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The multi-channel challenge: A dynamic capability approach

The maturing of e-commerce, the diffusion of call centres into the B2B space and purchaser demands on price and service are leading to rapid change in the route to market in many B2B sectors, with shifting combinations of channels being offered to the customer in the search for advantage. In this situation managers can no longer rely on the channel resources that they have assembled to provide their extant competitive position. Instead they must be able to combine resources in new ways, gain additional resources and dispose of superfluous resources, and to do this repeatedly and rapidly if they are to compete successfully. The term ‘dynamic capabilities’ has emerged in the strategic management literature for these activities. Using four case studies and the analytic induction approach to data analysis, we identify seven dynamic capabilities for channel transformation.

Trust and public relations: Center and edge

This article, which could be categorized as “iconoclastic speculation,” argues against the traditional close relationship between public relations and trust. Evidence of proximity is scarce. It could not be otherwise, because PR flourishes in Western-style liberal democracy, which is a polity tending to disorder, founded on open argument between organizations and groups. PR is the communicative trace of their search for advantage and survival in this competitive environment. In these circumstances, trust as a desired outcome of PR is pushed to the edge.