Christian Homburg

Christian Homburg (born Jan. 13, 1962) is a German marketing researcher, Professor for Marketing at the University of Mannheim and director of the IMU, Institute for Market-oriented Management.

Quotes

• Industrial marketing should be understood as a relationship-specific rather than a transaction-specific construct.
  • Christian Homburg, and Bettina Rudolph. "Customer satisfaction in industrial markets: dimensional and multiple role issues." Journal of Business Research 52.1 (2001): 15-33.

• People define themselves in terms of both unique individualizing attributes and collective attributes of the groups to which they belong.
  • Christian Homburg, Jan Wieseke, and Wayne D. Hoyer. "Social identity and the service-profit chain." Journal of Marketing 73.2 (2009). p. 54

"Applications of structural equation modeling in marketing and consumer research", 1996

Hans Baumgartner and Christian Homburg. "Applications of structural equation modeling in marketing and consumer research: A review." International journal of Research in Marketing 13.2 (1996): 139-161.

• This paper reviews prior applications of structural equation modeling in four major marketing journals (the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, International Journal of Research in Marketing, and the Journal of Consumer Research) between 1977 and 1994. After documenting and characterizing the number of applications over time, we discuss important methodological issues related to structural equation modeling and assess the quality of previous applications in terms of three aspects: issues related to the initial specification of theoretical models of interest; issues related to data screening prior to model estimation and testing; and issues related to the estimation and testing of theoretical models on empirical data. On the basis of our findings, we identify problem areas and suggest avenues for improvement.
  • Article abstract

"A multiple-layer model of market-oriented organizational culture", 2000

Christian Homburg and Christian Pflesser. "A multiple-layer model of market-oriented organizational culture: Measurement issues and performance outcomes." Journal of marketing research 37.4 (2000): 449-462.

• Previous research addressing market orientation from a cultural perspective typically has used behavioral measures of this construct. Drawing on literature in the fields of organizational theory and marketing, the authors develop a multilayer model of market-oriented organizational culture. They draw an explicit distinction among values that support market orientation, norms for market orientation, artifacts indicating high and low market orientation, and market-oriented behaviors. On the basis Of qualitative research and a subsequent survey, the authors develop scales for measuring the different layers of market-oriented culture and analyze relationships among the different components of market-oriented culture. Findings indicate that artifacts play a crucial role in determining behavior within organizations. Results also indicate that a market-oriented culture influences financial performance indirectly through market performance and that this relationship is stronger in highly dynamic markets.
  • p. 449 ; Abstract

• Organizational culture consists of four distinguishable but interrelated components. They include shared basic values, behavioral norms, different types of artifacts, and behaviors... Values can be defined as "a conception, explicit or implicit, distinctive of an individual or characteristic of a group, of the desirable which influences the selection from available modes, means, and ends of action." Norms differ from values by a higher degree of specificity and a higher relevance for actual behaviors (Katz and Kahn 1978, p. 43). The shared values within an organization form the basis for the development of these norms, which legitimate specific behaviors. More specifically, we define norms as expectations about behavior or its results that are at least partially shared by a social group (O'Reilly 1989; Thibaut and Kelley 1959). Artifacts include stories, arrangements, rituals, and language that are created by an organization and have a strong symbolic meaning (Schein 1992; Trice and Beyer 1993). The symbolic meaning of artifacts is more important than any instrumental function (Hatch 1993). In contrast, behaviors refer to organizational behavioral patterns with an instrumental function.
  • p. 450

• Norms guide market-oriented behaviors within organizations. More specifically, we focus on market orientation as the concrete object of these norms. If, for example, the members of an organization share the value of openness of internal communication, a specific norm related to that value is the openness of market-related internal communication. As another example, the norm of market-related responsibility of employees is a specification of the more general shared value of responsibility of the employees... The difference between values and norms is that norms guide behaviors in a specific context, whereas values represent general guidelines.
  • p. 451

• The greater the extent of market dynamism, the greater is the positive impact of market-oriented behaviors on market performance.
  • p. 453

"A configurational perspective on key account management", 2002

Christian Homburg, John P. Workman Jr. and Ove Jensen. 2002. "A configurational perspective on key account management." Journal of Marketing 66 (2): 38-60.

• Activities for complex customers cannot be handled by the sales function alone but requires participation from other functional groups.

• [Strategic account management programs include] special activities... such as pricing, products, services, distribution, and information sharing’ and that they involve ‘in addition to marketing and sales, functional groups such as manufacturing, research and development, and finance.
  • p. 40-42; as cited in Storbacka (2007)

• Cross-functional KAM companies stand out with respect to both performance in the market and adaptiveness.

• [Key Account Management is] the extent to which an organization achieves better relationship outcomes for its Key Accounts than for its average accounts.
  • p. 46

Marketing management: A contemporary perspective, 2003

Christian Homburg, Sabine Kuester, and Harley Krohmer. Marketing management: A contemporary perspective. 2003 Wiesbaden; McGraw-Hill Higher Education,2009, 2013

• Marketing Management: A Contemporary Perspective provides a fresh new perspective on marketing from some of the leading researchers in Europe. The book offers students and practitioners the comprehensive coverage they need to make the right decisions to create and implement highly successful marketing strategies. This exciting new book combines scholarly international research with relevant and contemporary examples from markets and brands across the world.

The authors combine their experience as researchers and industry consultants to provide the conceptual and theoretical underpinning of marketing and empirical research, helping students to understand how marketing concepts can be applied and implemented. The book covers a full range of industries including business-to-customer, business-to-business, services marketing, retailing and international marketing from companies around the globe.

• Abstract 2009 edition.

"Configurations of marketing and sales: a taxonomy", 2008

Christian Homburg, Ove Jensen, and Harley Krohmer. "Configurations of marketing and sales: a taxonomy." Journal of Marketing 72.2 (2008): 133-154.

• Little is known about the interface between separate marketing units and sales units. This article develops a multidimensional model of the marketing and sales interface. The model integrates a broad range of conceptual domains, including information sharing, structural linkages, power, orientations, and knowledge of marketing and sales. The authors empirically explore the conceptual model through a cross-industry study of 337 European Union–based companies. They identify five empirical archetypes of the marketing and sales interface. The taxonomy shows that the role and characteristics of marketing and sales vary a great deal. This finding challenges existing stereotypes about marketing and sales. Finally, the article explores organizational outcomes of the five configurations. The findings suggest that the most successful configurations are characterized by strong structural linkages between marketing and sales and a high extent of market knowledge in marketing.
  • p. 133; Abstract

• Much empirical work on marketing organization has not distinguished between marketing units and sales units. Traditionally, sales has been conceptualized as a subunit of the marketing department that reports to a marketing executive (Ruekert, Walker, and Roering 1985; Weitz and Anderson 1981). For example, Ruekert and Walker (1987a, b) and Dastmalchian and Boag (1990) speak about marketing as one whole and barely mention the word sales. This view of M & S as one unit is challenged by qualitative reports (Piercy 1986).
  • p. 134

"Corporate social responsibility in business-to-business markets", 2013

Christian Homburg, Marcel Stierl, and Torsten Bornemann. "Corporate social responsibility in business-to-business markets: How organizational customers account for supplier corporate social responsibility engagement." Journal of Marketing 77.6 (2013): 54-72.

• Despite the high relevance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in current business practice and the considerable research on CSR outcomes in consumer markets, investigations of its influence on organizational business relationships are scarce. Relying on instrumental stakeholder theory the authors develop and empirically test a framework of the influence of a supplier's CSR engagement on organizational customer outcomes. Findings from an examination of 200 cross-industry supplier-customer dyads reveal positive effects of two facets of a supplier's CSR efforts on customer loyalty through distinct mechanisms. Business practice GSR fosters customers' trust, whereas philanthropic CSR strengthens customer-company identification. The authors distinguish a supplier's actual GSR engagement and customers' perception of these GSR activities. In addition, they consider central contingency factors reflecting uncertainty and dependence in business-to-business relationships that determine the effectiveness of GSR.
  • p. 54; Article abstract

• The notion of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has gained momentum and is currently of strategic importance for many companies. Among Fortune 500 companies, as many as 90% have explicit CSR initiatives, more than half publish a separate annual CSR report, and most have senior executives responsible for CSR (Luo and Bhattacharya 2009; McKinsey & Company 2009).
  • p. 54

• We define CSR as a firm's voluntary consideration of stakeholder concerns both within and outside its business operations.
  • p. 54

• Stakeholder theory regards the firm as a nexus of stakeholders, commonly defined as groups or individuals who can affect or are affected by the achievement of the firm's goals (Freeman 1984). Depending on the ground for examining a firm's stakeholders, we can differentiate three approaches (Jones 1995):

The descriptive approach proposes an examination of firm-stakeholder relationships to provide an understanding of how the firm deals with different stakeholders.

The normative approach proposes an examination of firm-stakeholder relationships to discem stakeholders' interests and offer guidance on how to account for them using moral or philosophical principles.

The instrumental approach also proposes an examination of firm-stakeholder relationships to discem stakeholders' interests. However, in contrast to the normative approach, the instrumental approach involves the organizational performance consequences that stem from accounting for these interests.

The distinctive aspect of the instrumental approach to stakeholder theory is that it explicitly suggests linking stakeholder-directed activities (means) to corporate performance outcomes (ends) (Donaldson and Preston 1995; Freeman 1999).

• p. 56; On Instrumental stakeholder theory

Quotes about Christian Homburg

• Homburg, Workman, and Krohmer (1999) examine marketing’s influence within the firm and, in a survey of U.S. and German companies, find that marketing had substantial influence — at least ten years ago. They also find that marketing’s influence is related to (1) external contingency variables, such as the frequency and unpredictability of market-related changes; (2) competitive strategies; and (3) institutional determinants, such as whether the chief executive officer (CEO) has a marketing background.
  • Peter C. Verhoef and Peter S.H. Leeflang. "Understanding the marketing department's influence within the firm." Journal of marketing 73.2 (2009): 14-37.

• Cannon and Homburg (2001) have analyzed the customer firm costs, and concluded that lowering customer cost can be a key way to create value for customers and gain larger customer shares.
  • Kaj Storbacka (2007), Driving firm performance with strategic account management. Inaugural essay, Nyenrode Business Universiteit. p. 27

• Homburg and Pflesser [2000] develop a multilayer model of market-oriented organizational culture. Following the model by Schein [1984] and framing a construct consisting of the four latent variables (1) shared basic values supporting market orientation, (2) norms for market orientation, (3) artifacts of market orientation, and. (4) market-oriented behaviors, Homburg and Pflesser [2000] provide evidence that culture influences market performance and indirectly also financial performance.
  • Miriam Jacobs (2014), Cultural Impact on Lean Six Sigma and Corporate Success. p. 93