Written by Lina Altenburg, Assistant Professor at the Erasmus University Rotterdam (The Netherlands)
This IJRM interview is something very special for me. It marks both an end and a beginning. It is an ending, because I finalized my PhD and I am ending my writing for the IJRM newsletter. So, this will be the last interview I write. I had a great time during the almost 3 years of newsletter work and talked to many inspiring marketing academics. However, it is time to move on to take on new responsibilities. This interview also marks a beginning, because I interviewed one of my new colleagues at Erasmus University Rotterdam (the Netherlands): Michiel Van Crombrugge. Discussing his paper reveals an inspiring story about promising ideas, uncontrollable negative events, patience, persistence, and inspiration. In the end, the paper’s journey consumed nearly 8 years, time that junior academics can ill afford.
Michiel’s paper is titled “Does the online direct channel cannibalize or synergize the retail Network? The moderating impact of retailer competitive strength”. Co-authored by Niels Holtrop (Maastricht University), Kathleen Cleeren (KU Leuven) and Els Breugelmans (KU Leuven), the paper investigates how prices in a manufacturer’s online direct channel (i.e., an online store where only the manufacturer's products are sold) impact product sales in the multi-brand retail network (e.g., at retailers that sell product lines from multiple brands including the focal manufacturer’s products). They find a negative cross-channel price elasticity, which suggests that price decreases in the online direct channel positively impact retailer sales. In other words, there exist synergetic effects of the online direct channel on sales in the multi-brand retail network.
From conflict to research question
The controversial topic of direct channels emerged from extensive media coverage about direct channel conflicts. Retailers accused manufacturers of stealing their sales by implementing direct channels, and manufacturers defended their direct channels as brand building and connecting with customers. Each side had valid arguments and was convinced of their truth. Yet, at that point, no one had done a holistic analysis to provide an empirical basis for the debate. The paper at hand emerged from this and became Michiel’s first PhD project, together with his two PhD supervisors, Els and Kathleen. In the end, the context was so rich that Michiel’s PhD dissertation was entirely focused on direct channels.
“It turned out to be a fertile ground for a lot of papers, especially because there was nothing empirical out there and still a lot to build on from prior literature. This clearly was a bigger thing. I cannot count the number of times we said ‘we will do this in another paper’. This was almost like an inside joke.”
Michiel Van Crombrugge
Force majeure
Shortly after Michiel took up his first academic post, the paper was submitted to IJRM and by the end of 2019, the team received a major revision decision. What should have been a great start to his tenure journey in Rotterdam became a junior researcher’s nightmare. Obviously, COVID completely changed our way of working at the end of 2019 / early 2020.
The paper’s major revision challenge was data access. Given the topic’s sensitivity, he had to access all data on site with the data provider. Unfortunately, the data provider’s nearest office was in Paris. Because of the COVID 19 lockdowns, Michiel could not access the data needed to respond to reviewer requirements.
“Because the office was closed, no one was there, and they, despite COVID, didn't allow me to work on the remote server. Per our NDA, someone had to be there in the room with me on a closed off computer with no internet. So, during COVID I was not able to work on this paper. Which means we took 907 days for our revision!”
Michiel Van Crombrugge
Michiel stressed that the editor, AE and reviewers were supportive and accommodating. This meant that even after taking more than two years to complete, IJRM welcomed the re-submission. The paper’s pertinence and enduring relevance to practice worked in Michiel’s favor.
“What we always try to avoid is researching some sort of one-time- gimmick. The advantage of that is, if you have to wait 2.5 years for a project, it is still topical when it resurfaces.”
Michiel Van Crombrugge
Reviving the paper
Even though the team could resume work once COVID waned, they faced difficulties in rebooting the project. During the lockdown, the team had taken on other interesting projects and lost some of their initial excitement. Thus, the team invited Niels to revive the project and support with the advanced panel VAR (vector autoregressive) methodology the reviewers suggested.
“We needed a panel VAR expert to join the team and we needed some new fresh energy. We needed someone who hadn’t been waiting on this paper for 2.5 years but someone who had new fresh ideas. I think Niels was the perfect person to onboard for that. He healed the paper from COVID.”
Michiel Van Crombrugge
From that point, the revision went faster, leading to successful publication in IJRM. Eventually, the paper also helped Michiel to receive a positive early tenure evaluation. Congratulations!
And looking back on the conflict between retailers and manufacturers which initiated this research, on average, we can side with the manufacturers, as the study finds that the prices at the online direct channel synergize the retail network: lower direct channel prices lead to more multi-brand retailer sales. However, this impact is heterogenous and the paper shows there may be circumstances under which the direct channel cannibalizes the retailer network instead.
Read the paper
Interested in reading all the details about the impact of direct online channels on the retail network? Read the full paper here.
Want to cite the paper?
Michiel Van Crombrugge, Niels Holtrop, Kathleen Cleeren, Els Breugelmans (2024). Does the online direct channel cannibalize or synergize the retail Network? The moderating impact of retailer competitive strength. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 42(1).
Meet Michiel
Associate Professor of Market Insights and Innovation at the Erasmus School of Economics at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
If you were not in academia, what would you be?
There is a boring answer to that, which is probably the most truthful answer. I do remember, when I graduated there was this big thought process of whether to get into academia or not. Probably, if I wouldn’t have done that I would have ended up in consulting or brand management.
And then there is the more interesting answer. I think during my masters I was still convinced that I would finish my degree in business engineering and then go to film school to become a film director. I wasn’t going to make arthouse films; I would have focused on mass market ones. It’s the same in academia. You want your papers to be read by as many people as possible, right? You want to have a broad appeal. I tried writing a few scripts and storylines when I was younger, and they were always trying to be flashy, action comedies. Mostly copying Tarantino. Not that I would ever have reached that level.
What drives you to do the research/work that you do?
The environment that I am working in. I have to give credits to Erasmus School of Economics at Erasmus University. Our school has, so far, always provided the freedom of researching whatever you want as well as the means, both in terms of financial means but also mind space and time. I think that’s just the most amazing thing in the world. I can just open my laptop and basically work on whatever I find interesting. You have the freedom to spend an entire day reading interesting stuff someone wrote. And then perhaps do something with that yourself. That is what keeps me going. There is always new stuff to observe, new stuff to research. And the work I am doing is really my own thing, my own ideas, my own interests. I couldn’t be happier.
This article was written by
Lina Altenburg
Assistant Professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam (the Netherlands)
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