Some scholars propose that the concept of market orientation needs to be
extended to encompass a company's indirect customers too. In an
action-oriented perspective, this extended market orientation implies
the notion of multistage marketing (MSM). For B-to-B settings, MSM
entails the expanded consideration of both direct and indirect
customers; it also provides the necessary capabilities to implement such
a market orientation. In this study, Alejandro-Marcel Schönhoff presents
a scenario-based experiment, using limit conjoint analysis, to establish
an empirical basis for measuring the potential effects of different MSM
types on direct customers' willingness to pay and other key outcome
variables. The results show, among other things, that collaborative MSM
exerts a positive effect on willingness to pay, whereas non
collaborative MSM has a negative effect on direct customers'
satisfaction and loyalty. Furthermore, the relevance of MSM depends on
the direct customers' market power toward their own customers.