplier’s brand. Sales managers of suppliers or selling firms should refer to research findings on decision-making regarding how existing 7.1 Word-of-mouth generation customers communicate WOM (Theme I), how WOM is Although B2B WOM research has examined the antecedents of evaluated (Theme 2), and how reference customers’ WOM WOM generation, it has only considered WOM generation as a is leveraged (Theme 3). For example, the following suggestions positive outcome, along with other outcome indicators such as can be drawn from prior literature. According to previous satisfaction and loyalty. Therefore, future research needs to research on WOM generation (Anaza and Rutherford, 2014), address why buyers talk about selling firms and seller brands. the loyalty of the purchasing manager toward the sales manager Buyer firms probably send WOM messages to others to triggers positive WOM. Hence, salespeople should treat loyal maintain their reputation in the market and to develop trust customers with care, not only in terms of their large with their suppliers. It would be useful to assess such direct contribution to sales, but also in terms of their indirect relationship drivers. contribution to sales through sales promotions to other It is also helpful to focus on the WOM generation behaviors companies. Research findings on WOM usage (Yang et al., of individual purchasing managers in buyer firms. Some 2017) indicate that in a highly competitive environment, high- purchasing managers frequently send WOM to other buyers, performing firms are more likely to select business partners while others generate none. Based on the findings of WOM based on WOM; therefore, firms in a highly commoditized and research in the B2C context (Berger, 2014; Donthu et al., 2021; highly competitive environment should place importance on King et al.,2014), psychological propensities such as altruism, existing customers as WOM generators. Furthermore, self-enhancement and product involvement motivate buyers to according to the research findings of reference marketing in send WOM. Additionally, purchasing managers with a vast Theme 3 (Terho and Jalkala, 2017), firms should use informal network of contacts outside their firms are likely to customers’ opinions and success stories not only as a generate WOM messages to maintain their networks. promotional tool but also as a learning material for sales Therefore, it is essential to conduct qualitative and quantitative representatives. Purchasing managers in buyer firms should refer to research studies to examine the WOM communication behaviors of findings on decision-making regarding what benefits firms can buyer firms. 57 Business-to-business marketing Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori Volume 38 · Number 13 · 2023 · 45–62 To our surprise, no study has focused on the consequences of partners. Consequently, a mismatch of exchange partners can WOM generation. To deepen our understanding of WOM be prevented, thereby improving satisfaction and relationship generation behaviors, it is necessary to investigate not only its continuity with the supplier. However, there is no satisfactory antecedents but also its consequences. Future research should evidence on this topic. Intuitively, WOM communication is address the following research question: What are the expected to increase satisfaction in an uncertain environment. consequences of WOM generation? For example, considering Thus, future research can consider environmental factors. individual buyers, those who often send WOM to other buyers Furthermore, Money et al. (1998) showed that the effect of may obtain useful WOM information from other buyers in WOM usage on the intention of relationship continuity varies return. Consequently, the buyer can have a high level of across nations. They focused only on collectivism and knowledge about the market and its competitors. Providing uncertainty avoidance among Hofstede’s six cultural such empirical evidence on the behaviors of buyer dimensions, but how do other cultural dimensions affect WOM organizations and purchasing managers would contribute to usage behaviors? Further research is required to investigate the the advancement of WOM research in the B2B context. role of organizational culture. It is necessary to conduct qualitative and quantitative studies The following questions about WOM usage can be on the role of a supplier in generating WOM about their considered: What types of WOM improve supplier evaluation? products or services. What kind of behavior is adopted by the How does WOM valence, a concept often used in WOM suppliers in the first place? Although academic scholars, mainly research in the B2C context, affect B2B offerings? Can negative in northern Europe, have assessed the online reference WOM enhance supplier evaluations? Further, the effects of marketing activities of suppliers, other WOM activities have not online reviews remain unclear: What types of online reviews are been investigated. For example, how do suppliers make efforts helpful for B2B firms? Future research should address these to generate WOM about their offerings? What kind of firms questions and provide empirical evidence. focus on activities to induce WOM communication about their products? How supplier–sender relationships drive WOM 7.3 Reference marketing generation? Future research should address these questions. The most important consequence is firm performance, such as in sales, profits and market share. Thus, B2B marketers are 7.2 Word-of-mouth usage interested in the impact of reference marketing on firm Many studies have focused on factors that influence WOM performance. Terho and Jalkala (2017) found that reference usage behaviors. These studies address the question of when marketing, which consists of both external and internal use of and why buyer firms use WOM information. While existing online references, leads to high performance (e.g. new research has shown that organizational culture and customer acquisition and market share). However, the performance affect WOM usage behaviors, there are many effectiveness of reference marketing depends on various unanswered questions. For example, what product conditions and situations. Under what conditions is reference characteristics drive B2B firms to use WOM information? It is marketing effective? Which firms should invest in reference possible that B2B firms are more likely to use WOM when marketing? What type of reference marketing will improve firm purchasing complex or innovative products. Future research performance? The number and type of references, the content should provide further empirical evidence on this topic. of the references and the profile of the reference customers B2B firms use various types of information sources: online should impact firm performance. and offline WOM, customer references, advertisements, A further exciting topic is the use of references in sales salespeople and catalogs. Prior research has begun to address strategy, which has long been used in B2B marketing to the use of WOM combined with other information sources promote the sales of a firm’s offerings. In B2B marketing, (Steward et al.,2018; Toth  et al.,2020). However, there customer references are not an alternative for a salesperson but is room for further investigation. Examples include the rather a supplementary means. Thus, B2B firms need to following: Which has a more substantial influence: online or combine customer and salesperson references to improve their offline WOM? How do salespeople’s explanations and external performance. However, little is known about the relationship WOM information influence buyers’ purchase decisions? How between sales management and customer references. How does much and what kind of WOM is used by B2B firms in the a salesperson use customer references as a sales tool? Do purchase decision-making process? Although pioneering salespeople who use references achieve higher sales than those research on WOM in the B2B context has addressed the latter who do not? How does a sales force respond to potential questions (Martilla, 1971), little research has focused on WOM customers who receive WOM messages about the firm? These in organizational purchase behavior since then. How much questions are of great academic and practical relevance. importance do purchasing managers give to WOM information Therefore, future research should address these questions. from inside and outside the organization (i.e. intrafirm and Examining the motivations of existing customers to serve as interfirm WOM)? How do opinion leaders in an organization reference customers can yield rich managerial implications because it can provide selling firms with guidelines regarding influence the purchase decision-making process? What are the characteristics of opinion leaders in an organization? Further the selection and recruitment of reference customers. research is needed to address these research questions. Intuitively, one of the motivations for a customer to become a One of the main questions on this topic is, “Does WOM reference customer at a supplier’s request would be to usage lead to positive outcomes?” According to previous strengthen their relationship with the supplier. However, little studies, WOM usage reduces uncertainty about suppliers and empirical evidence is provided on reference customer B2B offerings and enables firms to search for suitable exchange behaviors. Why does a reference customer send WOM for their 58 Business-to-business marketing Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori Volume 38 · Number 13 · 2023 · 45–62 suppliers? How does becoming a reference customer lead to a electronic WOM. This is because, as mentioned above, close relationship with suppliers? Future studies are negative WOM is not often received by suppliers. However, encouraged to investigate these research questions. now that social networking services have become widespread, and B2B purchasing managers have formed connections through LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. and informal 7.4 Word-of-mouth collection communicationinclosednetworks has become more The theme of WOM collection addresses how firms collect accessible, negative WOM can spread quickly among WOM information about their own brands. Prior research in this review assumes that existing customers’ WOM about the customers. Therefore, how a company responds to negative supplier’s brand is valuable information for potential customers WOM may impact its survival. (e.g. potential customers can rely on WOM information to For example, how should B2B firms respond to negative make accurate purchase decisions). However, it is also WOM on online review websites? Currently, online review beneficial to the supplier itself. WOM information about a websites for B2B brands are becoming popular. Owing to the supplier’s brand represents the customer’s honest evaluation of source’s anonymity, negative WOM is more likely to the supplier’s products, which allows the supplier to be communicated online than in person. Therefore, it will understand the strengths and weaknesses of its own brand, the become increasingly critical for B2B marketers to manage uniqueness of its own products, and points to be improved in its negative WOM. Another unanswered question is how B2B services. This is a valuable source of information for the marketers should respond to negative WOM on social supplier. Therefore, firms should actively collect such WOM networking sites. Some B2B brand firms have their own social information about their B2B products/services to develop networking accounts and may receive complaints or requests product innovations and understand the appeal of their brands. for improvement on their timelines or through direct messages. However, according to this systematic review, no studies How should companies respond to such customer feedback to focused on supplier WOM behavior regarding supplier maintain their high evaluation by their customers? Academic branding and collection behavior by suppliers. Therefore, researchers in the field of B2B marketing are expected to make future research should address this topic. For example, how can efforts to address these research questions. firms collect WOM information about their products from existing customers? It would not be so easy to collect face-to- 8. Conclusion face WOM information from existing customers. Collecting Both academic researchers and business practitioners have negative WOM from existing customers is challenging because recognized that WOM plays an essential role in B2B marketing. they do not want to communicate it directly to suppliers. In fact, many B2B studies have examined WOM and reference However, suppliers need to collect such information because marketing during the past 20 years. However, no reviews focus negative WOM contains information on what needs to be on WOM in the B2B context. Since various findings have been improved in their brands and what customers need. How can presented on this topic, it is imperative to assess the current firms collect negative WOM? Perhaps, it might be more state of WOM research and clarify unaddressed research efficient to collect it indirectly from intermediaries rather than questions. This study aims to synthesize the findings from directly from customers (Ishii, 2021). existing studies on WOM in the B2B context, propose an Regardless of whether WOM is positive or negative, it is integrated conceptual framework and identify potential valuable information for a firm. It is also precious for an research directions. individual salesperson. This is because salespeople who Through a systematic review, 36 articles on B2B WOM were understand the firm’s brand and capture customer needs selected. We then described the published journals, the through WOM can achieve better sales performance than other countries used as the subject of the empirical analysis, and the salespeople. Therefore, salespeople may hesitate to inform methods used by these articles. Our thematic analysis other salespeople or their supervisors about WOM about their categorized these articles into three themes: brand and may keep the information confidential. If this is true, a key factor for WOM collection is establishing a system to 1 WOM generation; gather WOM information from the in-house salespersons. The 2 WOM usage; and collection of WOM information, if regarded as the generation 3 reference marketing. of market information, is included in market-oriented behavior Under each theme, we summarized research findings (Ishii, 2020; Mostafiz et al.,2021; Powers et al.,2020). It would unique to B2B research different from B2C WOM be interesting to provide empirical evidence on whether the research. We identified several research questions that collection of WOM information enhances firm outcomes. should be addressed by future research. By synthesizing and assessing prior research on WOM in the B2B context, 7.5 Word-of-mouth management we hope to have contributed to a better understanding of The second is the management of WOM about the firm’s the B2B WOM phenomenon and facilitated future research brand. Prior studies generally focus on the role of positive on this topic. WOM, such as sending out positive WOM and posting positive WOM on the company’s website. While previous studies (Gruber et al., 2010; Homburg and Fürst, 2005) have References addressed how B2B firms respond to customer complaints (i.e. a type of negative WOM), to the authors’ knowledge, no Aarikka-Stenroos, L. and Sakari Makkonen, H. (2014), research has addressed how they respond to negative “Industrial buyers’ use of references, word-of-mouth and 59 Business-to-business marketing Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori Volume 38 · Number 13 · 2023 · 45–62 reputation in complex buying situation”, Journal of Business de Matos, C.A. and Vargas Rossi, C.A. (2008), “Word-of- & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 29 No. 4, pp. 344-352. mouth communications in marketing: a meta-analytic review Allard, T., Dunn, L.H. and White, K. 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(2021), “B2B digital content marketing in uncertain situations: a About the authors systematic review”, Journal of Business & Industrial Ryuta Ishii is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the College Marketing, Vol. 37 No. 9, pp. 1852-1866. of Business Administration, Ritsumeikan University, Japan. His Yang, Z., Zhang, H. and Xie, E. (2017), “Performance research interests focus on business-to-business relationships, feedback and supplier selection: a perspective from the channel management and international marketing. His work has behavioral theory of the firm”, Industrial Marketing been published in Industrial Marketing Management, International Management, Vol. 63, pp. 105-115. Marketing Review, Marketing Intelligence & Planning and other You, Y., Vadakkepatt, G.G. and Joshi, A.M. (2015), “A meta- journals. Ryuta Ishii is the corresponding author and can be analysis of electronic word-of-mouth elasticity”, Journal of contacted at: r-ishii@fc.ritsumei.ac.jp Marketing, Vol. 79 No. 2, pp. 19-39. Zhang, J.,Jiang,Y., Shabbir, R. and Zhu,M.(2016), Mai Kikumori is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the “How brand orientation impacts B2B service brand College of Business Administration, Ritsumeikan University, equity? an empirical study among Chinese firms”, Japan. Her research interests focus on digital marketing and Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing,Vol.31 No. 1, social interactions, particularly in word-of-mouth, online pp. 83-98. review and social media usage. 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Word-of-mouth in business-to-business marketing: a systematic review and future research directions

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Emerald Publishing
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© Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori.
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0885-8624
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10.1108/jbim-02-2022-0099
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Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to review and analyze the status of word-of-mouth (WOM) research in the business-to-business (B2B) context and discuss and identify new possible future directions. Design/methodology/approach – A systematic review was conducted and 36 articles on B2B WOM were collected to evaluate the current state of the literature and clarify possible future research directions. Findings – This thematic analysis categorize these articles into three themes: WOM generation, WOM usage and reference marketing. Under each theme, the authors reveal research findings unique to B2B research and different from business-to-consumer (B2C) WOM research. This study identifies several research questions that should be addressed by future research. Originality/value – Both academic researchers and business practitioners recognize that WOM plays an essential role in B2B marketing. However, no review paper focuses on WOM in the B2B context. Findings in the B2C WOM literature suggest that WOM substantially influences firms’ performance, but that managers cannot simply attempt to extrapolate B2C findings to the B2B arena. By synthesizing and assessing prior research on WOM in the B2B context, this study contributes to a better understanding of the B2B WOM phenomenon and facilitates future research on this topic. Keywords Business-to-business marketing, Recommendation, Reference, Referral, Systematic review, Word-of-mouth Paper type Literature review product (Money et al.,1998; Tot  h et al., 2020). B2B buyers have 1. Introduction begun forming online communities and use electronic WOM In the field of business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing, it is from other buyers in the community (Steward et al.,2018). widely accepted that word-of-mouth (WOM) has a meaningful Given that WOM plays a vital role in the purchasing decisions of influence on consumers’ buying decisions. Whether face-to- buyer firms, seller firms proactively use it to promote their face or electronic, WOM has a more substantial impact on sales products and services. For example, they ask their existing than other elements of the marketing mix, such as advertising customers to recommend their products to potential customers and personal selling (Kim and Hanssens, 2017; You et al., (Hada et al.,2013; Hada et al.,2014) and post customer reviews 2015). The volume of consumer reviews on a particular of their products on their websites as case studies (Jaakkola and product improves product awareness and drives consumers to Aarikka-Stenroos, 2019; Jalkala and Salminen, 2009). This purchase it (Babic Rosario et al.,2016; Chevalier and Mayzlin, practice, referred to as reference marketing or referral marketing, 2006; Zhu and Zhang, 2010). Both positive and negative is widely used in business markets. WOM can improve product evaluations and purchase Therefore, the topic of WOM has attracted the attention of intentions (Allard et al.,2020; Berger et al.,2010). marketing managers and academic researchers because of its key Furthermore, from a long-term perspective, consumers influence on both B2C and B2B marketing. Indeed, to date, many acquired through WOM bring about twice as much value to a company as other consumers (Villanueva et al.,2008). WOM has a considerable influence on purchasing decisions, © Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori. Published by Emerald Publishing not only in B2C but in business-to-business (B2B) marketing as Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons well (Money, 2004). For example, purchasing managers in Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial buying firms often obtain WOM information from their internal and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original coworkers (e.g. salespersons and other purchasing managers) or publication and authors. The full terms of this licence maybe seen at http:// external partners (e.g. exchange partners and business friends) creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode when searching for a new supplier or evaluating a novel industrial The authors would like to thank the Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Wesley Johnston, and anonymous reviewers for providing valuable insights and The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald constructive comments. Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/0885-8624.htm Funding: This work was financially supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP18K12883. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Received 24 February 2022 38/13 (2023) 45–62 Revised 6 September 2022 Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 0885-8624] [DOI 10.1108/JBIM-02-2022-0099] Accepted 30 November 2022 45 Business-to-business marketing Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori Volume 38 · Number 13 · 2023 · 45–62 reviews have been published on WOM (BabicRosario et al., 2020; Figure 1 WOM phenomenon Berger, 2014; de Matos and Vargas Rossi, 2008; Donthu et al., Pure WOM process 2021; King et al., 2014). However, all these reviews focus on WOM in the B2C context and not in the B2B context. Findings in the B2C WOM Sender Receiver WOM literature suggest that WOM substantially influences firms’ performance, but that managers cannot simply attempt to Reference marketing process extrapolate B2C findings to the B2B arena. Thus, it is essential to synthesize research findings and identify future research directions Supplier ontheroleofWOMinB2Bmarketing. Choice Therefore, the purpose of our study is to review and analyze the WOM Sender Receiver status of WOM research in the B2B context, synthesize research findings to date and identify possible future directions using a systematic review method. This method differs from a traditional narrative review in that it removes the subjective bias of the involved by incentivizing a sender to generate WOM about researcher. It ensures exhaustive and comprehensive literature themselves or their offerings. “Reference marketing” is the searches through a replicable, scientific and transparent process. process where a supplier uses WOM from a sender (i.e. The rest of the paper is structured as follows. We first define reference customer) to provide information to a receiver (e.g. a and clarify the concept of WOM along with relevant concepts, potential customer). Suppliers can intervene in this process by such as referrals, recommendations and references in the choosing the sender as a reference customer. Section 2. Next, we describe the systematic review method and B2B WOM marketing involves three parties: the data collection procedure in the Section 3. Subsequently, 1 WOM sender; we conduct descriptive and thematic analyses of the reviewed 2 WOM receiver; and articles in the Sections 4 and 5. Finally, we present managerial 3 supplier. implications, discuss our analysis, and show possible directions A WOM sender (e.g. an existing buyer or reference customer) for future research in the Sections 6 and 7. sends positive or negative WOM to internal colleagues or external buyers or provides experiential information related to suppliers. A 2. Word-of-mouth in the business-to-business WOM receiver (i.e. a potential customer) receives and processes context WOM information from the senders and uses it for purchase- WOM is defined as: related decision-making. A supplier encourages existing customers to send WOM to prospective customers or to use WOM An oral or written communication process between a sender and an individual or group of receivers, regardless of whether they share the same information from reference customers as a marketing tool. In the social network, with the purpose of sharing and acquiring information on an next section, we conduct a systematic review while considering informal basis (Barreto, 2014, p. 647). these terminologies and classifications. Marketing scholars have used various terms to refer to the WOM phenomenon in the B2B context, such as WOM (Faroughian et al., 3. Methodology 2012; Kim, 2014), referral (Hartmann and de Grahl, 2011; We adopted the systematic review method to analyze the status quo Wallenburg, 2009) and recommendation (Olaru et al.,2008). of B2B WOM research. The advantages of this method are Several authors have even used a combination of these terms, such described in recent studies published in the Journal of Business & as WOM referrals (Money et al., 1998; Roth et al.,2004)and Industrial Marketing (Chawla et al., 2020; Minerbo and Brito, 2021; WOM recommendation (Chenet et al.,2010). However, these Yaghtin et al., 2021)and others (Hulland and Houston, 2020; terms are often used interchangeably in the B2B WOM literature Transfield et al., 2003). We searched and reviewed articles based (Aarikka-Stenroos and Sakari Makkonen, 2014; Tot  h et al.,2020). on the procedure established by Transfield et al. (2003). First, we Thus, we only use the term “WOM” here. However, we need to developed a review protocol, which included a review question, the draw a clear line between the terms WOM and reference. As focus of this research and the data collection strategy for relevant discussed earlier, in B2B marketing, selling firms often use articles. We searched, collected and assessed the quality and customers’ WOM as a marketing and sales tool. Such seller- relevance of the identified articles based on this protocol. We then initiated active utilization of customers’ WOM is referred to as conducted both descriptive and thematic analyses to reveal specific reference marketing. Although reference marketing is included in and detailed information on reviewed articles and summarized the the WOM phenomenon, B2B marketing scholars distinguish key findings of the literature. Finally, we synthesized the findings between “WOM,” which is informal communication among into an integrated conceptual framework to investigate the WOM customers wherein the seller does not intervene, and “reference,” phenomenon in the B2B context and identified possible directions which is communication using WOM in which the seller intervenes. for future research. In this section, we describe the process of data Based on the above discussion, the WOM phenomenon in collection and synthesis. B2B marketing can be classified into two categories: “pure WOM” and “reference marketing.” As shown in Figure 1, “pure WOM” is the process where a sender (e.g. an existing 3.1 Review question A systematic review is driven by a review question from which buyer or a salesperson) sends WOM to a receiver (e.g. a potential customer or an internal colleague). Suppliers do not search strings for scientific database searches are defined, directly intervene in this process, but they can be indirectly criteria for inclusion or exclusion are specified, and an overall 46 Business-to-business marketing Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori Volume 38 · Number 13 · 2023 · 45–62 process for collecting relevant literature is established. As stated Business Source Complete, 32 from Science Direct and 38 from earlier, we aim to synthesize research findings and identify Emerald. After removing duplicate articles, 111 articles remained. future research directions on the role of WOM in B2B marketing. Therefore, we set two review questions: (1) “What 3.3 Inclusion and exclusion criteria To ensure an unbiased selection of literature for our review, we do we know about WOM in B2B marketing?” and (2) “What established clear inclusion and exclusion criteria. We focused do we not know about WOM in B2B marketing?” on peer-reviewed, full-text accessible, original research articles published in English. Therefore, non-peer-reviewed business articles and editorials were excluded. We included journals 3.2 Database and search terms Based on recent systematic reviews (Cartwright et al.,2021; from two widely recognized international journal lists: the Christofi et al.,2021; Dobrucalı, 2019; Novais et al.,2019), the Academic Journal Guide (Chartered Association of Business Schools) and the Journal Quality List (Australian Business initial investigation was conducted using three online Deans Council). We included articles that address the WOM databases: phenomenon as the explained object (e.g. studies that treat 1 EBSCO Business Source Complete; WOM as the dependent variable in quantitative studies) and 2 Science Direct; and articles that use WOM to explain a specific phenomenon (e.g. 3 Emerald. quantitative studies that have WOM as an independent variable These databases have a worldwide reputation as reliable in quantitative studies). We excluded articles that focused on platforms; cover most of the published articles on business and the B2C context rather than B2B. We decided to include marketing; and allow us to search for articles using the title, articles that considered WOM in both B2B and B2C contexts abstract and keywords. (e.g. comparing WOM effects in B2B and B2C contexts). We Given that the review questions are about the findings and also decided to exclude articles that discussed WOM in general, research gaps in B2B WOM, it is necessary to choose articles since, at least in the academic field, WOM refers to B2C focusing on the context of business markets or B2B marketing. WOM, not B2B WOM. A key term associated with WOM is Therefore, we set two groups of keywords: the first group focused social media. Although communication among customers on WOM, including four keywords: “WOM,”“referral,” on social media can be viewed as a WOM phenomenon, the use “customer reference” and “customer review”; and the second of social media by firms is difficult to capture as a WOM group was about B2B, also including four keywords: “business-to- phenomenon. Hence, studies focusing on WOM in social business,”“industrial markets,”“industrial marketing” and media were included in the review, whereas studies on social “supplier.” We used the three databases to search for published media usage were excluded. articles containing WOM-related keywords in the first group and B2B-related keywords in the second group, either in the title, 3.4 Selection of relevant articles abstract or keywords. We conducted our initial search in January Two researchers reviewed 111 literature summaries. Based on 2021 with no publication time limit. As shown in Figure 2, 141 the inclusion and exclusion criteria, they screened the articles articles were obtained as the set of initial samples: 71 from EBSCO relevant to our review questions. However, for several Figure 2 Search strategy Keyword group 1 (WOM) word of mouth, referral(s), customer review(s), reference(s) Keyword group 2 (B2B) business-to-business, industrial markets, industrial marketing, supplier(s) EBSCO Business Source Science Direct: Emerald: Complete: 71 articles found 32 articles found 38 articles found Total articles found: 141 articles 30 duplicates removed 111 articles screened 78 articles excluded –Papers non-relevant to B2B WOM were excluded (e.g., B2C WOM, social media in B2B marketing) 33 articles screened 3 articles included based on cross-referencing Final sample: 36 articles 47 Business-to-business marketing Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori Volume 38 · Number 13 · 2023 · 45–62 references, it was difficult to determine whether to include commonplace, and communication about products and them in our review based solely on reading the abstracts. In services has become active in buyer communities and those cases, we manually read the full text to obtain the professional networks. Third, the spread of the internet has information needed to decide. Disagreements between the two increased the need for companies to establish their own researchers were resolved through consultation. websites and to post customer feedback as a form of Most of the 111 references focused on WOM in a B2C testimonials on those websites. context and the use of social media by B2B firms. Based on the As shown in Table 1, the 36 articles included in this review inclusion/exclusion criteria, these references were excluded. were published in 15 separate journals. Of the 15 journals, 11 were rated three and above in the Academic Journal Guide Similarly, applying that criterion, editorial and economic (AJG; Chartered Association of Business School, 2021). articles were also excluded. Among the 111 articles, many According to the ABDC Journal Quality List (JQL), eight were focused on WOM in the B2C context and social media in the A journals, five were A and two were B (Australian Business B2B context. Because the latter studies focused on the usage, design and management of social media by B2B companies, Deans Council, 2019). In the Scimago Journal Rank indicator, they were also removed, and 33 articles were extracted. most journals (80%) belonged to the Q1 category. These results indicate that the articles included in this review are of Finally, by examining the citations of these 33 articles, 3 good quality and that the editors and reviewers of top-level additional important articles were identified. Occasionally, journals are paying attention to this topic. Regarding the review articles that focused on WOM in general were also cited; number of articles, approximately half the articles (44%) were however, we did not add them as key references because the published in the two leading journals specializing in B2B review articles implicitly focused on the B2C context (e.g. marketing: Industrial Marketing Management (31%, n = 11) and individual consumer reviews, informal communication among Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing (14%, n = 5). This consumers). Consequently, there were 36 studies in total. suggests that B2B marketing scholars have contributed considerably to our understanding of the WOM phenomenon 3.5 Extraction, analysis and synthesis in the B2B context. Other journals that feature in our study and After determining the literature to be included in the review, are of international repute include Journal of Marketing (6%, the last step in the data collection process was to create a data n = 2), Journal of Marketing Research (6%, n = 2), European extraction form. To extract the data, we used a Microsoft Excel Journal of Marketing (8%, n = 3), Journal of Supply Chain spreadsheet. This sheet contained the following information for Management (8%, n =3) and Journal of Services Marketing (6%, the collected literature: title, authors, publication journal, year n = 2). Other articles were also published in internationally of publication, article type, sample size, industry context, recognized journals in the field of marketing and business, such country, major research findings, type of WOM, etc. To reduce as the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science and Journal of subjective bias as much as possible, each author reviewed all 36 Business Research. Most of these journals are general journals on references and completed the required fields in the spreadsheet. marketing and business. The appearance of articles on B2B When disagreements arose among the authors regarding coding WOM in such journals suggests that various marketing and classification, decisions were made through discussion. researchers are interested in this topic. The final spreadsheet was helpful in conducting the descriptive Figure 3 shows the trend over time and current proportion of and thematic analysis that followed. each methodology used by the selected articles. According to the present proportion of methodologies used, of the 36 4. Descriptive analysis articles, most were empirical studies (94%, n = 34), with the Literature on WOM in B2B marketing emerged in the 1970s, most common method being quantitative analyses with data when academic scholars paid great attention to industrial collection by mail or an online survey (47%, n = 17). This trend buying behaviors and investigated the difference between B2B is similar to that of other topics in B2B marketing. The and B2C marketing strategies (Sheth, 1973; Webster and qualitative interview method (25%, n = 9) was also often used Wind, 1972). The pioneering works of Martilla (1971) and by the selected articles. Compared to quantitative methods, Webster (1970) revealed that WOM is generated either by qualitative methods are used in the early stages of a particular internal colleagues (i.e. intrafirm WOM) or external firms (i.e. research field because they are better at examining new and interfirm WOM) and is an essential factor that influences complex phenomena in an exploratory manner (Granot et al., business organizations’ decision-making processes. For almost 2012; Woodside and Wilson, 2003). Indeed, several articles in three decades after these works, very little research focused on our review stated that they use qualitative methods because WOM in B2B marketing. Since the 2000s, however, more than there are few studies on B2B WOM, and there is an insufficient 30 WOM-related articles have been published. Specifically, 2 description of the phenomenon and elaboration of the concepts articles (5.6%) were published between 2001 and 2005, 9 (Jaakkola and Aarikka-Stenroos, 2019; Jalkala and Salminen, (25%) between 2006 and 2010, 11 (30.6%) between 2011 and 2010). Therefore, a relatively large proportion of qualitative 2015 and 11 (30.6%) between 2016 and 2020. There were at studies in the selected articles suggests that the study on B2B least three causes of the widespread recognition among WOM is in its early stages. researchers and the gradual increase in the number of WOM- No literature reviews (e.g. systematic reviews or meta- related articles. First, online review websites have increased in analyses) were found. Notably, the time-series trends indicate a B2B marketing, and WOM communication among buyers has gradual increase in the number of experimental methods in influenced purchasing decisions. Second, in the context of B2B recent years. This is because B2B marketing is beginning to pay marketing, the use of social networking services has become more attention to experimental methods: the use of 48 Business-to-business marketing Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori Volume 38 · Number 13 · 2023 · 45–62 Table 1 Journals included in the analysis AJG JQL SJR Journal (2021) (2019) (2020) 1970–2000 2001–2005 2006–2010 2011–2015 2016–2020 Total Industrial Marketing Management 3A 2.0 (Q1) 3 2 6 11 Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing 2 A 0.7 (Q2) 1 3 1 5 European Journal of Marketing 3A 1.2 (Q1) 1 2 3 Journal of Supply Chain Management 4 A 3.8 (Q1) 1 2 3 Journal of Marketing 4 A 7.8 (Q1) 1 1 2 Journal of Marketing Research 4 A 6.3 (Q1) 2 2 Journal of Services Marketing 2 A 1.2 (Q1) 2 2 Asia Pacific Journal of Management 3 A 1.1 (Q1) 1 1 Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing 2 B 0.4 (Q3) 1 1 Journal of Business Research 3 A 2.0 (Q1) 1 1 Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing 1 B 0.9 (Q2) 1 1 Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 4 A 5.5 (Q1) 1 1 Journal of World Business 4A 3.6 (Q1) 1 1 Marketing Science 4 A 5.9 (Q1) 1 1 Organization Science 4 A 7.0 (Q1) 1 1 Total 3 2 9 11 11 36 Notes: AJG, Academic journal guide (Chartered Association of Business School); JQL, Journal quality list (Australian Business Deans Council); SJR, Scimago journal rank Figure 3 Research methods used in selected articles Survey Interview Experiment Content analysis Others 47% 8 25% 14% 2 8% 6% 1970 –2000 2001–2005 2006 –2010 2011–2015 2016 – 2020 experimental stimuli in a B2B context is difficult because the on organizational behaviors of developed Western countries. purchase of B2B products/services involves multiple persons, Such overall trends indicate that researchers in the USA and and the buying process is a long one. Hence, experimental Western Europe are the main contributors to research on B2B methods tend to be shunned in B2B marketing research. WOM. Additionally, we should be cautious about applying However, the experimental method is a valuable gold standard such research findings to WOM behaviors in other regions such for analyzing causal relationships (Hada, 2021). In fact, as Asia and Africa. experimentation is used extensively in B2C WOM research. Table 2 shows the industries that the empirical studies in this Figure 4 shows the loci of the empirical studies analyzed in review considered as the research context. Overall, most studies this review. Of the 34 empirical studies, 25 explicitly indicated focused on B2B services, which, unlike tangible industrial the country where data were collected. The two major regions products, are characterized by their intangible and variable were Europe (32%, n = 8, three studies in the UK, two in nature, making it difficult to assess their quality before buying Germany, two in a particular European country, and one in or experiencing them. Therefore, WOM information plays a Finland) and the USA (28%, n = 7). Four studies were crucial role in the evaluation and purchase of B2B services. conducted in China and one each in Australia, Canada and Previous studies (Faroughian et al., 2012; Hada et al., 2014; India. Moreover, three studies collected data from multiple Jalkala and Salminen, 2009; Money, 2004) have often focused countries (i.e. USA and Japan) to compare the organizational on three services: “IT and software procurement,”“logistics buying behaviors. Overall, most extant literature has focused and transportation” and “financial service.” In the information 49 Business-to-business marketing Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori Volume 38 · Number 13 · 2023 · 45–62 Figure 4 Researched contexts in selected articles Table 2 Industry breakdown Industry Citation IT and software procurement Jalkala and Salminen (2009, 2010), Brock and Yu Zhou (2012), Hada et al. (2013, 2014), Ruokolainen and Aarikka-Stenroos (2016), Terho and Jalkala (2017), Mo et al. (2020), T oth et al. (2020) Logistics and transportation (logistic, freight and transportation Money et al. (1998), Money (2004), Roth et al. (2004), Molinari et al. service) (2008), Wallenburg (2009), Hartmann and De Grahl (2011), Friend and Johnson (2014), Steward et al. (2018) Financial services (banking, insurance) Money et al. (1998), Money (2004), Roth et al. (2004), Chenet et al. (2010), Faroughian et al. (2012), Lussier et al. (2017) Telephone services Hansen et al. (2008), Mo et al. (2020) Food services Friend and Johnson (2014), Lussier et al. (2017) Other B2B services (printing, building maintenance, cleaning, uniform, Money et al. (1998), Money (2004), Roth et al. (2004), Wang and Huff trash and recycling, education, health care, consultancy, packaging, (2007), Olaru et al. (2008), Aarikka-Stenroos and Sakari Makkonen (2014), architectural design, aerospace, advertising, real estate, R&D) Friend and Johnson (2014), Steward et al. (2018), Jaakkola and Aarikka- Stenroos (2019), T oth et al. (2020) B2B goods (machinery, equipment, materials) Martilla (1971), Jalkala and Salminen (2009, 2010), Aarikka-Stenroos and Sakari Makkonen (2014), Kim (2014), Lussier et al. (2017), Terho and Jalkala (2017), Steward et al. (2018), Jaakkola and Aarikka-Stenroos (2019), Mo et al. (2020) technology (IT) and logistics service industries, it has been 5. Thematic analysis found that sellers and buyers actively use WOM, the latter in Recall that we have classified the WOM phenomenon in the making purchasing decisions. Several studies have focused on B2B context into “pure WOM process” and “reference reference marketing in the context of IT procurement or marketing process” (Figure 1). Basedonexisting studies logistics services. This suggests that in the IT and logistics on WOM in the B2C context, “pure WOM process” is industries, selling firms actively use WOM information as a divided into two phases: generation and usage. According marketing tool, whereas buying firms rely on it to make to the B2C WOM literature (Babic Rosario et al.,2020; purchasing decisions. Further, start-up companies often face King et al.,2014), at least two entities are involved in the purchasing decisions regarding logistics and financial services “pure WOM process”: the sender and the receiver. The (Money et al.,1998; Roth et al., 2004). Other services that sender is involved in WOM generation, while the receiver is frequently appear in empirical studies are telephone and food involved in WOM usage. The mechanisms, related services, which were investigated in two studies. Other services concepts, and theories used in WOM generation and usage include printing, advertising and packaging. Some studies have are very different.Therefore,B2C WOMresearchers have focused on the transactions of tangible industrial goods rather categorized WOM research into the two phases. Following than services. Specifically, they have examined the role of this categorization, as well as the classification of “pure WOM in the purchasing decisions of pharmaceuticals, WOM process” and “reference marketing process,” we electronic machinery and processing equipment. identified three themes: 50 Business-to-business marketing Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori Volume 38 · Number 13 · 2023 · 45–62 1 WOM generation; repeated violation respond negatively and sensitively to a 2 WOM usage; and violation of trust. 3 reference marketing. Overall, prior studies have shown that firm characteristics and interfirm factors generate WOM or moderate the effects of Table 3 presents an overview of research findings from the WOM. However, there has been no attempt to examine who reviewed articles. This section offers the contributions and generates WOM within a firm or what happens to buyer firms discusses the main research findings for each theme. and purchasing managers as a result of WOM generation. These are research questions to be addressed in the future, and 5.1 Theme I: word-of-mouth generation we discuss them in detail in the next section. The first theme is WOM generation and focuses on the sender or source of WOM; 16 (44%) of the 36 studies in this review 5.2 Theme II: word-of-mouth usage come under this theme, where the research question is, “Why Research under the theme of WOM usage has addressed the do customer firms send positive or negative WOM messages?” following questions: What types of WOM messages do These studies investigate the antecedents of WOM customer firms use? Why do customer firms use WOM communication. This theme has two characteristics: first, prior messages as a source of information for purchase decision- research on this theme has often treated positive WOM making? What are the consequences of WOM usage? These messages, such as recommendations and referrals, as positive questions are rarely addressed in B2C WOM research and are outcome indicators, along with repurchase intention, specific to the field of B2B marketing. satisfaction, loyalty and relationship continuity. By stating that As shown in Table 4, WOM information used by customer “a widely studied outcome variable within the relationship firms is classified into four types based on the sender–receiver marketing literature is word-of-mouth,” Brock and Yu Zhou relationship (within-firm versus between-firm) and (2012, p. 372) emphasized the importance of WOM as a communication mode (face-to-face versus internet). The first performance indicator in B2B research. Second, 13 (81%) of type is the intrafirm offline WOM. Martilla (1971) conducted the 16 studies used a quantitative survey as the empirical exploratory interviews with 66 managers in the paper industry method. Most of these survey studies focused on B2B services, and found that there are opinion leaders in each company who such as logistics, IT, and finance. This suggests that B2B have a considerable influence on the purchasing decisions for service marketers emphasize WOM generation. industrial products through WOM communication within the Prior research on B2C marketing identifies satisfaction, company. The second type is the intrafirm online WOM. loyalty, quality, perceived value and trust as essential Steward et al. (2018) showed that sellers’ scorecards antecedents of WOM generation (de Matos and Vargas Rossi, (performance appraisal systems) available on company 2008). WOM studies in B2B marketing extend these research intranets can be regarded as WOM information within a findings of B2C WOM by identifying moderating variables company and that they influence purchasing decisions in B2B specific to B2B marketing. Olaru et al. (2008) showed that the markets. The third is interfirm offline WOM, which has been the effect of service value on positive WOM generation is focus of many studies. Money et al. (1998) and Roth et al. moderated by organization type (government versus private (2004) found that start-up firms often refer to WOM firm) and contract length (long versus short). Anaza and information from relatives, friends, and business acquaintances Rutherford (2014) considered both individual and when they make purchase decisions for B2B services such as organizational levels of the interorganizational relationship logistics, advertising and finance. Hada et al. (2014) also between seller and buyer. They found that positive WOM is focused on the face-to-face WOM prompted by suppliers (i.e. created by loyalty to individual salespersons and satisfaction face-to-face reference) in B2B markets and showed that B2B with seller firms. marketers often use such reference information from other Studies under this theme have identified the antecedents of companies in the purchase process. Fourth is interfirm online WOM generation, such as firm strategy, organizational WOM. According to Steward et al. (2018), professional B2B capabilities, strategic orientation and interfirm relationships, buyers have formed online communities in recent years and which have not been assessed in WOM research in the B2C refer to other buyers’ reviews of B2B products and services. context. Hartmann and de Grahl (2011) focused on the Many studies in this review examine online reference concept of organizational flexibility and indicated that logistics marketing, where sellers post buyers’ WOM reviews on their service providers can promote customer referrals by responding own website and use it as a marketing tool (Jalkala and flexibly to customers’ needs and changes in the environment. Salminen, 2009; Terho and Jalkala, 2017). They show that Mo et al. (2020) found that an increase of out-of-the-channel- online WOM from other companies (i.e. interfirm online loop perception, which means a channel member’s perception WOM) is often used in B2B marketing. of exclusion from a supplier’s distribution channel networks, Previous studies also address the research questions: Why do decreases positive WOM generation. customer firms use WOM messages as sources of information Prior research has also investigated the generation of negative for purchase decision-making? What are the consequences of WOM messages when B2B service failure occurs. Wang and WOM usage? These studies investigate the antecedents and Huff (2007) identified the conditions under which buyers consequences of WOM usage. The former focuses mainly on generate negative WOM when a seller violates the buyer’s trust firm characteristics as a factor influencing WOM usage. For by failing to meet the buyer’s confident expectations. example, Money et al. (1998) conducted exploratory interviews Specifically, they showed that buyers in the early stages of trust with purchasing managers of 48 start-up firms in Japan and the development and/or those who perceive a high likelihood of USA and showed that organizational culture plays a vital role in 51 Business-to-business marketing Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori Volume 38 · Number 13 · 2023 · 45–62 Table 3 Overview of the findings from the reviewed articles Author Context Country (sample size) Method Major findings Theme I: WOM generation Wang and Huff Printing service USA (n = 390) Experiment Focuses on the effect of a seller’s violation of trust. (2007) The stage of trust (early/mature) and perceived likelihood of repeated violation are positively related to negative WOM Hansen et al. (2008) Telephone service A European country Survey Investigates the antecedents and consequences of (n = 264) customer perceived value in a B2B service setting. Corporate reputation, information sharing and flexibility are related to high customer perceived value, which leads to positive WOM Molinari et al. Freight service USA (n = 215) Survey Service quality and positive disconfirmation are (2008) related to positive WOM; however, service value and satisfaction are not significantly related to positive WOM Olaru et al. (2008) R&D industry Australia (n = 918) Survey There is a positive relationship between service value and recommendations to others. This relationship is enhanced if the buyer is a government organization (vs. private firm) and/or has longer contracts with the seller Wallenburg (2009) Logistic service Germany (n = 311) Survey Cost and performance improvement of logistic service are positively related to referral when the outsourced services are complex. Additionally, the effect of logistics innovation depends on the contract duration; cost improvement is a driver of referral in a short contract, while performance improvement plays a pivotal role in a long contract Chenet et al. (2010) Financial service A European country Survey Trust enhances commitment through a mediator of (n = 302) service differentiation. In turn, commitment leads to positive WOM Hartmann and De Logistic service Germany (n = 166) Survey Logistics service provider flexibility is positively Grahl (2011) related to customer referral, which is an element of customer loyalty, along with retention and extension Faroughian et al. Banking UK (n = 167) Survey Three types of risk (performance, financial, and (2012) psychological) are related to benefits and sacrifices (the two components of value). Positive WOM is positively related to benefits and satisfaction Brock and Yu Zhou IT procurement UK (n = 141) Survey Conceptualizes and operationalizes customer (2012) intimacy, a multidimensional construct of mutual understanding, closeness, and value perception. It generates positive WOM Friend and Johnson Various services (e.g. N/A Content analysis Business referral behaviors are observed in the key (2014) logistics, cleaning, account relationships characterized as trust, building maintenance) commitment, and positive partnership (e.g., close collaboration, long-term orientation) Anaza and Various industries USA Survey Focuses on both individual and organizational levels Rutherford (2014) (n = 177) in the buyer-seller relationship; namely, the buyer– salesperson and – selling firm levels. This study shows that positive WOM is generated by a buyer’s loyalty to a salesperson and satisfaction with a selling firm Zhang et al. (2016) Various industries China (n = 258) Survey B2B service firms with strong brand orientation can increase positive WOM communication by enhancing internal branding and strengthening customer experience (continued) 52 Business-to-business marketing Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori Volume 38 · Number 13 · 2023 · 45–62 Table 3 Author Context Country (sample size) Method Major findings Gao et al. (2016) Various industries China (n = 263) Survey Business friendship, the integration of business dealings and personal friendship, is formed by congeniality, rule adherence and business reputation. It promotes positive WOM Lussier et al. (2017) Pharmaceutical, food N/A (n = 149) Survey Examines the role of humor usage in a B2B selling and beverage, industrial context. This study shows that humor usage is positively and financial industries related to customer trust, leading to positive WOM Mo et al. (2020) IT services, automobiles, China (n = 183) Survey Out-of-the-channel-loop perception, a channel home appliances and member’s perception of exclusion from a supplier’s telecommunications distribution channel networks, decreases the generation of positive WOM Zhu et al. (2020) Winery sector Canada (n = 487) Content analysis Focuses on digital referrals inscribed in businesses’ digital content. This study shows that businesses give digital referrals (i.e. hyperlinks) and exhibit greater strategic similarity with peers located closer to each other Theme II: WOM usage Webster (1970) Various industries USA (n = 50) Qualitative The first study focusing on informal communication in industrial markets. A series of interviews with industrial purchasing agents showed that WOM communication in industrial markets may be much lesser than that in consumer markets, and that manufacturers’ salesmen play a key role as information sources Martilla (1971) Paper industry USA (n = 197) Mixed method WOM communication within firms influences the (interview and later stages of the product adoption process. survey) Opinion leaders in industrial firms were exposed more frequently and in greater depth to impersonal sources of information than other buying influential within the firm Money et al. (1998) B2B services (e.g. Japan and USA Mixed method Culture and location influence on the level of WOM advertising, distribution, (n = 434) (interview and referral activity. Specifically, buyers of services in banking, real estate, survey) Japan consult WOM referral sources more often than insurance) American buyers, and buyers in a foreign market tend to use WOM referral sources Money (2004) B2B services (e.g. Japan and USA Mixed method Switching behaviors of industrial services customers advertising, distribution, (n = 434) (interview and is affected by WOM sources usage, national culture banking, real estate, survey) (Japanese vs American), location of operation insurance) (foreign vs domestic) and tie strength with sources (e.g. frequency, likability, expertise) Roth et al. (2004) B2B services(e.g. Japan and USA Mixed method Investigates the purchasing process of B2B services. advertising, distribution, (n = 434) (interview and Referral usage is influenced by national culture and banking, real estate, survey) service characteristics, and the types of referral sources insurance) are associated with national culture. Additionally, this study identifies three types of services buying segments: networkers, opportunists and independents Vissa (2012) Various industries India (n = 59) Survey Focuses on the effects of entrepreneurs’ interpersonal networking style on the initiation of interorganizational exchange ties. Entrepreneurs using more network-deepening actions initiate fewer new economic exchanges, due to their increased reliance on referral-based search, whereas entrepreneurs using more network-broadening actions initiate more new economic exchanges due to their decreased reliance on referral-based search (continued) 53 Business-to-business marketing Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori Volume 38 · Number 13 · 2023 · 45–62 Table 3 Author Context Country (sample size) Method Major findings Aarikka-Stenroos Knowledge-intensive N/A (45 managers of Qualitative Investigates how buyers use experience-based and Sakari services (e.g. industrial eight firms) information to solve complex buying problems. Makkonen (2014) design) and technical References offer information on a supplier’s innovation (e.g. a new performance and competence. In contrast, WOMs packing machine) provide more specific and sensitive information. Buyers gather WOM from experts, colleagues, other customers and even competitors Kim (2014) (Mainly) electronics and N/A (n = 267) Survey WOM information characterized as expertise and machinery similarity enables industrial buyers to build strong relationship quality and continuity with a selected supplier Yang et al. (2017) N/A China (n = 112) Survey Outperforming buying firms are more likely to select suppliers by relational referrals while underperforming buyers are more likely to take risks and search for new suppliers without referring to relational referrals. This relationship is enhanced by the intensity of market competition and specific investment in the buyer–supplier relationship Steward et al. Various industries (e.g., USA (n = 48, 293, 82, Mixed method Examines the impact of two types of online reviews (2018) education, health care, 587) (interview and (external reviews posted on online professional manufacturing, natural experiment) communities and internal reviews in the format of resources and mining, vendor scorecards) on B2B purchasing professionals. transportation) An external negative review prompts more learning, better attitudes, enhanced purchasing intentions and more sharing than an internal negative review. Moreover, a positive internal review and a negative external review are more effective than a negative internal review and a positive external review Toth et al. (2020) Various industries (e.g. UK (n = 22, 165) Mixed method Both corporate online references and WOM IT, consultancy, (interview and recommendations exert a positive impact on the packaging, architectural experiment) customers’ intention to initiate a business design, aerospace) relationship with the supplier, and increase attractiveness in the partner selection phase. More elaborately written references tend to be preferred across small and large SMEs; however, in the case of small SMEs, less elaborated references, such as logos, appeared to be sufficient to evoke attractiveness if they occur in combination with a WOM recommendation Theme III: Reference marketing Salminen and N/A N/A Conceptual Discusses reference marketing practices identified in Möller (2006) marketing textbooks and reviews scientific marketing articles. This study then develops a conceptual framework assessing the key modes of reference utilization in business marketing and identifies the factors influencing the need and relevance of reference marketing Jalkala and Process and information N/A (165 references of Content analysis The structures of reference descriptions on company Salminen (2009) technology six companies) Discourse analysis websites are formed by themes such as product/ project details, results and benefits, customer’s problem and suppliers’ responsibilities. Additionally, this study identifies three types of discourses: benefits, relationship commitment and technical expertise (continued) 54 Business-to-business marketing Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori Volume 38 · Number 13 · 2023 · 45–62 Table 3 Author Context Country (sample size) Method Major findings Jalkala and Process and information N/A (38 interviews of Qualitative Customer references can be leveraged externally to Salminen (2010) technology four companies) obtain status effects, concretize complex solutions and offer indirect experience information. They can also be leveraged internally to promote organizational learning, advance offering development, motivate personnel and develop understanding of customer needs and firm competencies Godes (2012) N/A N/A Analytical model Manufacturers’ use of reference program leads to exclusive use of the technology. When the firm has private information about the quality of the technology, a reference program can serve as a signal to early adopters of high quality Hada et al. (2013) Networking, USA (n = 480) Experiment Focuses on supplier-selected referrals which telecommunication and suppliers’ existing customers give to purchasing electronics managers. This study identifies the purchasing manager’s experience and positive referral including negative information as the antecedents of the purchasing manager’s perceived bias Hada et al. (2014) Enterprise resource N/A (n = 154, 40, 83) Experiment Examines whether the influence of the supplier- planning software selected referral on a potential customer depends on supplier uncertainty. This study shows that an all- positive referral (vs a two-sided referral) is more influential for an outsupplier who has never worked with the potential customer than for an insupplier who has worked with the potential customer before, but on an unrelated solution. This study also shows that referrer credibility has no effect on the potential customer for a reputed outsupplier Ruokolainen and Software N/A (two companies) Qualitative Examines start-up firms’ use of references by using Aarikka-Stenroos the principals of rhetoric; logos (rational aspect), (2016) pathos (emotional aspect) and ethos (source credibility). Reference information for a start-up comprises includes the basic reference data, the reference customer’s long-term orientation, value-in- use experiences, indirect benefits, the supplier’s competencies and the customer’s commitments Terho and Jalkala Process and information N/A (38 interviews of Mixed method Conceptualizes customer reference marketing and (2017) technology four companies) (interview and develops its measurement. Customer reference Mainly ICT industry, ICT, Finland survey) marketing can be regarded as a market-based materials and machinery (n = 124) resource, which is developed by external and and equipment Finland internal leverage of references. This resource leads industries (n = 96) to high selling performance especially when firms offer innovative products/services Jaakkola and Knowledge-intensive N/A (76 interviews of Qualitative Customer referencing influences three actors: the Aarikka-Stenroos business services 76 firms) seller, reference customer, and prospective buyer. It (2019) leads value creation at three levels (i.e. actor, dyadic relationship and business network levels) in the triad selecting B2B service providers. Specifically, Japanese expectations tend to choose suppliers based on partners’ companies are more likely to use WOM information sources referrals because they are more inclined to maintain the status than US companies because Japanese companies have a strong quo and are less willing to take risks. culture of collectivism and uncertainty avoidance. In addition, Existing studies focusing on the consequences of WOM Yang et al. (2017) found that firms performing above usage investigate the effects of WOM usage and WOM type on 55 Business-to-business marketing Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori Volume 38 · Number 13 · 2023 · 45–62 Table 4 Four types of WOM Source–receiver relationship Communication mode Within-firm Between-firm Face-to-face Intrafirm offline WOM Interfirm offline WOM Internet Intrafirm online WOM Interfirm online WOM 1 the supplier (i.e. selling firm); outcome variables such as satisfaction and relationship 2 reference customer (i.e. WOM source, WOM sender); continuity. In thesecases, the supplier is selected through WOM information. For example, Money (2004) indicated that and 3 potential customer (i.e. WOM receiver). buyer firms’ switching behaviors are influenced by the use of WOM and tie strength between the sender and receiver (buyer Figure 5 shows how the three parties are involved, depending firms). Specifically, firms that use WOM information to select on whether the communication mode is online (internet) or B2B service providers are less likely to switch to existing offline (face-to-face). In offline reference marketing, the suppliers than those that do not. In addition, Japanese firms in supplier first asks the reference customer to spread positive Japan do not tend to change service providers when they WOM about the products or the supplier. The reference consult WOM sources with high likability and/or expertise. customer then shares their experience with the supplier’s brand Furthermore, Kim (2014) found that the higher the expertise of with potential customers (Hada et al., 2014; Jaakkola and the WOM source and the more similar the buyer and the WOM Aarikka-Stenroos, 2019). In the case of online reference source, the more likely that the buyer will establish a strong marketing, the supplier posts the reference customer’s reviews relationship and continue business with a supplier. on their website as success stories or testimonials. The website In summary, prior research has shown that using WOM to is then used to encourage potential customers to initiate a select business partners allows firms to form strong business relationship with the supplier and buy the brand relationships with them and reduce the likelihood of switching (Jalkala and Salminen, 2010; Toth  et al., 2020). to other firms in the future. In addition, prior research has Research on reference marketing can be divided into three shown that firms use WOM to reduce uncertainty and maintain categories: their current favorable performance. However, there is 1 supplier-focused; insufficient empirical evidence on the relationship between 2 reference customer-focused; and WOM usage and firm performance. Insights are needed on 3 potential customer-focused research. how firms should use different types of WOM and under what Supplier-focused research investigates how B2B firms conditions WOM usage is effective. implement reference marketing and whether such practices lead to high firm performance. Jalkala and Salminen (2010) 5.3 Theme III: reference marketing conducted exploratory interviews with 38 companies in the Studies on reference marketing have addressed the question of information and communication industry and showed that how a B2B firm implements reference marketing. What are the consequences of this? Compared to Themes I and II, this B2B firms use WOM (online references) collected from reference customers in two ways: the external use of customer theme is more recent in B2B marketing research. references to promote sales and enhance the firm’s reputation Approximately 70% of the studies under this theme have been published within the past 10 years. Since almost half (44.4%) of and the internal use of customer references for employee these studies use qualitative interviews, this topic is training and customer understanding. Terho and Jalkala (2017), using quantitative survey data collected from 220 B2B characterized by being in its early stages and is oriented toward theory building. firms, found that both external and internal uses of customer Reference marketing involves three types of parties: references lead to high sales performance (e.g. new customer Figure 5 WOM flowchart in reference marketing Offline reference marketing Online reference marketing Supplier Supplier (selling firm) (Selling firm) Asking for WOM Posting customer’s WOM WOM Reference customer Reference customer Supplier’s website (WOM sender) (WOM sender) WOM WOM Prospective customer Prospective customer (WOM receiver) (WOM receiver) 56 Business-to-business marketing Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori Volume 38 · Number 13 · 2023 · 45–62 acquisition and large market share). Reference customer- obtain from sending WOM to other firms (Themes 1 and 3) focused research is limited: Jaakkola and Aarikka-Stenroos and when firms should use WOM as a source of information (2019) conducted interviews with 76 B2B firms in the (Theme 2). Jaakkola and Aarikka-Stenroos (2019) show that knowledge-intensive services industry and examined the value the dissemination of WOM as a customer reference allow firms of reference marketing to the supplier, reference customer and not only to build close business relationships with supplier potential customer. They showed that reference customers try firms, but also to form strong relationships with potential to strengthen their business relationships with suppliers by customers. Kim (2014) reveals that using the WOM of other sharing their experiences with potential customers, but they firms that have high expertise and are similar to one’s own firm also experience the risk of leaking information that could to select business partners reduces the likelihood of switching potentially harm the reference. Potential customer-focused business partners; thus, WOM from such firms should be research has been conducted to understand B2B customer considered important in making purchasing decisions. behaviors. Hada et al. (2014) examined how reference valence Throughout this review, we indicated that WOM has a and source credibility affect potential customers’ evaluation of considerable influence on purchasing decisions in the B2B suppliers. Through multiple experiments, they found that the context. Although some B2B marketing managers may effect of a positive reference is more meaningful when underestimate the role of WOM, online review websites for prospective buyers and source firms (i.e. reference customers) B2B products/services are widespread and online communities have previous business experience. They also showed that among purchasing managers are formed. Considering these source credibility plays an important role only when the trends, it is anticipated that WOM is more and more likely to reputation of reference customers is high. drive purchasing decisions in the B2B context, just as WOM is In sum, prior research has investigated the effectiveness of a powerful influence in B2C marketing. Therefore, B2B reference marketing from the perspective of three parties: marketing managers are required to use WOM as a strategic suppliers, reference customers and potential customers. tool for firm success. Although these studies have advanced our understanding of reference marketing, further work is needed to examine its 7. Discussion and future research directions impact on firm performance. New insights are required on what references firms should use and how to encourage their own We conducted a systematic literature review of 36 articles to salespeople to use references. determine the current state of research on WOM in the B2B context. The following section discusses the future research directions for WOM research within all the three themes; that 6. Managerial implications is, WOM generation, WOM usage and reference marketing. By identifying three themes and summarizing the findings in For each theme, we identify several research questions that each theme, we offer some useful suggestions for business should be addressed in future works. In addition to the three managers. Specifically, we provide practical insights to sales themes above, we identify promising research directions in two managers of firms who sell goods/services and purchasing emerging themes not addressed by previous studies: collecting managers who buy them, respectively. and managing WOM information about the supplier’s brand. Sales managers of suppliers or selling firms should refer to research findings on decision-making regarding how existing 7.1 Word-of-mouth generation customers communicate WOM (Theme I), how WOM is Although B2B WOM research has examined the antecedents of evaluated (Theme 2), and how reference customers’ WOM WOM generation, it has only considered WOM generation as a is leveraged (Theme 3). For example, the following suggestions positive outcome, along with other outcome indicators such as can be drawn from prior literature. According to previous satisfaction and loyalty. Therefore, future research needs to research on WOM generation (Anaza and Rutherford, 2014), address why buyers talk about selling firms and seller brands. the loyalty of the purchasing manager toward the sales manager Buyer firms probably send WOM messages to others to triggers positive WOM. Hence, salespeople should treat loyal maintain their reputation in the market and to develop trust customers with care, not only in terms of their large with their suppliers. It would be useful to assess such direct contribution to sales, but also in terms of their indirect relationship drivers. contribution to sales through sales promotions to other It is also helpful to focus on the WOM generation behaviors companies. Research findings on WOM usage (Yang et al., of individual purchasing managers in buyer firms. Some 2017) indicate that in a highly competitive environment, high- purchasing managers frequently send WOM to other buyers, performing firms are more likely to select business partners while others generate none. Based on the findings of WOM based on WOM; therefore, firms in a highly commoditized and research in the B2C context (Berger, 2014; Donthu et al., 2021; highly competitive environment should place importance on King et al.,2014), psychological propensities such as altruism, existing customers as WOM generators. Furthermore, self-enhancement and product involvement motivate buyers to according to the research findings of reference marketing in send WOM. Additionally, purchasing managers with a vast Theme 3 (Terho and Jalkala, 2017), firms should use informal network of contacts outside their firms are likely to customers’ opinions and success stories not only as a generate WOM messages to maintain their networks. promotional tool but also as a learning material for sales Therefore, it is essential to conduct qualitative and quantitative representatives. Purchasing managers in buyer firms should refer to research studies to examine the WOM communication behaviors of findings on decision-making regarding what benefits firms can buyer firms. 57 Business-to-business marketing Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori Volume 38 · Number 13 · 2023 · 45–62 To our surprise, no study has focused on the consequences of partners. Consequently, a mismatch of exchange partners can WOM generation. To deepen our understanding of WOM be prevented, thereby improving satisfaction and relationship generation behaviors, it is necessary to investigate not only its continuity with the supplier. However, there is no satisfactory antecedents but also its consequences. Future research should evidence on this topic. Intuitively, WOM communication is address the following research question: What are the expected to increase satisfaction in an uncertain environment. consequences of WOM generation? For example, considering Thus, future research can consider environmental factors. individual buyers, those who often send WOM to other buyers Furthermore, Money et al. (1998) showed that the effect of may obtain useful WOM information from other buyers in WOM usage on the intention of relationship continuity varies return. Consequently, the buyer can have a high level of across nations. They focused only on collectivism and knowledge about the market and its competitors. Providing uncertainty avoidance among Hofstede’s six cultural such empirical evidence on the behaviors of buyer dimensions, but how do other cultural dimensions affect WOM organizations and purchasing managers would contribute to usage behaviors? Further research is required to investigate the the advancement of WOM research in the B2B context. role of organizational culture. It is necessary to conduct qualitative and quantitative studies The following questions about WOM usage can be on the role of a supplier in generating WOM about their considered: What types of WOM improve supplier evaluation? products or services. What kind of behavior is adopted by the How does WOM valence, a concept often used in WOM suppliers in the first place? Although academic scholars, mainly research in the B2C context, affect B2B offerings? Can negative in northern Europe, have assessed the online reference WOM enhance supplier evaluations? Further, the effects of marketing activities of suppliers, other WOM activities have not online reviews remain unclear: What types of online reviews are been investigated. For example, how do suppliers make efforts helpful for B2B firms? Future research should address these to generate WOM about their offerings? What kind of firms questions and provide empirical evidence. focus on activities to induce WOM communication about their products? How supplier–sender relationships drive WOM 7.3 Reference marketing generation? Future research should address these questions. The most important consequence is firm performance, such as in sales, profits and market share. Thus, B2B marketers are 7.2 Word-of-mouth usage interested in the impact of reference marketing on firm Many studies have focused on factors that influence WOM performance. Terho and Jalkala (2017) found that reference usage behaviors. These studies address the question of when marketing, which consists of both external and internal use of and why buyer firms use WOM information. While existing online references, leads to high performance (e.g. new research has shown that organizational culture and customer acquisition and market share). However, the performance affect WOM usage behaviors, there are many effectiveness of reference marketing depends on various unanswered questions. For example, what product conditions and situations. Under what conditions is reference characteristics drive B2B firms to use WOM information? It is marketing effective? Which firms should invest in reference possible that B2B firms are more likely to use WOM when marketing? What type of reference marketing will improve firm purchasing complex or innovative products. Future research performance? The number and type of references, the content should provide further empirical evidence on this topic. of the references and the profile of the reference customers B2B firms use various types of information sources: online should impact firm performance. and offline WOM, customer references, advertisements, A further exciting topic is the use of references in sales salespeople and catalogs. Prior research has begun to address strategy, which has long been used in B2B marketing to the use of WOM combined with other information sources promote the sales of a firm’s offerings. In B2B marketing, (Steward et al.,2018; Toth  et al.,2020). However, there customer references are not an alternative for a salesperson but is room for further investigation. Examples include the rather a supplementary means. Thus, B2B firms need to following: Which has a more substantial influence: online or combine customer and salesperson references to improve their offline WOM? How do salespeople’s explanations and external performance. However, little is known about the relationship WOM information influence buyers’ purchase decisions? How between sales management and customer references. How does much and what kind of WOM is used by B2B firms in the a salesperson use customer references as a sales tool? Do purchase decision-making process? Although pioneering salespeople who use references achieve higher sales than those research on WOM in the B2B context has addressed the latter who do not? How does a sales force respond to potential questions (Martilla, 1971), little research has focused on WOM customers who receive WOM messages about the firm? These in organizational purchase behavior since then. How much questions are of great academic and practical relevance. importance do purchasing managers give to WOM information Therefore, future research should address these questions. from inside and outside the organization (i.e. intrafirm and Examining the motivations of existing customers to serve as interfirm WOM)? How do opinion leaders in an organization reference customers can yield rich managerial implications because it can provide selling firms with guidelines regarding influence the purchase decision-making process? What are the characteristics of opinion leaders in an organization? Further the selection and recruitment of reference customers. research is needed to address these research questions. Intuitively, one of the motivations for a customer to become a One of the main questions on this topic is, “Does WOM reference customer at a supplier’s request would be to usage lead to positive outcomes?” According to previous strengthen their relationship with the supplier. However, little studies, WOM usage reduces uncertainty about suppliers and empirical evidence is provided on reference customer B2B offerings and enables firms to search for suitable exchange behaviors. Why does a reference customer send WOM for their 58 Business-to-business marketing Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Ryuta Ishii and Mai Kikumori Volume 38 · Number 13 · 2023 · 45–62 suppliers? How does becoming a reference customer lead to a electronic WOM. This is because, as mentioned above, close relationship with suppliers? Future studies are negative WOM is not often received by suppliers. However, encouraged to investigate these research questions. now that social networking services have become widespread, and B2B purchasing managers have formed connections through LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. and informal 7.4 Word-of-mouth collection communicationinclosednetworks has become more The theme of WOM collection addresses how firms collect accessible, negative WOM can spread quickly among WOM information about their own brands. Prior research in this review assumes that existing customers’ WOM about the customers. Therefore, how a company responds to negative supplier’s brand is valuable information for potential customers WOM may impact its survival. (e.g. potential customers can rely on WOM information to For example, how should B2B firms respond to negative make accurate purchase decisions). However, it is also WOM on online review websites? Currently, online review beneficial to the supplier itself. WOM information about a websites for B2B brands are becoming popular. Owing to the supplier’s brand represents the customer’s honest evaluation of source’s anonymity, negative WOM is more likely to the supplier’s products, which allows the supplier to be communicated online than in person. Therefore, it will understand the strengths and weaknesses of its own brand, the become increasingly critical for B2B marketers to manage uniqueness of its own products, and points to be improved in its negative WOM. Another unanswered question is how B2B services. This is a valuable source of information for the marketers should respond to negative WOM on social supplier. Therefore, firms should actively collect such WOM networking sites. Some B2B brand firms have their own social information about their B2B products/services to develop networking accounts and may receive complaints or requests product innovations and understand the appeal of their brands. for improvement on their timelines or through direct messages. However, according to this systematic review, no studies How should companies respond to such customer feedback to focused on supplier WOM behavior regarding supplier maintain their high evaluation by their customers? Academic branding and collection behavior by suppliers. Therefore, researchers in the field of B2B marketing are expected to make future research should address this topic. For example, how can efforts to address these research questions. firms collect WOM information about their products from existing customers? It would not be so easy to collect face-to- 8. Conclusion face WOM information from existing customers. Collecting Both academic researchers and business practitioners have negative WOM from existing customers is challenging because recognized that WOM plays an essential role in B2B marketing. they do not want to communicate it directly to suppliers. In fact, many B2B studies have examined WOM and reference However, suppliers need to collect such information because marketing during the past 20 years. However, no reviews focus negative WOM contains information on what needs to be on WOM in the B2B context. Since various findings have been improved in their brands and what customers need. How can presented on this topic, it is imperative to assess the current firms collect negative WOM? Perhaps, it might be more state of WOM research and clarify unaddressed research efficient to collect it indirectly from intermediaries rather than questions. This study aims to synthesize the findings from directly from customers (Ishii, 2021). existing studies on WOM in the B2B context, propose an Regardless of whether WOM is positive or negative, it is integrated conceptual framework and identify potential valuable information for a firm. It is also precious for an research directions. individual salesperson. This is because salespeople who Through a systematic review, 36 articles on B2B WOM were understand the firm’s brand and capture customer needs selected. We then described the published journals, the through WOM can achieve better sales performance than other countries used as the subject of the empirical analysis, and the salespeople. Therefore, salespeople may hesitate to inform methods used by these articles. Our thematic analysis other salespeople or their supervisors about WOM about their categorized these articles into three themes: brand and may keep the information confidential. If this is true, a key factor for WOM collection is establishing a system to 1 WOM generation; gather WOM information from the in-house salespersons. The 2 WOM usage; and collection of WOM information, if regarded as the generation 3 reference marketing. of market information, is included in market-oriented behavior Under each theme, we summarized research findings (Ishii, 2020; Mostafiz et al.,2021; Powers et al.,2020). It would unique to B2B research different from B2C WOM be interesting to provide empirical evidence on whether the research. We identified several research questions that collection of WOM information enhances firm outcomes. should be addressed by future research. By synthesizing and assessing prior research on WOM in the B2B context, 7.5 Word-of-mouth management we hope to have contributed to a better understanding of The second is the management of WOM about the firm’s the B2B WOM phenomenon and facilitated future research brand. Prior studies generally focus on the role of positive on this topic. WOM, such as sending out positive WOM and posting positive WOM on the company’s website. 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(2021), “B2B digital content marketing in uncertain situations: a About the authors systematic review”, Journal of Business & Industrial Ryuta Ishii is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the College Marketing, Vol. 37 No. 9, pp. 1852-1866. of Business Administration, Ritsumeikan University, Japan. His Yang, Z., Zhang, H. and Xie, E. (2017), “Performance research interests focus on business-to-business relationships, feedback and supplier selection: a perspective from the channel management and international marketing. His work has behavioral theory of the firm”, Industrial Marketing been published in Industrial Marketing Management, International Management, Vol. 63, pp. 105-115. Marketing Review, Marketing Intelligence & Planning and other You, Y., Vadakkepatt, G.G. and Joshi, A.M. (2015), “A meta- journals. Ryuta Ishii is the corresponding author and can be analysis of electronic word-of-mouth elasticity”, Journal of contacted at: r-ishii@fc.ritsumei.ac.jp Marketing, Vol. 79 No. 2, pp. 19-39. Zhang, J.,Jiang,Y., Shabbir, R. and Zhu,M.(2016), Mai Kikumori is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the “How brand orientation impacts B2B service brand College of Business Administration, Ritsumeikan University, equity? an empirical study among Chinese firms”, Japan. Her research interests focus on digital marketing and Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing,Vol.31 No. 1, social interactions, particularly in word-of-mouth, online pp. 83-98. review and social media usage. For instructions on how to order reprints of this article, please visit our website: www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/licensing/reprints.htm Or contact us for further details: permissions@emeraldinsight.com

Journal

Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing – Emerald Publishing

Published: Dec 18, 2023

Keywords: Business-to-business marketing; Recommendation; Reference; Referral; Systematic review; Word-of-mouth

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