Strategic Interorganization Management: An Approach for Evaluating the Impact of New Technologies on Distribution Channel Structures and Relationships

Members of distribution channels for goods and services are facing a major technology-based upheaval caused by the computer and telecommunications revolution of the 1980s. So far, many of the effects of the new technologies have not been fully capitalized on by distributive institutions. Indeed, channel members lack a systematic framework for assessing new technologies and assimilating them into the vertical marketing structure, i.e., the marketing channel. The objective of this paper is to provide channel members with a framework that will allow them to assess emerging technologies from their own unique positions and perspectives. The approach is

Strategic Interorganization Management

, an analytic technique developed to improve the performance of vertical marketing systems in the delivery of service outputs desired by organizational users and final consumers. The Strategic Interorganization Management Approach involves three processes or stages.