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Channel design, coordination, and performance: Future research directions

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Abstract

The marketing literature has made significant progress toward a better understanding of how firms can effectively design and manage their channels of distribution. However, the complexity of today’s channel systems raises additional issues that remain unaddressed. The purpose of this article is to suggest promising research directions in this domain. We suggest several possible avenues to relate multiple channel design and management to channel-system, channel-relationship, and customer-level outcomes. In particular, we see a great opportunity to integrate multichannel customer management and traditional channel design research. We argue that future research should account for cross-level effects and incorporate variables at more than one relationship level.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Washington State University, Vancouver, WA, USA

    Alberto Sa Vinhas

  2. MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Sharmila Chatterjee

  3. Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Shantanu Dutta

  4. Pembroke Consulting Inc., Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Adam Fein

  5. HEC, Paris, France

    Joseph Lajos

  6. Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA

    Scott Neslin

  7. University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO, USA

    Lisa Scheer

  8. Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, USA

    William Ross & Qiong Wang

Authors
  1. Alberto Sa Vinhas
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  2. Sharmila Chatterjee
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  3. Shantanu Dutta
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  4. Adam Fein
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  5. Joseph Lajos
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  6. Scott Neslin
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  7. Lisa Scheer
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  8. William Ross
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  9. Qiong Wang
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Correspondence to Alberto Sa Vinhas.

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Sa Vinhas, A., Chatterjee, S., Dutta, S. et al. Channel design, coordination, and performance: Future research directions. Mark Lett 21, 223–237 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-010-9105-2

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