Helping behavior and other acts of kindness are important in the business context as they lead to numerous positive outcomes for organizations and individuals and they can help form the foundation needed for meeting organizational goals. Acts of kindness can have a multiplying effect which can be achieved by kindness being paid back to the individual who conducted the act of kindness or paid forward to others. Paying it Forward (PIF) is a type of generalized social exchange behaviour that occurs when a person gives something of value to another person because they have in the past received something of value from someone else. PIF is forming a growing area of interest in business, yet to date PIF has received less attention in a Business-to-Business (B2B) context than in Business-to-Consumer (B2C) and Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C). There are two key considerations that makes PIF important in the B2B marketing context, namely that marketing itself constitutes exchange and that the multiple responsibilities that the marketing manager often hold makes them actors in social exchange, both as participants of exchange relationships between firms and as facilitators of exchange through the responsibilities they hold within their firm. With this in mind, this dissertation identifies research gaps as it relates to PIF in the context of B2B marketing, and these gaps can be summarized by the research problem statement: How can marketing managers participate in and facilitate/encourage Paying it Forward in the B2B marketing context? This research problem statement was examined by four research questions, each addressed by a study producing an individual research article.

The purpose of the first study was to address the research question: What is the role of the Generalized Social Exchange behaviour Paying it Forward in the Business-to-Business marketing context? The findings of this work serve to further situate PIF in the B2B marketing context, and contribute a conceptual framework and several researchable propositions for PIF in the B2B marketing context. Next, the purpose of the second study was to address the research question: How does Generalized Social Exchange such as Paying it Forward occur and drive value co-creation results for employer branding in a business ecosystem? This study extended knowledge of B2B marketing from an employer branding perspective by proposing the existance of an ecosystem-centric perspective and Ecosystem Citizenship Behaviour (ECB) as it relates to employer branding. Meaning that employer branding can be perceived and acted upon from the perspective of the ecosystem as a whole. Following this, the purpose of the third study was to address the research question: Does organizational commitment predict Paying it Forward behaviour in the workplace? This study conceptually confirmed that PIF is an organizational citizenship behavior distinct from other conceptualizations. It also further added to the literature by confirming that there exists a positive relationship between organizational commitment and PIF, and that age and gender are confirmed moderators of this relationship. Finally, the purpose of the fourth study was to address the research question: How can managers encourage Paying it Forward behaviour that contributes to strengthening the firm’s employer brand? Study 4 introduced a conceptual definition for a PIF mindset and described what it entails and the value it may bring. It also provided a summary of different examples, benefits and risks of how PIF occurs on a micro-, meso- and macro-level. Finally, it provided practical guidelines summarized as principles for managers regarding how to foster a PIF mindset among employees and the broader organization. Through these studies taken together, this dissertation is contributing to furthering B2B marketing literature by providing insights into how marketing managers can participate in, facilitate and encourage PIF in the B2B marketing context, by first providing a general assessment of PIF in this context, and then addressing specific areas to further our understanding of how actors engage in this context.

This dissertation is organized as follows: First, Chapter 1 provides an introduction and overview of the research area. Next, Chapter 2 provides a review of the literature relating to the key concepts and develops the research questions under examination in this dissertation. In Chapter 3, the methodology undertaken to study the research area is discussed. Chapter 4, in turn, presents a summary of the findings of each research article. Finally, Chapter 5 presents the theoretical contributions and practical implications of each of the four studies, it also discusses limitations and proposes recommendations for future research. The four contributing research articles can be found in full length as appendices to this dissertation.