Abstract

Geopolitical and economic uncertainties lead to growing volatility by lowering credit flows (allocations and disbursements), resulting in a sharp plunge in industrial and marketing activities. Despite this, studies on how business to business (B2B) marketing disruptions caused by geopolitical tension and economic policy uncertainty impede industrial value creation and sustainable development, are scarce. We examine the influence of geopolitical tension and economic policy uncertainty on sustainable development through the channel of B2B marketing in the case of group of 20 (G20), group of 7 (G7) and Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) nations over 1990–۲۰۱۹٫ We utilize the Quantiles via Moments approach to analyze panel time series data due to its potential to deal with country- and region-specific heterogeneity and non-linear relationships. Our findings disclose that geopolitical tensions have a monotonic negative effect on industrial value-added triggered by B2B marketing in the BRICS countries. Contrarily, such tensions have no significant influence on industrial value-added and sustainable development in the G20 and G7 nations. Besides, industrial value-addition (foreign and domestic) augmented by B2B marketing positively affects sustainable development. Also, the effect of economic policy uncertainty on industrial value-added and sustainable development is monotonically favorable. In contrast, economic policy uncertainty-augmented industrial value-added adversely affects sustainable development steadily. Briefly, the empirical outcomes unveil significant economic implications, delineating that B2B firms are confronted with many challenges resulting from the vagaries of geopolitical and economic policy uncertainty soliciting disruption in their sustainable marketing operations.

Introduction

The efficacy of Business-to-Business (B2B) marketing transcends beyond the conventional boundaries of profit generation, as it plays a crucial role in promoting the “better marketing for a better world” ideology (Chandy, Johar, Moorman, & Roberts, 2021) that harmonizes with the seemingly elusive issue of sustainable development (Voola, Bandyopadhyay, Voola, Ray, & Carlson, 2022). In embracing accessible and inclusive B2B marketing approaches, firms can forge ahead by fostering sustainable production and consumption of goods and services that ultimately generate job opportunities for people (Voola et al., 2022), establish profit-generating partnership-network marketing (Tsao, Raj, & Yu, 2019), and facilitate responsible service offerings that effectively preserve the earth’s ecosystem (Olsen, Slotegraaf, & Chandukala, 2014). Thus, in consideration of the triple bottom line – prioritizing people, profit, and the planet – the fundamentals of sustainability-based parameters in B2B marketing are indispensable in global industrial development processes.

Moreover, B2B marketing approaches unlock pathways that enrich the scale of industrial value-added, paving the way for enhanced firm-level production and marketing capacity. Essentially, firms can leverage a plethora of B2B resources including marketing knowledge and strategies (Bratti & Felice, 2012), technology transfer and refinement (Pham, Le Monkhouse, & Barnes, 2017), as well as dynamic marketing capabilities (Hoque, Nath, Ahammad, Tzokas, & Yip, 2022). Unfortunately, B2B marketing practices are vulnerable to disruptions triggered by geopolitical and economic policy uncertainties, along with institutional disparities (Ju, Murray, Kotabe and Gao, 2011). This perilous concern further hindered B2C marketing endeavors by influencing the purchasing intentions of both individual consumers and end-users (Wichmann, Uppal, Sharma, & Dekimpe, 2022). This can abruptly halt the supply of materials, goods, and services produced by these enterprises (Craighead, Blackhurst, Rungtusanatham, & Handfield, 2007), leading to ineffective knowledge management processes that are required to stimulate industrial value-added and sustainable development (Martin, Javalgi, & Ciravegna, 2020). In light of this, there is a need for a comprehensive study to explore how disruptions in B2B relationships can affect the value-added of marketing-driven industries and contribute to sustainable development, particularly in global influential blocs such as the G20, G7, and BRICS.

Implications and conclusion

The present study makes a significant contribution to the existing B2B marketing literature, providing empirical evidence on the impact of macro-environmental conditions (specifically, geopolitical risks and economic policy uncertainty) on B2B marketing disruptions and how such disruptions impede industrial value-added and sustainable development. By analyzing panel data spanning from 1990 to 2019, our study sheds light on the macro-environmental context, offering practical insights into how B2B marketing-driven industrial value-added and sustainable development can be influenced proactively for dominant global blocs like G20, G7, and BRICS.

We employ the quantiles via moments to analyze data from these economic blocs, while also accounting for country and region-specific disparities. Our findings indicate that while geopolitical risks have no significant negative impact on industrial value-added resulting from B2B marketing operations in G20 and G7 blocs, the BRICS alliance suffer from the negative consequences of the phenomenon across all quantiles. Furthermore, economic policy uncertainty has a monotonic, positive influence on all quantiles for all three blocs, while B2B marketing-driven industrial value-added (both foreign and domestic) promotes sustainable development. Moreover, our study finds that while geopolitical risks and these risks-augmented industrial value-added have no significant effect, economic policy uncertainty-augmented industrial value-added hampers sustainable development in these economies.