Well-Being in B2B Marketing: Rethinking B2B Marketing for a New Era

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Introduction

This special issue advances interdisciplinary understanding of well-being in B2B marketing. It examines how well-being reshapes value creation, inter-organizational relationships, and sustainable business practices. Despite growing interest in individual-level well-being (e.g., salesperson burnout), B2B marketing lacks integrative frameworks examining well-being across inter-organizational networks. The special issue aims to develop a holistic and sustainability-oriented perspective on well-being within B2B markets.

Conceptually, well-being in B2B markets operates across multiple, interconnected levels. It concerns the well-being of individual actors (e.g. salespeople, account managers), organizational practices and governance, inter-organizational relationships (e.g. trust, conflict resolution, collaboration), and wider network and societal outcomes. However, these dimensions are rarely examined together. Current B2B marketing research remains primarily grounded in performance-centric and individual-level frameworks, limiting broader integrative development. The research is relevant, but the big picture is missing. By bringing together diverse theoretical and methodological approaches, this special issue seeks to develop integrative frameworks that reflect the complexity of well-being across organizational and relational contexts.

We encourage submissions that integrate diverse perspectives and contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of well-being in B2B markets. The special issue welcomes conceptual papers, qualitative and quantitative empirical studies, mixed-method research, and high-quality literature reviews.

List of Topic Areas

1. Well-being and inter-organizational trust
2. Salesperson mental health and relational resilience
3. Governance, ESG and well-being integration
4. Network stability and ecosystem well-being
5. Servitisation and sustainable value co-creation
6. Measurement of well-being beyond financial KPIs
7. Interdisciplinary frameworks for B2B well-being

Submissions Information

Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available here: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jbim 
Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see here: https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/jbim 
Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to ““Please select the issue you are submitting to”. 
Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.

Key Deadlines

Opening date: 31 March 2026
Closing date: 30 September 2026