Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to ease the methodological application of critical realist multilevel research in business marketing. Although there has been plenty of theoretical contributions in this field, it is not always clear how critical realism can be best applied in business marketing settings. Accordingly, this paper addresses this gap in literature. Also, this paper addresses the calls for a multilevel conceptualization for resilience, based on the critical realist laminated systems.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a conceptual paper, which uses pre-existing literature to develop a critical realist methodological approach for the purposes of multilevel business marketing research. The contribution is based on literature by combining pre-existing ideas in a new way in the context of business marketing.

Findings

This paper makes a methodological contribution by introducing the critical realist “laminated systems” to business marketing as a multilevel research approach. Furthermore, the authors conceptualize a specific laminated model, the Laminated Interactional Model (LIM), that is designed for the purpose of business marketing research. The LIM is a methodological tool that conceptualizes business marketing based on six levels of analysis, easing the methodological application of critical realism in business marketing settings. In addition, to provide an example, the authors apply the LIM to the literature on resilience, providing a multilevel conceptualization. This is a timely contribution, as resilience has emerged as a central concept addressing interorganizational survival during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Originality/value

This paper makes three main contributions to business marketing. First, this paper provides a methodological contribution by introducing the critical realist notion of “laminated systems” to business marketing. Second, this paper conceptualizes a specific laminated model for business marketing, namely, the LIM. Third, as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper will apply critical realism and the LIM to the notion of resilience, addressing the calls for multilevel conceptualizations.

中文翻译：

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商业营销中的批判现实主义多层次研究：弹性的分层概念化

目的

本文的目的是简化批判现实主义多层次研究在商业营销中的方法学应用。尽管在这一领域已经有大量的理论贡献，但如何在商业营销环境中最好地应用批判现实主义并不总是很清楚。因此，本文解决了文献中的这一空白。此外，本文还提出了基于批判现实主义层压系统的多层次弹性概念化的要求。

设计/方法/方法

这是一篇概念性论文，它使用预先存在的文献来开发一种批判性现实主义方法论方法，用于多层次的商业营销研究。该贡献基于文献，通过在商业营销的背景下以新的方式结合预先存在的想法。

发现

本文通过将批判现实主义“分层系统”作为多层次研究方法引入商业营销，做出了方法论贡献。此外，作者概念化了一个特定的层压模型，即层压交互模型 (LIM)，它是为商业营销研究而设计的。LIM 是一种方法论工具，它基于六个层次的分析对商业营销进行概念化，简化了批判现实主义在商业营销环境中的方法学应用。此外，为了提供一个例子，作者将 LIM 应用于有关弹性的文献，提供了多层次的概念化。这是一项及时的贡献，因为在 COVID-19 大流行期间，复原力已成为解决组织间生存问题的核心概念。

原创性/价值

本文对商业营销做出了三个主要贡献。首先，本文通过将“分层系统”的批判现实主义概念引入商业营销来提供方法论贡献。其次，本文概念化了一种特定的商业营销分层模型，即 LIM。第三，作为对 COVID-19 大流行的回应，本文将批判现实主义和 LIM 应用于复原力的概念，解决对多层次概念化的呼吁。