China as an Asian country has now an ever growing importance to the world economy and Sweden as a western country is having more and more collaboration in business with China. Due to the cultural differences between Sweden and China, managing relationships in B2B market has been challenging for Swedish companies doing business in China. Our study aims to find out what cultural differences are perceived by the Swedish companies and what adaptations they have made to the cultural differences so as to manage the business relationships. This study is based on the theories of Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner’s dimensions of human relations and Marx’s cultural shock triangle. Also we have referred to theories on Chinese relationships, Guanxi. We have used deductive method and conducted seven interviews, namely five with Swedish companies that have business in China and two people respectively from the Swedish Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai and the Regional Court in Kalmar of Sweden. We have come to the result that the Swedish companies are mainly challenged by the cultural differences such as the language difficulty, time orientation of Chinese and the personal approach in business relationships management. In this case the companies have made efforts to increase knowledge in the Chinese culture but also to establish local sales offices and carry out a joint venture with the Chinese business partners.

With widespread use of the Internet, data is often shared between organizations in B2B health care networks. Integrating data across all sources in a health care network would be useful to public health surveillance and provide a complete view of how the overall network is performing. Because of the lack of standardization for a common data model across organizations, matching identities between different locations in order to link and aggregate records is difficult. Moreover, privacy legislation controls the use of personal information, and health care data is very sensitive in nature so the protection of data privacy and prevention of personal health information leaks is more important than ever. Throughout the process of integrating data sets from different organizations, consent (explicitly or implicitly) and/or permission to use must be in place, data sets must be de-identified, and identity must be protected. Furthermore, one must ensure that combining data sets from different data sources into a single consolidated data set does not create data that may be potentially re-identified even when only summary data records are created. In this thesis, we propose new privacy preserving data integration protocols for public health surveillance, identify a set of privacy preserving data integration patterns, and propose a supporting framework that combines a methodology and architecture with which to implement these protocols in practice. Our work is validated with two real world case studies that were developed in partnership with two different public health surveillance organizations.

This study investigates the impact of environmental factors on the decision to electronically integrate operations with international customers and/or suppliers. The following research question motivates the study: How does the environmental context affect the level of electronic integration of an organization with its international partners? This study elaborates on the concept of electronic integration. Studies on integration in general and electronic integration in particular adopt a loose definition of integration: they all agree in that integration is the opposite of markets, but they define this opposite in different terms: relationship contracting, long-term contracting, coordination, etc. Finally, the study also responds to Wathne and Heide’s (2004) call for a more comprehensive study of governance mechanisms in B2B, with emphasis on monitoring mechanisms.

Knowing what to sell, when to sell, and to whom to sell is essential buyer behavior insight to allocate scarce marketing resources efficiently and effectively. Applying the theory of relationship marketing (Morgan and Hunt 1994), this study seeks to investigate the link between commitment and trust and firm adoption of radically innovative information technology (IT). The construct of radical innovation is operationalized through the use of cloud computing. A review of the vast scholarly literature on radical innovation diffusion and adoption, and modeling techniques used to analyze buyer behavior is followed by empirical estimation of each of the radical innovation adoption questions of purchase timing, brand choice, and purchase amount. Then, the inefficiencies in the independent model process are highlighted, suggesting the need for an integrated model. Next, an integrated model is developed to link the purchase timing, brand choice, and purchase amount decisions. The essay concludes with insight for marketing practitioners on the strength of the factors of commitment and trust on adoption of radical innovation, an improved methodology for the business-to-business marketing literature, and potential further research paths.

The aim of this study is to combine the various concepts, in the field of SME in service based industry, being developed independently by researchers. The goal is to provide a comprehensive overview on the rules and interactions of the involved factors. An investigation of the influence of corporate image and relationship quality on customer loyalty, among SMEs in the banking sector, is carried out. The moderating role of switching barrier is investigated. Furthermore the background variables, affecting relationship quality and corporate image, are investigated. This provides a deeper understanding on how customer loyalty is achieved. Such a deeper understanding on achieving customer loyalty can be regarded as a competitive tool especially in the banking sector with many financial providers and the products being alike. This article is based on 335 valid questionnaires returned from SME customers established in Sweden. The negative impact of Switching barrier on customer loyalty indicates that switching barrier should be avoided thus it decreases customer loyalty and does not have a moderating role. Instead focus should be put on delivering high professionalism which will contribute to higher level of relationship quality and positive perception of corporate image. This, in turn, will eliminate the moderating role of switching barrier and lead to customer loyalty.

In this thesis, the brand construct and its connections to risk, value and trust are explored in a Business-to-Business context. The different characteristics of B2B and B2C marketing is elaborated upon and coupled with brand management strategies viable in the respective markets. Contemporary academic theory on the explored constructs is discussed, and an attempt at conceptually visualizing their suggested linkages is presented. Based on the theoretical findings, a qualitative study is conducted by means of interviews with brand managers and marketing executives with the aim of establishing how Swedish industrial multinational companies employ brand strategies in their market communication, and to what extent the constructs explored are communicated as a part of their brand message. We find empirical evidence that risk, value and trust indeed are important in the brand communication of industrial companies. However, the relative importance of these constructs is found to be highly dependent on a multitude of both internal and external factors, such as the complexity of the offering, the degree of competition in the marketplace, and the amount of required customer interaction. Trust seems to be the construct most commonly incorporated in the branding activities, and value is not as actively stressed as conjectured. The corporate brand appears to be the most important in new tasks, where previous experiences of interaction with the seller is deemed more important in modified and straight re-buys. Similar to consumer marketing, the main merit of having a strong brand equity is the ability to charge price premiums, along with often making the short list of potential suppliers in the customers’ procurement processes. However, many industrial companies do not actively employ brand strategies and dedicated brand managers are not commonplace. Further, it cannot be decisively concluded that a strong brand focus is important for all industrial companies and in all markets. Again, external market characteristics, together with internal organizational conditions need to be taken into account.

The thesis presents a study on important attributes which should be considered by the supplier in buying situations in the electronic manufacturing services (EMS) market. Hence, the importance level of attributes is investigated to see which attributes are more or less important when business-to-business (B2B) customers place an order. This can be interpreted as the relationship between the created value and the accompanying cost. For the success of this research work, both the qualitative and quantitative methods need to be applied. The importance of nine aspects is examined including: payment term, warranty, brand, product quality, delivery, packaging, certificates, supporting service and after-sales service. To identify which one is significant, a classification of the twenty-three attributes covering the nine aspects is conducted using Kano’s evaluation table. The findings through this research indicate that delivery, product quality and supporting service are the three most important aspects. A focus on these aspects is supposed to help the company to get value for the customers and also bring significant benefits for that company.

Sammanfattning Titel: Byggnation pågår – uppbyggnaden av brand equity i en B2B-kontext genom märkeskännedom, märkesassociationer, upplevd kvalitet, märkeslojalitet och exklusiva rättigheter. Författare: Jesper Mårtensson och Alexander Jägerfall Ämne: Kandidatuppsats i Marknadsföring, 15 hp Nyckelord: B2B, brand equity, märkeskännedom, märkesassociationer, upplevd kvalitet, märkeslojalitet, varumärke, exklusiva rättigheter Problemformulering: Hur kan svenska företag verksamt på en B2B-marknad arbeta med byggstenarna märkeskännedom, märkesassociationer, upplevd kvalitet, märkeslojalitet och exklusiva rättigheter som tillsammans utgör brand equity? Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att beskriva hur företag verksamma på en B2B-marknad kan arbeta med märkeskännedom, märkesassociationer, upplevd kvalitet, märkeslojalitet och exklusiva rättigheter samt vilka effekter det får, för att öka förståelsen för varumärkesbyggnad i B2B företag. Teori: Teorin utgörs av en beskrivning av ovanstående byggstenar, hur företag kan jobba med dem samt vilka positiva effekter varje byggsten kan innebära för företaget. Metod: Med en kvalitativ ansats har personliga intervjuer med fyra respondenter från fallföretagen Getinge, AJ-Produkter, Nordifa och Logent genomförts. Frågorna ställda till fallföretagen rör deras sätt att arbeta med ovanstående byggstenar samt vilka positiva effekter de upplever byggstenarna bidrar till. Slutsats: Studien visar att företag verksamma på en B2B marknad kan arbeta med byggstenarna på olika sätt. Slutsatsen är att det egentligen inte finns något rätt eller fel sätt att arbeta eftersom studien visar på genomgående positiva effekter av fallföretagens arbete. Ur studien framkommer också att säljkåren i ett B2B-företag fungerar likt ett universalverktyg i arbetet med att skapa märkeskännedom, märkesassociationer, upplevd kvalitet samt märkeslojalitet. I studien framgår det också att det juridiska skyddet inte är något det arbetas aktivt med, då företagen enbart gör en varumärkesregistrering sedan är det jurister som bevakar eventuella varumärkesintrång.

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