Marketing has traditionally been understood from the perspective of marketing management. This causes problems when we study marketing practices because the normative discourse of marketing management is not particularly useful for describing the day-to-day work of marketing practitioners. This calls for marketing research from new perspectives. Rhetorical business – A study of marketing work in the spirit of contradiction investigates marketing work in professional service organizations from a rhetorical perspective. The overall research question – What do marketers do when they do marketing work? – is explored empirically through conversations, observations and daily interaction and argumentation with professionals involved in the marketing of consulting services. The rhetorical theory applied in the analysis builds on the assumption that every reasonable argument can be met with an equally reasonable counterargument, which is not only how we argue but also a representation of how we gain knowledge of the world – namely, by contradicting it. The analysis is organized in three themes – situation, strategy and subject – that address questions such as Where and when do marketers argue for business purposes? What rhetorical strategies are used?, and How can the subjects of marketing work be portrayed? This is followed by a discussion of the analysis under the two headings persuasive marketing talk and marketing work “in-between”. This book concludes that marketing work is accomplished by self-reflexive marketers who argue for business purposes in, through and in-between meetings as they employ versatile and expansive language and enact contradictory selves. In so concluding the book contributes a multifaceted account of marketing work beyond the framework of normative marketing management. It also shows how rhetorical theory can be used in marketing research to analyse aspects of marketing practice that would otherwise have been poorly accounted for. Finally, the book is written as a “confessional tale” by an author with long experience of marketing work, in the hope that it may encourage self-reflexive inquires among professionals involved in marketing.

The main purpose of this doctoral dissertation is to investigate factors affecting B2B brand building by applying the brand equity perspective in the professional services context. Three peer-reviewed and published articles and one book chapter examine different aspects related to the enhancement of brand equity and brand building in the B2B context. The first paper entitled “Brand equity in the business-to-business context: Examining the structural composition” (Biedenbach 2012) investigates the structural composition of brand equity and the interrelationships between the dimensions of brand equity in the B2B context. By specifying the multidimensional model, which can be utilized for measuring and managing B2B brand equity, the paper provides initial knowledge on how the companies can build a strong B2B brand across four dimensions of brand equity. The second paper entitled “B2B brand equity: Investigating the impact of contextual factors” (Biedenbach 2010) examines the impact of contextual factors in the organizational decision making process on the formation of B2B brand equity. The book chapter expands knowledge on B2B brand building by portraying how such characteristics of customers as relative size of their company and its industry sector can affect B2B brand building. The third paper entitled “The impact of customer experience on brand equity in a business-to-business services setting” (Biedenbach and Marell 2010) investigates the impact of customer experience on brand equity in the professional services setting. The study clarifies how customer experience can be utilized for building a strong B2B brand. The fourth paper entitled “Brand equity in the professional service context: Analyzing the impact of employee role behavior and customer-employee rapport” (Biedenbach, Bengtsson, and Wincent 2011) examines whether factors related to customers’ perception of employees’ role behavior in terms of customer perceived role ambiguity, role overload, and customer-employee rapport influence the development of brand equity in the professional service context. The paper advances knowledge on B2B brand building by considering the potential role of the company employees and consequences that their behavior can lead to in this process. To conclude, the doctoral dissertation demonstrates that the brand equity perspective can serve as a valuable foundation for theoretically understanding and practically managing B2B brand building.

Background: Global services, particularly professional services, have become one of the world economy’s fastest growing sectors and professionals are becoming increasingly important as a result of this shift. Inherent differences, characterizing professional services, result in a scarcity of empirical evidence on how marketing communications are perceived and executed. Additionally, clients play a big role in the co-creation of the service, making relationships and communication between clients and PSF critical. Purpose: The purpose of this research is to investigate how PSFs communicate their services to clients. As an example of a PSF, the researchers chose to investigate the digital marketing agency, GA Agency, and their clients. This research aims to contribute to the academic field of services marketing and, more specifically, the stream of literature on PSFs and their communication and propose a theoretical model that represents their findings. Method: This research combines the interpretivism paradigm with qualitative research and an inductive approach, utilizing GA Agency as a single case study, to address the purpose of this research. The researchers designed open-ended, semi-structured research questions that were then posed to 11 employees of GA Agency and 2 of their clients. Conclusion: The findings of this research demonstrated the need for communication that is understandable for the clients, for example, in terms of resources. Additionally, educating the clients is important, to tackle the knowledge gap between agency and client, known as information asymmetry, and therefore build trust. Building a relationship between agency and client can help to enable communication and develop interactions and relationships simultaneously. This is represented in the conceptual model, showing the stages of relationship and according communication.

Vilka kriterier är användbara när en leverantör av tjänster skall utvärderas? Beror det på om leverantören levererar professionella tjänster eller varor? Hur utvärderas en professionell tjänst? Dessa frågor är några av problemen som inköpare ställs mot, litteraturen består av mängder med kriterier och modeller för inköp av produkter men är bristfällig när det handlar om tjänster. Litteratur säger att besparingar på inköp av tjänster varierar mellan 10 och 29 %, medan på varor kan det endast variera mellan 5 till 17 %. Vid inköp av tjänster finns potentialen till att spara pengar, men kvaliteten på tjänsten får ej påverkas. I många fall är det en avvägning mellan kvalitet och pris. Detta examensarbete belyser de kriterier som är användbara vid utvärdering av professionella tjänster, samt ett förslag på en modell hur dessa kriterier kan användas. Arbetet är genomfört som en fallstudie på ett IT-företag i Sverige, som köper in professionella tjänster och använder dem mot slutkund. De frågeställningar som har drivits under detta arbete är: Vilka kriterier behövs för att utvärdera en leverantör inom professionella tjänster?Hur bör utvärderingen av en leverantör genomföras när dessa kriterier tas i beaktande? Efter genomförd fallstudie har följande slutsatser dragits:Kriterier kan inordnas i tre olika kategorier beroende på vad de utvärderar; Leverantörskriterier utvärderar själva leverantören som sådan, Prestationskriterier utvärderar en leverantörs förmåga att leverera en tjänst och Produktkriterier som utvärderar själva tjänsten som sådan. På det hela taget kan sägas att kriterier som utvärderar de kvalitativa aspekterna av en leverans oftast är betydligt viktigare att utvärdera när professionella tjänster ska beaktas. Vidare har ofta professionella tjänster karaktären av att vara beroende av den strategiska passformen mellan leverantör, köpande företag, slutkund och kriterier som utvärderar dessa delar har därför prioriterats. Anledningen till detta är att värderealiseringen i professionella tjänster till stor del ligger i själva leveransen och interaktionen mellan dessa parter och kräver därför en hög grad av samverkan, kvalitet och service knuten till själva tjänsten. / What kind of criteria is useful for a company when evaluating their suppliers? Does it depend on if the supplier delivers services or products? How can one evaluate a professional service? These questions are just a few of the problems a buyer face today, the literature of today holds many criteria and models for buying products but has a lack of information when it comes to professional services. The estimated possibilities to save money when purchasing services vary between 10 to 29% but on products it vary only between 5 and 17%. There is a potential of saving money when purchasing services, but the quality of the service can not be affected. In many cases there is a trade-off between quality and price. This master thesis will illustrate the criteria that can be used when evaluating a professional service and a model where the criteria can be used. The thesis is written after a conducted case study on an IT-company in Sweden, which buy professional services and use them towards their end costumers. The questions at issue that have been driving the search for information by the authors are: Which criteria are needed to conduct an evaluation of a supplier in professional services? How should an evaluation of a supplier be conducted when keeping these criteria in mind? The case study led to the following conclusions:Criteria can be categorized in three different categories depending on what they evaluate; Supplier criteria regarding the supplier itself, Performance criteria regarding the performance of delivery and Product criteria regarding the service itself. Regarding the area of evaluation of professional service suppliers it can be said that the qualitative criteria seems to be dominating. Moreover, the professional services have the characteristics of being dependent upon the strategic fit between supplier, buyer and end customer. Criteria evaluating those aspects have therefore been prioritized in this study. The reason for this is that the value realization in professional services is in the delivery of service and in the interaction between the parties involved, therefore demanding a high degree of cooperation, quality and service bound to the service itself.

The purpose of this thesis is to propose a standardization model for the purchase process of legal professional services leveraging e-Procurement and to validate the benefits brought by the implementation of both, an e-Procurement tool and a new procurement process. The hypotheses of this thesis are applicable to the procurement of legal professional services of large companies with a central legal department in charge of managing the relations with different legal firms (legal services suppliers). The information presented was gathered in a large global manufacturing company with strong presence in Europe. The procurement of legal professional services throughout the entire organization was analyzed and validated by central legal department based in the headquarters. An innovative model for the procurement of the legal services has been proposed based on different findings in the current literature. Also, a model developed by Ronchi et al. was leveraged to quantitatively measure the benefits brought by the implementation of e-Procurement. The model was implemented in the organization with the help of central purchasing and legal departments. The results showed it is possible to standardize the operative procurement of legal professional services for end-users to perceive the same process as the one used for direct purchases of office supplies. In order to accomplish this, some roles and an important transformation within the organization must be carried out. A general model to implement a comprehensive procurement process leveraging e-Procurement is presented in this study. The conclusions are that the specialized procurement literature focuses very little on service procurement standardization and even less in legal professional services or process standardization through e-Procurement, and thus this study and the model introduced might work as a starting point for professional practitioners or academic researchers alike. Further research topics are suggested at the end of this study to continue research on this topic.

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Replacing an employee can cost a firm as much as 200% of that employee's annual salary, and small business owners may be especially sensitive to voluntary employee turnover due to their limited resources. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the strategies that some owners of small professional services businesses in the midwestern region of the United States used to reduce voluntary employee turnover in their firms. The conceptual framework for this doctoral study was Barney's resource-based theory. Data were collected from 4 participants whose firms were at least 5 years old and had experienced lower turnover than the average as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, using semistructured interviews and a review of company policies and procedures found in employee handbooks, as well as publicly available information on company websites. Data were analyzed by compiling all the data, using coding to organize the data, identifying themes that emerged, and then making observations about those themes as they pertained to the research. Member checking, along with the review of company documents, served as methodological triangulation for reliability and validity of the research. The 3 major themes that surfaced were how voluntary employee turnover impacts small professional services firms, how hiring reduced voluntary employee turnover, and how corporate culture and employee engagement reduced voluntary employee turnover. Data about strategies for reducing voluntary employee turnover may bring about positive social change in local economies by helping to ensure stability in local commerce and national economies by supporting the success of small businesses that account for many businesses in the United States.

The thesis´ aim is to deepen the understanding about what shapes and characterises the purchase process for management advice services. Such externally, acquired services have increased substantially, and in relation to the services´ impact on management decisions the theoretical and practical understanding of the purchase process is lagging behind. The thesis´ analyses, interpretations and conclusions are founded on empirical data collected by use of focus groups, and based on activity theory. The findings show that the purchase process is influenced by many actors who see themselves as subject in the process. They have similar but also conflicting objects that they want to fulfil. The outcome of the purchase process is influenced by contradictory opinions among the actors about how to organize and supervise the process. The main contradictions are influenced by the actors´ different objects and how they interpret the context of the purchase process. The context is shaped by such as leadership style, social rules regarding management of change and opinions about division of labour in the purchase process. The impression of the purchase process´s character is that commonly used supply chain models do not work as a characterization. The purchase process´s phases do not follow on each other and the glue that links the phases is not a rational procedure following one, firm route. The findings show that procurement, integration and follow-up phases overlap, are concurrent and integrated in each other. The purchase process reproduces the execution of polyphonic music in which different voices, each with its own melody, create a rich texture of sounds. In a similar way the purchase process is coined by actors who bring their own objects and competence into the process. It produces dissonance, as in polyphonic music. It mirrors the services character of competence development and shapes the purchase process as polyphonic rather than a rational, step by step process.

Introduction: Service companies and its offerings on the market are becoming increasingly standardized, which makes it difficult for service providers to distinguish themselves from the amount. In many cases this leads to a price squeeze. Many service companies do not understand the importance of building a relationship with their customer, and how to maintain long-term partnerships to increase customer value. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to investigate what aspects service-producing companies should take into account in order to achieve a high customer value and thus become more attractive in the market. Methods: In order to respond to the purpose of the study, a case study was conducted, where the approach consisted of both qualitative and quantitative data collection to test the existing theoretical reference frames and to generalize the study. The quantitative data collection consisted of a survey sent to the company's customer base, which consisted of different industries and sizes of companies, where the answers were then weighted in a model. The survey was also sent to the case company to find possible differences between their own opinion and the customers. The qualitative consisted of three deep interviews with leading actors in different industries to gain a deeper understanding. Results: The quantitative survey showed that quality is the most valued aspect with a supplier, followed by the price. The remaining questions showed that the customers and the case company shared a relatively even view of previous collaborations. The qualitative survey showed that all three respondents appreciated the same aspects of a service company; competence, customer focus and availability. They also agreed that the reputation of the relationship and service providers is valued very high. The relationship has been shown to be linked to several aspects such as flexibility, risk minimization and the quality of the work process. Customers have a greater tendency to choose service companies that are committed to trying to integrate long-term cooperation, which makes the customers feel priority and choose to place greater responsibility on the service company. Conclusion: Companies should not focus on trying to find added value to their customers, the focus should be on creating and developing a deep and committed relationship with their customers. The advantages of this are illustrated by further development of the model presented in the theoretical reference framework, in which important aspects to be considered are described. / Introduktion: Tjänsteföretag och dess erbjudanden på marknaden håller på att standardiseras alltmer vilket leder till att det blir svårt för tjänsteföretag att särskilja sig från mängden. Detta leder i många fall till en prispressning. Många tjänsteföretag förstår inte vikten av relationsbyggandet och hur de ska upprätthålla långsiktiga samarbeten för att även öka kundvärdet. Syftet: Syftet med studien är att undersöka vilka aspekter tjänsteproducerande företag ska beakta för att uppnå ett högt kundvärde och därmed bli mer attraktiva på marknaden. Metod: För att kunna svara på studiens syfte utgicks det ifrån en fallstudie, där angreppssättet bestod av både kvalitativ och kvantitativ datainsamling för att testa den befintliga teoretiska referensramen och kunna generalisera arbetet. Kvantitativa datainsamlingen bestod av en enkätundersökning som skickades ut till fallföretagets kundbas som bestod av olika branscher och storlekar på företag, där svaren sedan viktades i en modell. Enkäten skickades även ut till fallföretaget för att hitta eventuella differenser mellan deras egen uppfattning och kundernas. Den kvalitativa bestod av tre djupintervjuer med ledande aktörer inom olika branscher för att få en djupare förståelse. Resultat: Den kvantitativa undersökningen visade att kvalitet är det som värderas mest hos en leverantör, följt av priset. De resterande frågorna visade att kunderna och fallföretaget delade en relativt jämn uppfattning om tidigare samarbeten. Den kvalitativa undersökningen visade att alla tre respondenter värderade samma aspekter hos ett tjänsteföretag; kompetens, kundfokusering och tillgänglighet. De var även eniga om att relationen och tjänsteleverantörers rykte värderas väldigt högt. Relationen har visat sig vara kopplad till flera aspekter såsom flexibilitet, riskminimering och kvaliteten av arbetsprocessen. Kunder har en större tendens att välja tjänsteföretag som lagt vikt vid att försöka integrera ett långsiktigt samarbete, vilket gör att kunderna känner sig prioriterade och väljer att lägga större ansvar på tjänsteföretaget. Slutsats: Företag ska inte lägga sitt fokus på att försöka finna mervärden till sina kunder, utan fokusen ska ligga på att skapa och utveckla en djup och engagerad relation med sin kund. Fördelarna med detta illustreras med hjälp av en vidareutveckling av den modell som tas fram i den teoretiska referensramen, där viktiga aspekter som bör beaktas beskrivs.

專門職業人員資格之取得，依憲法規定必須經過依法考銓之程序，此等對人民營業自由所設之規範，目的固在維護人民生命、身體及財產安全，為增進公共利益所必要，但也因此造成專門職業服務市場之參進障礙，形成供給面之限制。再者，由於專門職業服務具有資訊不對稱之特性，造成市場失靈現象，使得該市場中存有管制之必要性。然管制有其功效、亦有弊病，最明顯者是阻礙創新與進步。因此於管制的運用及競爭法之介入二者間，有必要尋求一適用之界線。 於外國實務上，如美國，歐盟和日本等，競爭法是否適用於專門職業已無疑義。除了在特殊情況下（如美國的州政府行為豁免原則）可能豁免競爭法之適用外，並不能僅因行為涉及專門職業即認為不適用競爭法。雖專門職業服務業與一般商業服務在性質上有所不同，惟此僅意味著在專門職業服務市場中之競爭狀況可能有所不同，故應以合理原則，於個案中具體考量產業特性、市場結構、行為效果等因素，始能作出是否違法之判斷結論。 99年開始我國公平交易法適用於專門職業服務業之問題開始發生爭議，短短5年內即可見行政法院之見解有明顯變化，而公平交易委員會歷經數案爭訟過程後，亦開始省思及加強如何論述其認定違法之依據，以尋求行政救濟機關之支持。本文即針對專門職業服務業於公平交易法上之適用關係與規範問題，進行深入之探討，並期能藉由法律與經濟等不同角度之觀察與分析，對未來公平交易法就此議題之具體適用方法，提出建議供參。 / Professionals are required to be registered through examination under the Constitution. Although such requirement is considered necessary to enhance public interests and to ensure the safety of the people and their properties, it also results in the barrier of entry into relevant market. Simultaneously, professional regulation is often addressed to a perceived “market failure” in the market for professional services due to its characteristics of information symmetry. Regulation of professional services can protect vulnerable consumers, but it can also prevent innovation and other competition. The conflict between regulation and free competition therefore exists and the boundary should have to be found. In US, EU and Japan, whether the competition law should apply to the professionals is no longer a question. Although professional services by their nature may differ significantly from other business services, that only means the nature of the competition in such services may vary and should be judged by the Rule of Reason under the competition law. Only in very specific situations (such as the “state action doctrine” in US) would there be an exemption. Similar discussion occurred in Taiwan since 2010, and just during 5 years could we see the obvious change of opinions expressed by Administrative Courts. Taiwan Fair Trade Commission faced numerous challenges through the petitioning procedure in cases related to professionals, and tried hard to strengthen the economical analysis in late cases. This study discusses the related issues of professional service under the Fair Trade Act through legal and economic analysis, and try to make recommendations on handling relevant cases.