New perspectives on b2b marketing – connecting marketing and technology

Rapid changes in the contemporary business world impact on the understanding of the theory and practice of a company and its relationships with customers. Cognitive computing and Big Data Analytics have opened up new options for marketing solutions that allow for the integration of Internet technology into the business, industry sector and decision-making process. The rapid development of the Internet of Things (IoT), as well as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning solutions implemented by companies, facilitate increasingly more adequate and value-creating machine to machine (M2M) interactions. All of these changes in technology translate into opportunities for marketers. The theory and practice of B2B marketing require to carefully consider the influence of technology on value creation, including innovations. More research efforts are required into value creation and communication in the world of IoT, AI and M2M interactions with regard to relationships between customers and sellers. It can be helpful to analyse industry-specific contexts as well as contexts of the emerging vs developed markets.

This special section aims is to present a wide spectrum of new perspectives on B2B marketing with a special focus on the connection between marketing and technology. The focus here has been chosen to encourage new and critical views. This special section showcases papers that offer innovative insights into issues surrounding mostly B2B marketing and technology, which advance our understanding of the contemporary B2B marketing fuelled by technological changes in a modern business world. Most of the papers within this special section are related to the International Conference on Collaborative Innovation Development — CID Conference, which took place on June 10–11, 2019, at the Faculty of Engineering Management of Bialystok University of Technology.

This special section opens with a timely paper Marketing principles for Industry 4,0 — a conceptual framework by Katarzyna Nosalska and Grzegorz Mazurek. The paper advances the understanding of the Industry 4.0 phenomenon in the context of changes taking place in the area of marketing in general and in industrial markets in particular. The second paper Operationalising Responsible Research and Innovation – Tools for Enterprises by Lukasz Nazarko and Borisas Melnikas explores Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) as a novel approach to governing science and innovation. This paper proposes a range of approaches that help operationalise RRI, such as AHP, weighted indicators, maturity models and Data Envelopment Analysis. Artificial intelligence and business relationships are the focus of the paper Development of Intelligent Agents through Collaborative Innovation by Mateusz Kot and Grzegorz Leszczynski. The authors present research-based evidence on the scope of collaboration between users of Business Virtual Assistants (BVAs) and providers in the process of BVA development, which is influenced by user interpretation through sensemaking. The paper Integration of digital technologies in the sphere of construction in Russian Federation by Elena Aleksandrova, Victoria Vinogradova, Galina Tokunova focuses on changes in collaboration innovations in business relationships applicable to the Russian construction sector in the period of digitalisation. The following two articles deal with consumer motivations of value co-creation. The study by Anna Dewalska-Opitek and Maciej Mitręga entitled “Appreciate me and I will be your good soldier”. The exploration of antecedents to consumer citizenship provides tentative evidence for some extrinsic and intrinsic motivation behind consumer inclination to engage in customer citizenship behaviour (CCB) and co-creating with brands they prefer. The research also showcases the multidimensionality of CCB. The paper Internet-based consumer co-creation experience of the new product development process by Viktoria Khrystoforova and Dariusz Siemeniako shows the interest of consumers in being involved in the online co-creation of new product development. The study indicates that the lack of required knowledge results in hesitance to participate among some consumers.

I thank the reviewers for the valuable time given to offer helpful and constructive comments. Special gratitude goes to the editorial team: Prof. Joanicjusz Nazarko, Assoc. Prof. Joanna Ejdys and Dr. Danuta Szpilko for providing a platform for six papers, which will hopefully facilitate a further debate on links between B2B marketing and technology.