Marketing in Transition: Scarcity, Globalism, & Sustainability

The objective of this study is to test the external validity of the Technology Readiness Index (TRI; Parasuraman, 2000) by investigating consumers’ Technology Readiness (TR) in a developing country. Hypotheses were formulated to test the ability of demographics and attitudinal variables to predict intention to embrace and use technology-based products and services. The study is based on a survey conducted in Chile, using a professionally translated version of the original 36-item TRI into Spanish. Results indicate that demographic variables do matter in the developing country context when explaining people’s willingness to adopt new technology, with age being the most consistent predictor. However, results also provide evidence that attitude is more important than demographics when the potential adoption of a new technology carries potential financial or physical risks for the user. The paper concludes with a discussion of the potential effect of national cultural dimensions on consumers’ readiness to adopt technology-based goods.

Although the private passenger car brings consumers freedom of mobility and expression, the downsides to the car focused society are also becoming obvious. Perhaps air pollution and the squandering of dwindling fossil oil resources are the most commonly discussed issues. In order to reduce emissions and to consume less oil, the traditional approach has been to influence consumers to curtail their car use and influence them to switch to other modes of transportation. Considering the increasing private car use in most countries this approach has had limited effect. Another approach winning ground currently is the path of technological development, where new types of vehicles have been developed that are marketed as having a lesser environmental impact than the conventional fossil oil fuelled cars. From a consumer perspective these new alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs), running on fuels such as ethanol, natural/biogas and to some extent on electricity, can be viewed as proenvironmental innovations. The problem is that much research within environmental psychology has focused primarily on curtailment behaviors rather than on understanding consumer adoption of purportedly proenvironmental innovations. For example, Stern and colleagues have developed the value-belief-norm (VBN) theory postulating that activated personal norms influence consumers’ proenvironmental behaviors. Although well proven, the VBN-theory has mainly focused on curtailment behaviors. From a consumer behavior point of view, less is known about consumer adoption of proenvironmental innovations.

Globalization has a major impact on the practice of innovation across a wide range of service industries. Yet, only limited attention has been paid to the issue of service innovation in a global context. To address this critique of the literature a case study of New Service Development (NSD) and customer interaction was conducted in US Corp Inc. (a pseudonym), a multinational financial services firm in the U.S. This firm had a global presence but wanted to improve its innovation efforts in South Asian nations, particularly India. The case study investigates the development of new services with inputs from firm’s customers in India. It also traces the roles of Indian subsidiary and local managers in developing and managing the overall innovation process. We chose longitudinal research method to identify the main sequence of events of the customer interaction process in NSD while they happen and to avoid the ex-post rationalization phenomena. This method combines qualitative data collection techniques, such as in-depth interviews, brainstorming, ethnographic observation, action research and archival records analysis. We also conducted a confirmatory follow up study using a small sample mail survey. Researchers have emphasized the importance of combining multiple data collection methods in conducting case studies.

Where has the international marketing (IM) literature been? What is currently happening in IM research? Where might IM academics focus their research in the future? These three questions are addressed by analyzing the network structure of IM research in a variety of marketing journals. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) is used to examine the intellectual nature of the IM literature. Typically, researchers build on theoretical concepts to advance theory. Supporting the notion of research as a network of complementary and competing ideas, this study uses the published academic document (e.g., article, chapter, or monograph) as the unit of analysis. In specific, we identify how IM’s influential works and dominant research topics are interrelated with MDS-based visual depictions, comparisons, and evaluations. This is done to understand the relationships between prevailing theories more clearly. As such, our results are discussed and used to provide suggestions for future IM theory advancement and knowledge development.

Supply chain sustainability, although being an extremely up-to-date issue, does not seem to have been fully examined yet, particularly from the retailers’ point of view.. In this sense, retailers are acquiring a critical position in the value chain as actors in charge of integrating the sustainable activities of the different entities along the supply chain. In literature, several are the approaches to the analysis of the sustainability issue: determinants, motivations, operational methods, implications on the company’s image and on purchase behaviours. However, few are the contributions which aim at investigating this issue from the supply chain management perspective, with particular reference to retail companies. Considering such aspects, this paper aims at understanding the interpretation of sustainability according to retail operators and how it affects business actions, focusing both on the influence of sustainability on the adopted business formula and on the supply chain dimension. On a methodological level, an exploratory research was carried out on a sample of retailers, completed by three case studies concerning three leading retailing companies.

Objective of this meta-analysis is to analyze the influence of five service quality determinants, as proposed by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1985), on satisfaction and behavioral intentions. The five determinants of SERVQUAL are: tangibles, responsiveness, reassurance, empathy and assurance. In past research, SERVQUAL scale has been extensively used by researchers to measure service quality and related outcomes but little consensus exists for the relative importance of five determinants of service quality in predicting satisfaction. Three main objectives of this paper are: a) To analyze the influence of 5 determinants of SERVQUAL on satisfaction and behavioral intention; b) To analyze cross cultural differences for each relationship, and c) To identify hierarchy of importance amongst dimensions across cultures. Influence of ‘value’ as a potential moderator has been proposed but not tested due to the lack of sufficient number of studies. Cronin and Taylor (1992) used the same items to propose a new scale for measuring service quality- SERVPERF. They suggested it to be a more robust method for testing service quality. Both scales have been subject to criticism by researchers for their methodology but are, by far, the most popularly used scales for measuring service quality in the literature. Therefore, for the purpose of this meta-analysis, both SERVQUAL and SERVPERF literature was searched for relevant studies. Only those studies that used ‘perception/performance only’ measure to predict service quality and considered satisfaction & behavioral intention as outcomes were considered. To maintain recency and improve generalizability of findings only those studies published in and after year 2000 were considered. Internet/e-commerce based researches were discarded to maintain contextual relevance. Although more than forty articles reported empirical results related to the relationship between service quality, satisfaction and behavioral intentions, many of the results could not be coded due to the absence of required effect size information. Finally, findings from 15 studies was used and consolidated for this paper. Study setting ranged from retail banking (4) to hotel/restaurants (4), sports (1), public sector (1), information technology/telecommunication (3) and general services (2). Five of the 15 studies were done in US, two in Korea and one each in Australia, New Zealand, Greece, Bangladesh, China, India, Malaysia and Singapore. Based on Hofstede’s classification, studies were divided into collectivist and individualist cultural dimensions.

With the prosperity of service industries in past decades, service organizations devoted themselves to provide customers with better service experience. Numerous researches and reports have indicated that social interactions between customers and frontline employees play a critical role in determining customer satisfaction and long-term loyalty. In fact, many service encounters consist of more than one customer, but only a relatively small portion of studies has explored encounters between customers. Scholars have demonstrated that, like customer-employee encounters, customer-customer encounters also affect a customer’s overall service evaluation. However, practitioners and academicians still lack the knowledge on how to develop better customer-to-customer experience.

Cultural tourist attractions seem to be overshadowed by scenery attractions in Norway. When tourists visited the new Opera in Oslo in the summer of 2008, they walked on the roof and looked out on the Oslo fjord. This research is concerned with market communication for cultural tourist attractions. Specifically, off-the-shelf versus tailor-made communication is discussed. We evaluated ten popular Norwegian tourist attractions, which were selected for a study of how attractions may adapt their marketing and market communication strategies to international target groups.

Effective frequency, a cornerstone of media planning, says how many times consumers should be exposed to advertising in order for advertising to be the most effective. Basic effective frequency level is believed to be ‘three-plus’ exposures and this figure is adopted by most media planners. Beside the basic level, marketing, media and creative copy factors influence the final determination of effective frequency level. Such factors, defined by Ostrow in 1982, were not revised for more than 25 years and still are used in media planning textbooks. This exploratory study examines how local media professionals make their decisions about frequency levels for advertising campaigns. The study focuses on local advertising campaigns because nearly half of all money spent on advertising comes from local advertisers (Jugenheimer, Barban and Turk, 1992). Despite this fact very little has been done on a local level, where more restrictions and limitations are usually imposed on media planning (Otnes and Faber, 1989).

The objective of this research is to investigate the differences between consumers who are more or less prone to in-store sales promotions and to different types of sales promotion (price and non-price) and to examine the degree to which prize size in non-price sales promotions can overcome the reported pronenesses.

Referral reward programs are frequently used in services marketing. In referral reward programs, a customer receives a reward for convincing others to become a customer. Numerous large service firms offer rewards to their customers when they recommend a service to their friends and acquaintances. Referral reward programs are so ubiquitous as they are an effective and efficient marketing tool for new customer acquisition (Verlegh, Peters and Pruyn 2003). Ryu and Feick (2007) show that the offered reward can be effective in increasing customers’ word of mouth (WOM). As Biyalgorsky, Gerstner, and Libai (2001) point out referral reward programs are not only effective, but also efficient as the company only pays for the reward if WOM is articulated.

The last two decades have witnessed substantial research in terms of brand associations although the process underlying transfer of associations from parent brands and line extensions is still unclear. Previous research has seldom explained the principle of cognitive algebra underlying transfer leading to an inconsistent body of knowledge in this area despite important theoretical and managerial implications. The objective of this paper is to alleviate this lack of consistency by proposing a conceptualization of the process underlying transfer of brand associations.

Brand growth is logically a key goal for most brand managers. Brand extension has evolved as one dominant growth strategy, where the brand capitalizes on the strength in its original category to obtain a foothold in a nearby or distant product or service category (Aaker & Keller, 1990; Völckner & Sattler, 2006). In this strategy, the brand makes its move on its own, solely relying on its own strength to succeed in the new category. This has proven to be a risky endeavor for the brand in the original and the extension category (Loken & John, 1993). An alternative strategic approach to brand growth is to forge some sort of alliance, or join forces with other established brands (James, 2006; Rao & Ruekert, 1994; Simonin & Ruth, 1998). In this strategy, the collaborating brands could potentially hope that “the sum is larger than its parts”, and the likelihood of success for both brands could be potentially higher (than if they should make the move alone). Hence, the purpose of the current study is 1) to experimentally test the attitudinal responses to a brand pursuing either the extension or alliance strategy, and 2) assess the extent to which this effect is moderated by the length of category stretch, from short, via medium, to long stretch. The two preceding growth strategies have not been directly compared in the same experiment previously; hence there is limited empirical knowledge about the relative pros and cons of both when seen in direct comparison. James (2006) findings lend support to the basic fit-assumption, i.e., fit is a significant driver of both extension and alliance acceptance. However, relative impact cannot be derived from his study, as extensions and alliances were treated as separate datasets.

In modern consumer societies brands are closely tied to cultural context. Therefore, brands contain meanings that go far beyond functional characteristics. Consumers have become more and more culturally competent, being able to ‘read’ even complex brand meaning. Values are frequently named as being a central element of brand meaning. While it has been common for a long time to speak of brand values in the literature on branding, an increasing number of empirical studies underscoring the relevance of a brand values construct have only recently been published. However, this concept is not well-developed. Consequently, a sound instrument to measure brand values does not exist.

Normative economics perspective (or more precisely invariance principle) suggests that when resulting economic values of two offers are identical, consumers should be indifferent between the offers regardless of their presentation format. However, research literature shows that in real life consumers often violate such predictions and are influenced by the way the offer is presented. Choices that are normatively equivalent are often viewed as distinct when they are framed differently (Tversky and Kahneman, 1981).

There is general recognition among practitioners and academics about the importance of emotional intelligence in improving individual and team performance. In this conceptual manuscript, we propose a model whereby a team member’s emotional intelligence (EI) is an antecedent of an individual’s creativity in new product development (NPD). This study focuses on emotional intelligence at the individual team members’ level and thus builds upon earlier work that has examined the impact of a team leader’s EI on new product outcomes. We propose that an individual’s EI positively contributes to creativity. In addition, we argue that proximity and prior work relationship enhance the relationship between EI and the creativity of team members. We submit that the effects of individual team member EI on creativity is important to study because of the role that emotions can play in team interactions and effectiveness. This implies that studies investigating how best to manage NPD teams need to include emotional intelligence in order to capture the true impact of individual team members’ on team effectiveness.

The ability to enact change underlies long-term marketing success. We examine how individual and leadership motivations influence a team’s propensity to enact change across a variety of marketing decisions. We utilize regulatory focus theory and identify the effects of regulatory focus match vs. mismatch within teams on the propensity to enact change in decision-making across the marketing mix. We find that regulatory focus match renders leadership-prescribed goal pursuit strategies ineffective and that only teams under regulatory focus mismatch make decisions consistent with leadership-prescribed goal pursuit strategies. For regulatory match teams, our results demonstrate that a promotion focus is associated with greater levels of change in team marketing decisions than a prevention focus.

In today’s economy, commoditization of products and services is occurring at an accelerating rate. Three forces account for the change. First, most categories are mature, with once differentiating benefits now requirements to be considered. Second, the growth of the professional services industry makes copying competitors’ winning ideas effortless, inexpensive and fast. Finally, the Internet has enabled disruptive innovators and effortless price shopping and reduced barriers to entry, creating excess supply in most markets.

It is widely acknowledged that competence plays a critical role in the formation of trust, particularly in international service settings. However, little is known about possible ways to increase initial trust, particularly, instruments that may improve initial trust building for international companies entering a foreign market. Based on these gaps in the literature, our paper contributes to the advancement of consumer behavior research by investigating the effects of two competence-based initial trust building instruments, namely country competence and salesperson competence. Drawing on agency theory, categorization theory, attribution theory and previous research, we assume that both kinds of competence are suited to trigger the initial trust building processes. In addition, we develop hypotheses about the moderating effect of perceived risk on the link between competence and initial trust.

This study provides support for the dimensional distinctiveness of cooperation, coordination, specific assets, satisfaction, trust, and commitment. Based on the results, it is suggested that four of these dimensions are reflective of relationship quality or the ‘Cross-Cultural RELQUAL-scale’ (cooperation, coordination, trust, and commitment) and that relationship quality impacts satisfaction with the relationship. Data was used to test the cross-cultural RELQUAL-scale in supplier-distributor relationships in Sweden and USA.

Perhaps the greatest challenge of global account management is the organization and control of the multitude of relationships surrounding the service of each global customer. Requirements for uniform products, consistent worldwide service and support, standardized terms of sale and terms of payment, and global pricing structures present a constant challenge for supplier firms. Global account management entails multilayered relationships among the organizational actors that must be coordinated for the collective accomplishment of performance objectives (Harvey et al. 2003; Shi et al. 2005). This leads us to consider the features of the working relationships among the global account management team and local organizational actors, asking the following research questions:

a)

Which relationship characteristics drive performance in global account management?

b)

How do differences in relationship characteristics across organizational levels influence performance?

Neuromarketing is the new way to understand the consumer and how and why he/she behaves in such ways; or purchases specific products, and brands; or why he/she buys two different kinds of products. The managers believe that they will reach certain results, thanks to this technique. Nevertheless, how these studies are perceived by consumers and consumers’ desires to take part in these kinds of researches become very significant from the ethical point of view. This study aims to understand the attitude of the Turkish consumer towards the research, made with fMRI method for neuromarketing. Suited to this aim, neuromarketing with fMRI technique has been considered with other marketing research techniques and the attitude that Turkish consumers developed towards research techniques has been tried to be brought to light. At the same time, opinions and attitudes of the consumers about the future of neuromarketing has been tried to be brought up.

A large part of the daily business of marketing executives is dedicated to fighting commoditization. That is, the process of trying to differentiate their firm’s products in a marketplace where competitors offer essentially products with identical core attributes, e.g., in terms of quality. Prior research and managerial practice, however, lack insight about which aspects of differentiation resonate in acceptance and purchase among consumers. Moreover, consumers’ affective and cognitive processes when deciding between a standard offering and a differentiated one are not yet well understood. Should the product packing be re-designed? Should sales offer products at lower prices than the competition? Or, does a strong brand drive product success in a commoditized marketplace? By combining self-reports and brain data from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), this study assesses relevant affective and cognitive processes while consumer are confronted with three distinct differentiation aspects: packaging design, brand, and price. Empirical evidence suggests that differentiation via packaging design has a significantly larger impact on areas of the brain related to value anticipation and actual choice than brand differentiation. Important implications for research and marketing management are discussed.

This article demonstrates the application of the Zaltman metaphor-elicitation technique (ZMET) to help adolescent consumers delve into their unconscious thoughts and emotions and provide them with insights into the use of mp3. An analysis of interview transcripts and images revealed that the ZMET process provides a description of how the knowledge structures of adolescent consumers are subdivided and grouped around important themes that frame and motivate their involvement with a product. The findings reveal that there are 33 themes of consumer knowledge structure toward mp3. Furthermore, among these themes, there are four major cconcepts: size/form, convenience, appearance and comfort. The respondents’ minds include not only rational components but also emotional ingredients. Notably, the results also show that music can be an effective metaphor in the application of the ZMET method. The article conducts a series of implications.

As the use of eyetracker analysis in marketing extends from static print advertisements and webpages into dynamic media such as television and interactive gaming, the amount of data collected can quickly grow overwhelming. As the media under study is changing frame-by-frame, static methods of analysis no longer apply. This presentation looks at various methods of content-coding dynamic media for eyetracker analysis, and offers insight into how variables obscured in static media, such as dynamic goal-relevance, can create persistent biases in longitudinal eyetracker data.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether there is a role for brands in helping wholesalers to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. Through a review of the literature it explores the changing nature of the wholesale sector and the undisputed role of brands in creating value in other service industries. It reviews the increasing resonance of brand within business—to—business marketing and the changing understanding of the role of emotion in organizational purchasing decisions.

Much of scientific works have been written about power and trust as constructs of business-to-business relationships separately. However, most of the existing literature studies power and trust in relation to conflict or satisfaction, and the links between power and trust and their role in supply chain networks appear to be largely ignored as a research topic. Thus, the aim of our paper is twofold. Firstly, we would like to conduct a comprehensive literature review on power and trust in supply chain networks. Secondly, we intend to use our findings in order to develop a conceptual framework of how power and trust can possibly be used as mechanisms for achieving successful coordination and cooperation within supply chain networks.

For online marketers, the gap between pro-online shopping attitudes and online purchase behavior is an important challenge: Even if consumers have a positive attitude towards online shopping related to different products or shops, these attitudes are not automatically translated into regular online purchase behavior. Hence, a theoretically and empirically founded understanding of the existing gap between pro-online shopping attitudes and online shopping behavior of different consumer seg-ments is of particular importance for both marketing researcher and marketers. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the ‘@ttitude-behavior-gap’ with reference to the perceived risk and value dimensions as key drivers of a customer’s online shopping attitude, the resulting intentional behavior, and the regular online shopping activities.

The purpose for the study is to explore relationship marketing in the health and fitness sector with a special focus on trust. A qualitative study involving 15 health and fitness companies has been carried out. Important aspects of trust have been defined and a framework depicting the role of trust has been developed.

An understanding of consumer behaviour has been vital for any context in the marketing discipline. Particularly, in the case of health care marketing, the exploration of consumers’ risk-taking behaviour and decision making under uncertainty contributes to successful marketing efforts towards desirable health behaviours, such as smoking cessation. This paper examines the simultaneous, dual effect of perceived risk on smoking cessation intention by introducing a new framework of consumer behavioural intentions including two dimensions of perceived risk, the “risk not to quit” and the “risk to quit” smoking. The model is tested by means of a survey among adult smokers in Greece, using SEM. According to the research findings, the two dimensions of perceived risk have a direct, but contradicting to each other, effect on smoking cessation intention. This effect should be taken into account by practitioners, both health care organizations and companies that market substitutes for smoking.

Shelf space is considered to be valuable in retailing since allocation of brands is believed to have an effect upon sales. Instore buying behaviour involves unplanned purchases which brands should be able to capitalize on with the right placement strategy. The purpose of this study was to asses how, and to what extent, it is possible to use behavioural experimentation and relative sales analysis to study the effects of product shelf placements on consumers’ brand choices in the retail environment. An in-store experiment was performed in two supermarkets to investigate the effects of different product shelf placements on consumers’ relative buying behaviour using an alternating treatment design with a baseline. The intervention consisted of periodically placing a particular target brand on the lowest, middle and highest shelf in its product category. The results showed that the target brands’ relative sales against its product category were similar across the different placements. The in-store experiment also revealed that it is possible and efficient to perform in-store experiments, e.g., with alternating treatment design, to identify important behaviour-environment relationships in a retail setting or to test consumer behaviour theories. The results reveal steadiness of consumers’ choices in this setting and resistance to change regardless of different shelf placement of the target brand. The product category was crisps and is considered to be an “instant” unplanned buying product category. Sales are therefore generally considered to be sensitive to their placement in store shelves. As this intervention changed behavioural effort it should alter the substitutability of brands. The results, however, showed in contradiction to the literature that the different vertical placing of the brand on different shelves in the two supermarkets had no significant effects. The results of the in-store experiment go against the notion that eye level placement has dominating influence on point of purchase buying behaviour as theories of visual perception and peripheral eye imply. Although the experimental condition did control for most elements of the marketing mix, unknown external factors are still having an impact on relative sales.

There is evidence that significant number of prepaid gift cards remain unredeemed for considerable periods. This study identifies that store promotions can facilitate quicker redemption of gift vouchers. The results of this study suggest that store promotions facilitate moving gift card recipients from a state of volition control to elaborating on the potential of adding value to the gift vouchers, thereby bringing forward the hierarchy of effects that expedite consumers becoming regular store patrons and gifting the store’s vouchers to others. Consequent increase of the churn rate of gift cards will result in higher return on stock investment than revenue, from sale of gift cards, used as “floats”.

With the deregulation of the financial services sector in many countries and the proliferation of different channels of distribution for financial services products, non-traditional providers have sought to enter what they perceive as this lucrative market. Retailers are amongst those non-traditional providers who have sought to enter the market for financial services, using their brand strength and ever widening consumer proposition, to enable them to so do. This article discusses why and how leading European retailers and in particular, those based in the United Kingdom, have diversified into retailing financial services to their customers. It questions whether financial services really are a good fit with mass-market retailing and considers the case both for and against retailers diversifying into financial services. The article concludes by arguing that such diversification may leave retailers in a strategically ambiguous position, both co-operating with, whilst at the same time competing with the traditional banks and that this new source of competition is only likely to be successful for a limited range of financial services.

The world is fraught with conflicts between countries, regions, religions, ethnic groups, political beliefs, social convictions, groups with different sexual orientations, to name but a few. The animosity that can results from such conflicts affects consumers’ purchase decisions. While the international marketing literature is awash with studies that look at the impact of different country images on the purchase of products originating from different countries (cf. the entire country-of-origin literature), there are comparably few contributions that looked at the impact of conflict and animosity on purchase intent

within

a given country.

As immigration has become a growing worldwide phenomenon, the notion of migrant ethnicity is attracting growing interest in social sciences research. In marketing, scholars have studied if and how ethnicity influences consumer behavior. Ogdan’s (2004) comprehensive review supported the influence of culture and acculturation on consumers’ purchase decisions through

ethnic identity, acculturation

into the host culture,

culture conflict, marginalization, ethnocentrism

, and

consumer ethnocentrism

(CE). While studies have examined ethnocentrism and CE and their antecedents and consequences, immigrants’ CE has been under-researched. We focus on ethnocentrism and CE of Russian immigrants to Israel.

Historically, teaching in universities in Croatia has been heavily based on lectures and students have been taught to memorize the material with less emphasis on encouraging student creativity and independent thinking. Most recently however, new student-centered approaches have begun to be implemented in the country. In this study we evaluate how students in Croatia react to one of these approaches to see if their reactions vary from the reactions of students in the United States where student-centered approaches are more common.

The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) has called for the integration of ethics into business school curricula. In addition, there has been a general increase in interest in this issue, which many have accredited to corporate scandals and their media coverage. Evidence also suggests that integrating ethics into the classroom brings about positive and socially desirable outcomes. To help instructors better understand the ethics education debate, we list various teaching methods currently used to teach ethics. One method, in particular, appears to have increased merit -- simulations. Specifically, we discuss the simulation “Business Reality” in greater detail. Results from the analysis of data obtained from the simulation suggest various areas for improvement in methodology as well as in evaluation criteria for business ethics instruction.

In this study we explore how does the entrance of new international brands affect market dynamics where national, international and private brands are present. In such a situation, it is very important for managers to understand consumers’ preferences and perceptions of these brands as it allows them to better understand how to address consumers’ needs in the setting of differences in product quality, price, prestige, etc. It also allows marketers to better position these brands as well as to explore opportunities for introducing new products. This whole issue becomes even more important when the market is exposed to a reduction in international trade barriers and an increase in consumers’ spending power at the same time. It is not clear how the imported international brands should position themselves in such a complex situation. We relate consumer perceptions to choice, in the context of these different categories of brands using a choice model. The estimated model provides us with several diagnostic findings of managerial interest.

Understanding the determinants of brand value is a key theoretical and empirical issue in the fields of international marketing and international business. Researchers investigating the sources of brand value have most often focused on three primary levels of analysis: (1) brand image; (2) product category; and (3) country image. Despite an extensive literature on brand image, product category and country image effects, an examination based on a theoretical variance decomposition framework for investigating the relative influences of each effect on brand value is lacking. Therefore, acknowledging the increasing important role of brands, this study applies the variance components approach on the BusinessWeek/ Interbrand Best Global Brands database to explore the question of what matters most to superior brand value. In addition, this study also extends recent variance decomposition research by investigating three levels of effects using both the multilevel approach of hierarchical linear modeling and the conventional variance components approach. A variance components model is fitted to a new data set, and findings indicate that brand image effects dominate brand value while product category and country image effects have smaller but important impact on brand value. These findings support the suggestions of resource-based view of the firm.

Recent research suggests that most consumers are not very concerned about the national origin of products (Arndt 2004; Liefeld 2004). Arndt (2004) reports that in a study by TeleNation, 70% of respondents do not care to find out where a product was made and 57% reported that it had no influence on their purchase decision. Liefeld (2004) found that only 1.4% of consumers explicitly acquired a product’s country of origin prior to purchase, and only about 6% knew prior to the purchase. In contrast, 88.8% reported that they did not know a product’s origin and suggested that they had no interest in finding out. Similarly, two recent studies examining consumers’ brand origin recognition accuracy showed that consumers’ knowledge of brands’ origin is rather limited. Samiee, Shimp, and Sharma (2005) found that US respondents were only able to identity the correct country origin for 35% of examined brands. In a similar examination albeit of UK consumers and focusing exclusively on microwave oven brands, Balabanis and Diamantopoulos (2008) found that their respondents were only able to correctly identify 27% of the brands’ origin in their study. These studies suggest that consumers have very little knowledge of where brands are from, and more importantly they really do not seem to care.

Internet penetration is growing dramatically in the emerging economy of India. Between 2000 and 2007, India’s Internet penetration grew by 700%. Still, it remains at an estimated 3% (Sinha, 2007). Although the overall penetration rate in the country remains small, Indian e-commerce, which reached $130 million USD in 2004–2005 was predicted to quadruple in the following three years (Internet & Online Association of India, 2005). With the overall Indian retail market expected to increase by almost 90% by 2012 (Krishnamurthy, 2008) it follows that the potential and ultimate growth of e-commerce in the sub-continent should be significant. Reflecting on a 27% increase in Indian users on the Internet between May 2007 and May 2008, Jack Flanagan, Executive Vice President of comScore, a global Internet information provider, commented, “India truly represents one of the most promising emerging Internet markets, given both the size and technological sophistication of the population” (comScore, 2008).

The purpose of this paper is to develop a research agenda that will assist in deepening our understanding of the social dynamics of virtual worlds. Virtual worlds are computer-based simulated worlds that are populated by human-controlled avatars, or graphical representations of individuals. These worlds are real-time, interactive societies based on three-dimensional Internet technology. Interaction in virtual worlds has developed a set of behaviors, which are unique to each world.

The conceptualization and measurement of service quality delivery through electronic channels has attracted significant research attention in recent years. Electronic commerce in general and online retailing in particular continue to expand at a staggering rate. The enormous growth in the number of companies that engage in online activities has resulted in an extremely competitive electronic marketplace. Whereas low price and Web presence were initially considered as the key drivers of success, firms soon realize that the provision of high quality services is the primary source of competitive advantage in online channels. By providing a high level of electronic service quality (e-SQ), companies can strengthen customers’ satisfaction and loyalty, and encourage repeat visits and purchases. Naturally, the definition and measurement of e-SQ became a primary issue of concern among academic researchers and business practitioners. In light of these developments, the main objective of this study is to develop and empirically test a measurement model of e-SQ.

This paper focuses on “Born Globals” (BGs) - small and entrepreneurial firms that become international soon after inception (Aspelund, Madsen, and Moen 2007; Kuivanlainen, Sundquist, and Servais 2007). Knight and Cavusgil (1996:11) defined BGs as “small, technology-oriented companies that operate in international markets from the earliest days of their establishment”. The closeness between inception and first foreign market entry is the unique trait of BGs and defines the constrains they face. Although differences between BGs and Gradually Globalizing firms (GGs) have been researched, most studies have concentrated on the internationalization process and the factors contributing to it. Less is known about the factors influencing BGs internationalization, and market selection, as well as their post-inception international operations, two aspects which are the focus of this conceptual paper. Previous research provided a model identifying tree factor groups influencing firms’ international strategy and performance (Aaby and Slater 1989). Based on this model we outline several propositions regarding the impact of three environmental factors, namely psychic distance, competition, and country risk, on BGs choice of entry mode, and on their performance as their outcome.

This exploratory study builds upon individual values research from the marketing area and entrepreneurship theory. It represents an initial effort at developing an Individual Entrepreneurial Orientation (IEO) scale and comparing values of people who had started a business to those who had not. The results support high reliability, and face, construct, and criterion validity of the scale. They show different values between entrepreneurs and non entrepreneurs. At the theoretical level, this study extends existing knowledge by examining entrepreneurial orientation and values at the individual level. At the applied level, the scale can serve as a diagnostic to measure an individual’s natural orientation to be an entrepreneur.

While issues of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and practices of large corporations have been widely addressed, the CSR practices of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in an Australian context have remained largely unexplored in the literature. Australian SMEs are making significant financial contributions to community welfare which is reflected in their annual contribution of A$251 million to the Australian community (ABS: Generosity of Australian Businesses, 2002). This paper applies a modified version of an empirically tested CSR framework (Quazi and O’Brien, 2000) and uses a case study methodology to map the state of CSR practices of SMEs in Australia. The findings indicate that SMEs demonstrate their social obligations in terms of two contrasting orientations; profit versus non-profit and marketing versus altruism. These findings highlight important implications for marketing theory and practice.

Integrating environmental concerns into marketing practice poses many challenges for different enterprises regardless of their size. Even though studies on sustainable development have primarily focused on large organizations, there is also a growing body of research in Micro, Small and Medium sized enterprise (SME) context. For example, environmental issues (referring to natural environment) have been addressed in SMEs by Clemens (2006) and Hussey and Eaghan (2007). In spite of these contributions the topic has received less research interest in the field of marketing. The overall approach has been to encourage SMEs to become more or less ‘green’, and thus more responsible (Jenkins 2006). What are less understood therefore are the positive changes SMEs are already making as well as the impact these changes are having on the network level. This paper contributes to this by reporting on an empirical study of two Finnish enterprises that are making ecologically sound business practices part of their core marketing strategy. Moreover, these enterprises are explicitly taking a network approach. Of central importance to the study therefore is a development of our understanding of how the sustainability of the SMEs influences and is influenced by the network in which they are embedded.

Many online service transactions, such as purchasing airline or concert tickets, are multi-stage experiences involving a series of webpages. This serial service presentation suggests that post-hoc survey measures of service experience and quality will obscure transitory thoughts and affect that are centered around individual segments of the service transaction. By using realtime data collection methods such as eyetrackers, mouseloggers, and digital voice recorders, affective and cognitive responses to individual segments of the service process can be captured, and the effects of manipulations more directly measured. In one example, real-time data in an online study showed strong differences between web novices and experts in their affective and cognitive reactions to varying marketing efforts within a service transaction; these differences were obfuscated in post-stimulus survey measures. Real-time measures were especially well-suited to exploring reactions to changes in segment order and questions of segment bundling versus contiguity.

On the database marketing literature, it is common practice to summarize customers’ past behavior in terms of their Recency, Frequency and Monetary Value (RFM) characteristics. Recency is the time of most recent purchase, Frequency is the number of past purchases and Monetary Value is the average purchased amount per transaction. RFM variables constitute basic ingredients for the estimation of customer lifetime value. The traditional approach to the analysis of RFM variables considers a descriptive statistical analysis while, in scoring models, these variables enter as fixed regressors.

This paper builds on the internal brand management literature and, in particular the concept of employee brand equity to commence preliminary investigation into the conceptualisation and operationalisation of this construct. The development and validation of the Employee Brand Equity (EBE) scale followed a 3 stage process, including 4 data collections using a total of 755 respondents. The exploratory data analysis indicates that the resulting 11-item (3-factor) EBE scale has face, content, convergent, discriminant validity and the EBE scale is reliable across the samples. The EBE scale is a multidimensional, yet parsimonious scale that has the potential for significant use in the development and testing of internal brand management theory, as well as a key performance measure for practitioners seeking greater accountability.

Hospital quality may be measured using structural, process, and outcome variables. The objective of this research is to determine the relationship between certain quality measures and hospital profitability.

The interest among both academics and practitioners in the mission statement has given rise to a large body of research that has attempted to determine the core elements that a successful mission statement need to incorporate in order to produce sounding outcomes. Such efforts have however, resulted in contradictory evidence regarding the link between mission statement and organisational performance. Against this backdrop, the present study examines the role of organisational commitment in explaining and clarifying the mission-performance link. The study provides evidence that the relationship between mission statement and organisational performance is better understood if taken into account the influence of organisational commitment which proved to act as a mediator variable in the aforementioned relationship. The article concludes by suggesting several avenues to further research.

Consumers have moved beyond choosing foods simply to maintain everyday health. Food is now used to optimize performance and reduce risk of diseases. Functional foods are a new innovative product category aiming at fulfilling this consumer need. Functional foods are foods which claim to, in addition to their nutritional value, have specific health effects.

Although the meta-construct relationship quality attracts a growing number of empirical researches, there is no consensus on the conceptualization and measurement of the construct. This study addresses this gap in literature by investigating how various relational norms, structural and contextual factors affect relationship satisfaction. The objective is to contribute to the development of a RELQUAL-construct. This study is based upon a survey and random sample of small and medium sized companies in Norway. It was performed in the late 2007 and early 2008. Initially, respondents were contacted by phone and a total of 581 surveys were mailed. Two hundred and twelve surveys were returned, a response rate of 36.5%.

In export businesses where overseas agents enjoy much better knowledge of customers, competitors and institutional environments, a major challenge facing export channel management is encouraging extra-role behavior in forms of agents’ spontaneous, cooperative, and innovative actions when formulating and executing strategic decisions for export markets. This study addressed this major challenge by developing an integrated model of agents’ extra-role behavior which proposed that the exercise of economic, social, and justice related sharedness mechanisms when making and executing strategic decisions of channel partnerships can be expected to have a positive effect on channel relationship performance. The model was tested by a sample of 353 exporting manufacturers. The empirical evidence showed that channel relationship performance was strongly and positively affected by agents’ extra-role behavior over strategy formulation and implementation. Exporting firms are advised to enhance likelihood of agents’ extra-role behavior over strategy formulation and implementation by expanding inter-organizational sharedness mechanisms in the forms of agency contracts’ inclusiveness, agency relationships’ trust, and agency decision-making procedures’ justice.

With the paradigm shift from transactional to relational purchasing, suppliers are confronted with considerable restraints on the customers’ side. The relational paradigm in industrial markets assumes that most industrial sales are repurchases of products or services from a focal supplier. In consequence, it is critical for suppliers to understand switching behaviour in business-to-business (B2B) markets in order to enter long term relationships with new customers in all branches of industries. Therefore, it is elementary to analyze the determinants which are relevant for repurchasing products or services from the focal supplier. The importance of branding is still neglected in a B2B setting. As a matter of fact, branding has rather been ignored in the context of B2B switching behaviour, although previous research shows that branding gets increasingly important in B2B markets as a differential factor. While organizational buying behaviour research offers rich empirical evidence, concepts and methodology, little conceptual and empirical effort has been aimed at research on a framework considering how brand retention is affected in B2B markets.

Customers are believed to be key to company success and therefore, the question of how to manage these assets becomes ever more important. There is a strongly held belief that if companies can direct their marketing activities to increase customer attitudes, the result will be an increase in sales. Based on this assumption, we develop three interrelated models to investigate drivers of loyalty intentions as well as drivers of actual purchase behavior. The basic conceptual model of this research is inspired mainly by Rust, Zeithaml, and Lemon (2000) and Vogel, Evanschitzky, and Ramaseshan (2008). Their approaches consider three primary elements: customer perceptions of a company’s marketing activities (equity drivers), loyalty intention, and future behavior. We try to expand the original model in three ways to predict future sales.

Marketing theory suggests market orientation to be one of the most effective strategy of achieving and maintaining competitive advantage (Jaworski, Kohli, and Sahay 2000). Current understanding of market orientation relates to the organization-wide generation and dissemination of customer and competitor information and is associated with a firm’s ability to learn and respond to the market (Kohli and Jaworski 1990). Reviewing prior research on market orientation, Jaworski et al. (2000) criticize most conceptualizations of the construct to be too narrow. They extend understanding of market orientation through distinguishing between two complementary approaches: The first approach which is characterized as ‘market driven’, describes market orientation as a reactive concept, where companies intend to keep the status quo by focusing mainly on existing customers and their current needs. The second ‘market driving’-approach is a more proactive understanding of the concept, where companies shape not only customers’ but also other market participants’ behaviors and/or market structure in a direction that enhances the competitive position of a firm (Jaworski et al. 2000). In our research, we focus on the latter market driving-approach, as so far the relevance of this approach has not been investigated empirically. Therefore, our study develops a measurement instrument of the market driving construct based on the recent conceptualization developed by Jaworski et al. (2000), discusses and empirically tests antecedents and performance outcomes of the market driving construct, and finally, examines the moderating effects of market turbulence and technological change on the market driving-performance linkage, using a sample of 181 managers from electronics industry.

This paper examines the effects which organizational capabilities exert on firm’s marketing strategy and performance, and classifies organizational capability concepts “activity-based capability” for each marketing activity to be defined, and “market orientation”, in which firm activity is fitted to the turbulent market environment. The hypothesis about organizational capability and firm performance is developed, and empirical analysis is conducted using the questionnaire data of Japanese firms. Results of analysis shows that activity-based capability and market sensing capability give a positive effect to firm performance, and that market orientation effects change with the degree of competitiveness of the industry.

This paper uses case study research to identify key success factors in the development of ecolabels. It is divided into three sections – first, background is provided on ecolabels and green marketing. The second section provides cases on labels for various products, with success defined as ecolabel longevity and consumer uptake. The third section, based on patterns of development from these case studies, presents a framework outlining key success factors in all stages of ecolabel development.

Corporate social responsibility has been increasingly an important aspect of business management, and as such, firms are engaged in the communication with customers, through advertising, projecting socially-responsible corporate images. This paper reports a content analysis of print magazine advertising in 1987, 1997, and 2007, which reveals that there has been a dramatic increase of advertising projecting socially responsible corporate imagine.

The transformation towards more sustainable marketing forms necessitates large scale systemic change in market and marketing systems. In this paper we present an interactions and networks approach to sustainable marketing which incorporates interorganisational dyad, network and systems level of analysis. The proposed framework invites us to situate, and theorize marketing in a more holistic context where the establishment and development of learning relationships, built on the premise of dialogue, becomes a central mechanism for network level change, and overall system health. By adopting an interactions and networks approach we are able to discuss 1) the nature and role of the network in enabling systems level change, 2) the role of dyadic relations as a central mechanism for change, and (3) the nature of firm level capabilities necessary for achieving system, network and individual actor level change. Throughout this paper we build on lessons learned from the relational theories in marketing, and the work of the IMP (Industrial Marketing and Purchasing Group) in particular, as well as perspectives on networks and living systems theory. We suggest that the proposed alternative approach, inspired by powerful learning processes, can help bring us out of the extant firm-centric impasse and lead to collaborative action and transformation.

The research topic of asymmetrical power relationships has been receiving increasingly more attention lately. However, only a few scientific works have studied the questions of asymmetrical power distribution in the context of supply chain networks. The aim of our work is to identify how capable the existing power measurement efforts are of producing complete and objective measures. Considering the fact that power is a complex construct, fulfillment of our aim should provide an understanding of how strongly it is conceptualized and empirically tested. Thus, we conduct a literature overview on power measurement efforts undertaken in political, sociological, management and marketing studies.

As supply chain management has grown as a discipline, research and practitioner emphasis has increasingly focused on managing business processes across extended —global— supply chains with the objective of providing value for the entire supply chain (Lambert et al. 1998). One of these processes—returns management—focuses on the reverse supply chain, and effective management can be complicated by the boundary spanning nature of this process within a firm and across the entire supply chain (Rogers et al. 2002). Successful boundary spanning requires cross-functional integration, within and across firms. Effective functional integration is important because poorly managed returns can erode profitability for a firm. It can also negatively impact relationships with customers and end-users, as well as a firm’s reputation with its stakeholders (Linton et al. 2005; Rogers et al. 2002).

Franchising is the fastest growing form of retailing and almost half of the good in USA are distributed through franchise systems. A multi-unit franchisee can be defined as a person or a firm that owns two or more franchised outlets in the same franchise system. The prominent researchers in franchising argue that the recent growth in franchising business can be attributed to the emergence of multi-unit franchising. Existing empirical research shows that more than a half of the total franchised outlets in USA are being operated by multi-unit franchisees. It is argued that the major focus of franchising research has been the single-unit franchising and that the single franchising is the exception, not the rule. Therefore, the research gap requires the investigations that distinguish between the multi-unit franchising and single-unit franchising.

As past research in spatial modeling relies on aggregate-level data and ad hoc forms of analysis, this study presents a new approach to analyzing micro spatial behaviors in the retailing context. Incorporating a survey and a simple GIS (Geographic Information System) application, this study calibrates detailed individual-level data through Heckman’s two-stage selection model. From the spatial perspective, the results provide rich insights into the attractiveness of a place (among various alternative places). The analytical framework introduced here can help retailers in location/marketing decision making.

The study focuses on modeling the attitude-behavior model of gendered consumption. We find that age is a strong moderator of female lingerie purchases. Although hedonic consumption predicts total purchases among segments, its effects and mean value are significantly lower among older females. For younger females, brand involvement, shopping satisfaction, propensity to shop at expensive stores, product attributes, and the fitting process positively predict hedonic consumption, whereas importance of store advice decreases this enjoyment. For older females, only product attributes and brand involvement positively impact hedonic consumption. Although the fitting process increases satisfaction among older females, this satisfaction does not lead to higher levels of enjoyment. Product managers and retailers should be cognizant of such age differences in gendered consumption and consider them in tailoring their atmospherics and marketing campaigns.

A norm in the retailing industry is to select locations and design physical structures that minimize the time and effort associated with patronage. However, Arnold and Reynolds (2003) note that an engaging environment might nullify shoppers’ awareness of the passage of time. Thus, positive consumer experiences triggered primarily by a hedonic retail environment can, in some instances, compensate for other shopping shortcomings, such as the issue of accessibility. This paper explores this phenomenon with an empirical investigation of the relationship between store accessibility and store commitment. Based on commodity theory, we predict and test whether the hedonic level of a store interacts with store accessibility to change the relationship between store accessibility and store commitment.

The retail shopping environment is highly complex, providing numerous visual and aural cues to aid shoppers in making purchase decisions. Attempting to understand the individual stimulae that drive the purchase decisions is a frustrating task for researchers. The use of choice modeling has helped separate out some of the choice elements and determine their relative importance. However, this approach has some inherent flaws, in that the many cues found in the shopping experience is not reflected in the choice modeling task presented to respondents.

The study aims to uncover the relationships between price setting and reputation building processes through an application of hedonic price function. In coherence with a sustainable approach, the model proposed also includes variables related to land use policies and tourism development strategies. A simultaneous equations model is adopted where both price and quality signals are endogenously determined. This innovative method is appropriate in an emerging urban destination, characterized by an enhancement of the existing hotel industry. The findings reveal that, in accordance with a customer based perspective, a high star category and place uniqueness help explain consumers’ willingness to pay. A premium price is recognized for quality signals directed at balancing intangible aspects related to service provision with hoteliers’ environmental concerns. The results have important marketing implications for the competitiveness of the hospitality industry.

This paper investigates what image travellers in Iceland during the summer months have of the country as a tourist destination, and whether positioning of Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and Greenland together in tourist markets as one area is possible or feasible. The article reports results of two surveys. The first survey (unstructured) measures the holistic image of Iceland. The results from this survey were coded with a qualitative methodology. The second survey (structured) measures the attribute image of Iceland in comparison with five other countries, Norway, Scotland, Greenland, Finland and the Faroe Islands.

One tourism segment consists of those whose family history leads them to travel to visit the sites of their ancestors’ origin. Of specific interest in this study are people who have an interest in Norwegian ancestry. Coincidently, Norway also wants its sons and daughters to come home, targeting those with “with Viking ancestry.” Primary research objectives were to determine the motives for and importance of travel to ancestral homes, differences in this motivation for varied subsamples, and develop insights into legacy tourism that will serve tourism managers. Survey respondents of Norse ancestry in the United States and the Shetland and Orkney Islands of Scotland were recruited from meetings and activities of cultural and historical societies. Norse Scottish Islanders indicate “quest” as more important than U.S. Norse groups since Scottish islands are more proximate to the Norwegian homelands. Top motives for all groups (both Norse and those not of Viking descent) are “personal connection”, “connection with place”, “intellectual challenge”, “obligation to ancestors”, “discovering continuities”, and “completing the circle”. Overall, Norse descendant motives resemble descendants of other populations.

Stages of growth models have been used widely in both organizational research and management research. This research presents a stage model for integrated market communication. The four stages are labeled integrated media approach, integrated attraction approach, integrated industry approach, and integrated region approach, respectively. Both academics and practitioners can apply this model to determine both current state as well as direction for future integrated market communication. To support and enable an integrated approach for marketing and marketing communication, appropriate applications of ICT are critically important.

Faced with an ever growing number of ethical marketing issues and a wide range of journals in which these issues are debated, researchers struggle to keep abreast of the developments in the field. To address this problem, we examine the development of the marketing ethics literature between 1960 and 2008. Specifically, over 500 publications in 58 pertinent academic journals were taken into considerations. Our research provides a comprehensive review of the development of the marketing ethics field over almost 50 years, offers a citation analysis, and develops a unique

marketing ethics

impact factor.

The current generation seeks more from the job than just compensation. This is particularly true for high performers in sales organizations. Effective and successful salespeople are attracted to organizations that provide them with opportunities to make full use of their capacity and grow professionally. Sales managers and researchers are interested in identifying conditions that make the sales job challenging and attractive. This study used responses from 1450 sales directors from a leading direct selling organization to examine salesperson’s experienced meaningfulness. Results showed that the firm’s ethical climate and demanding customers positively impact salesperson’s perceptions of experienced meaningfulness of the job. Results also indicate that experienced meaningfulness had a positive impact on job performance and a negative impact on turnover intentions and felt stress. Managerial implications and directions for future research are provided.

This study presents a model of antecedents of online shopping among college students in the United States. Though the privacy debate will likely continue, our findings do not indicate that online privacy concerns currently have a negative impact on online shopping among college students and suggest that e-retailers will likely continue to enjoy increased revenues as online shopping experience increases among consumers.

Shoppers exiting malls were questioned about what they would consider as appropriate disposal methods of four categories of products that are returned most often. Consumers who are inclined to repurchase the brands of food items and toiletries that they return expect the complete destruction of the faulty items. Consumers are not prepared to continue patronising brands of appliances and apparel known to be reconstituted and available in alternative stores or charity shops. Notwithstanding manufacturers’ attempts to rebuild brand equity, it may be prudent for them not to publicize the availability of reconstituted brands in alternative/charity stores, because prime consumers might be inhibited to patronise these brands.

Internet surveys are widely used in marketing research, and their use continues to grow, partly because they provide a number of technological features that are designed to reduce common sources of respondent error that can impact data quality. This session deals with selected methodological issues concerning Internet surveys.

The advantages of marketing capabilities to organizations have been largely documented in Western economies. However, there has been little research into these practices and their impact on business performance in transitional economies, and never before in Cuba. Additionally, although it has been argued that the firm’s ownership structure should impact on marketing capabilities, it has been poorly investigated. This exploratory study, utilizing data from a sample of 296 Cuban organizations, found that joint ventures with foreign partners display higher levels of marketing capabilities and better business performance than state own enterprises. However, state own enterprises with higher levels of marketing competitiveness also achieve higher levels of business performance.

International business academicians and practitioners have long acknowledged that when investing abroad, multinational enterprises (MNEs) are bound to face location-specific disadvantages relative to indigenous incumbents due to unfamiliarity with the host country’s environments, specifically market and institutional forces. For these MNEs, how to successfully combat such inherent external difficulties and outperform local counterparts is one of the foremost priorities on their agenda. Towards this end, theorists have resorted to different theoretical approaches and suggested opposing foreign ownership choices, for instance, wholly-owned subsidiary (full ownership) versus joint venture (partial ownership), in order to assist MNEs in reducing uncertainty and hazards in their foreign operations.

This study examines the empirical link between market orientation and export marketing management competency in Indonesian export market ventures. The sample consisted of 109 firms that were engaged in a wide cross-section of industries. The findings indicate that the three dimensions of market orientation (customer orientation, competitor orientation and inter-functional coordination) significantly positively influence three dimensions of export marketing management competency (export product management, export pricing management, and export distribution management competency).

Companies planning an internationalization venture face a great variety of options regarding the entry mode, namely export (direct and indirect), cooperative arrangements (licensing, franchising, minority holding, contract manufacturing and management contracting) and direct investments (joint ventures and subsidiaries) (Root 1994). These alternatives come along with different resource commitments, modes of control and risks. Therefore, the decision for an appropriate entry mode calls for consideration of numerous influencing factors posing a big challenge for internationalizing companies. Because of the importance for the success of internationalization venture (Hill et al. 1990) the choice of foreign market entry mode is well discussed in the marketing literature (e. g. Bradley and Gannon 2000; Ekeledo and Sivakumar 2004; Erramilli 1992; Erramilli 1990; Hill et al. 1990; Mayrhofer 2004; Rasheed 2005). Despite the abundance of studies however, there are several research gaps.

As many as 90% of Fortune 500 companies have integrated explicit corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives into their marketing actions, taking visible steps to communicate their socially responsible actions to consumers (Lichtenstein, Drumwright, and Braig 2004*). One of the most dominant recent CSR platforms is adopting environmentally friendly practices. This increasingly popular CSR initiative of “going green” has been adopted as a marketing platform by major companies such as Honda, Toyota, GE, Bank of America, Starbucks, REI, Whole Foods, and Home Depot (Frazier 2007; Makower 2008), with the obvious hope of increased patronage of consumer segments in appreciation of such behaviors.

The green concept is quite pervasive in society today. There is a growing quantity of research concerning all things green, and there is an established measure of research concerning consumers’ values. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence of what consumers value in the green concept. Using one-on-one in-depth interviews and the grounded theory methodology in qualitative research, the author seeks to interview and report what consumers’ value in green in relation to their consumption experiences. The end result is the emergence of a substantive, mid-level theoretical framework.

This research investigates consumers’ perceptions of counterfeit branded products (CBP) vs. their counterparts the original branded products (BP), and whether or not there is a relationship between consumers’ perceptions of CBP and behavioural intention. A quantitative survey of over 300 adults in Glasgow, UK was conducted measuring consumers’ perceptions of CBP and BP, CBP non-deceptive ownership, and purchase intention of CBP. Consumers were found to have more favourable perceptions of BP than CBP, with exceptions of financial risk and security concern. There were no significant perception differences of BP between CBP owners and non-owners. In contrast, significant perception differences concerning CBP were identified between these two groups of respondents. Several dimensions of perceptions of CBP (competence brand personality, satisfaction benefit, functional attribute, and psychological risk) appeared to be significantly influential on behavioural intention. Finally, evidence of interactions between perceptions and ownership of CBP did not exist.

This paper systematically explores the connections of marketing and new product development. The empirical results based on comprehensive analysis of the data collected from Japanese companies suggest that the interactions between marketing and new product development are practically important. In particular, marketing experience and market attractiveness have significant effect on research and development. At the same time, marketing experience, market attractiveness, and research and development consistently influence new product development. The present findings have theoretical and practical implications for future research in relation to marketing and new production development in different contexts.

Signaling theory is a unique communication model engaged by market participants, who stand to benefit from its use, when information in the market is asymmetric. The theory has been extensively used in information economics and finance and is currently receiving attention in marketing. However, signaling studies in marketing focused primarily on use of the 4 Ps at the exclusion of other viable signaling variables such as craftsmanship. This paper examines craftsmanship as a possible signaling variable in marketing and develops a number of propositions on its use.

In many situations in B2C as well as B2B environments customers are confronted with products or services they do not have any prior experience with. For some of these products many unbiased sources of information are available. This is not the case, however, for so-called Really New Products (RNP), which defy straightforward classification in terms of existing product categories and create a new category rather than reallocate shares within existing categories. For RNP no source of reference yet exists. One factor which is crucial for RNP success is the stability of customer preferences. Preference stability describes a situation where there is low variance around the range of subjectively acceptable alternatives. As customers possess only limited knowledge about these products, they face substantial uncertainty when trying to predict the future utility of RNP. When market research is used to evaluate RNP, this uncertainty leads to instability in customers’ revealed priorities among design features. Customers have not yet developed stable preferences. Hence, their frame of reference is still highly volatile. This lack of preference stability poses a major threat for companies. If configured or altered based on instable preferences, RNP might not meet true customer needs, which seriously threatens companies’ interest of establishing long-term customer relations by maximizing the long-term satisfaction of their customers. Against this background it is crucial to identify forms of knowledge transfer, which enable respondents to learn about RNP and help them to stabilize their preferences.

Brand and product placements have increasingly become popular as an alternative marketing communication tool for many companies. Although limited in numbers, previous studies have investigated the communication effects of brands placed in television programs, movies and computer games. However, to our knowledge, no empirical studies have looked at the effects of brands placed in narrative texts. The purpose of this exploratory paper is to investigate the effects of brand placements in text on consumers’ attitudes toward the placed brand. We suggest that plot integration (high plot vs. low plot) will be positively related to favorable attitudes toward the brand. Additionally, we suggest that plot integration interacts with consumer involvement, and increases the importance of visible and dominant brands placed in the text for high involvement consumers. An experiment manipulating plot integration and involvement supports our hypothesized main and interaction effects.

This research examines the changes in cognition, attitudes, and purchase intentions of respondents as a result of the intensity of personal nostalgia experienced (high, medium and low levels). Although personal nostalgia has been found to be distinctly different from historical or ‘unified’ nostalgia, there has been a lack of empirical research conducted. The explored responses are generally shown to be significantly positively effected by increasing the level of personal nostalgia. Significant changes in such responses have clear implications to markets and brand managers alike and indicate a need for further future research.

As the pressure on the supply chain to increase cost effectiveness and provide more value to consumers intensified over the past ten years, the role of wholesaling changed. No longer are warehouses expected to be “holders” of merchandise for long periods of time; no longer is bulk-breaking a primary function; no longer is wholesaling reactive. The emphasis now is on turns, cycle time, data analysis, replenishment, and speedy movement of goods.

The use of evolutionary models to describe and explain channel change is underexploited. In part, this is due to the fragmented nature of theories of change especially at industry and business system level. In part, it is also due to the opposition between evolutionary and ecological models and mainstream strategy and marketing theory: the one emphasising environmental selection and the other adaptation and managerial choice.

In the mid 1950s OEEC published a report on the state of wholesaling in Western Europe. Here Swedish wholesaling and its business organisation, the Federation of Swedish Wholesalers (Sveriges Grossistförbund/SGF), were considered to be in the forefront of the rationalisation of wholesaling. While technological and organisational rationalisation of Swedish wholesaling took off in the 1950s, there had been interesting developments in the discussions on rationalisation within the SGF from the mid 1940s.

This paper examines the level of cooperation between marketing and distribution in companies of the Greek fishery sector. It examines the difficulties that characterize the distribution component and the way in which market orientation can have an impact upon those difficulties. It has been suggested that market orientation is an essential component of the distribution process and can affect corporate performance. This paper is based in survey data from 186 companies. Descriptive statistics for each variable were used to assess the importance of each problem of distribution and logistics. Cluster analysis was carried out based on the perception of the importance of the problems of distribution and logistics. In addition, cross-tabulation analysis was used to examine the association between distribution problems and the firm characteristics of each cluster. Finally, linear multiple regression analysis was carried out, with each problem of distribution and logistics taken as the dependent variable and each element of marketing and logistics as an independent variable. The importance of distribution and logistics problems varied widely as did the market orientation between the groups of participating firms. In addition, certain firm characteristics and infrastructure factors can become so significant that they directly affect the degree of importance of the above problems.

The baby boomer generational cohort consists of consumers born between 1946 and 1964. They are sophisticated consumers with money to spend and they are not averse to spending it on products and services. Baby boomers have been nicknamed the “forgotten generation,” as marketers have more aggressively targeted other generational cohorts. Considering that baby boomers are the biggest spenders in comparison to any of the other groups, surprisingly little work is done to understand their behavior. This study addresses this large, heterogeneous group and how cognitive age is a key discriminating variable that can be used in segmentation efforts. Results from the study indicate that baby boomers with a higher cognitive age will have less fashion interest, will report lower levels of innovativeness, and will be less socially involved. Also, higher cognitive age did not have an impact on brand/product loyalty or risk aversion. Implications for managers and academicians are suggested.

In industrialized Western countries, the population is rapidly aging. Companies took a long time to realize that this fact is relevant for their businesses and often responded with inappropriate marketing activities. Thus, in order to improve strategies aimed at mature consumers, we have to understand their behavior, investigate their consumption needs, and identify whether the older consumer market should be treated as homogeneous or further subdivided. However, the prominent field of consumer-brand relationships has not been addressed so far with regard to the elderly. The aim of this paper is to gain insights into the neglected field of elderly consumers’ brand relationships.

Consumer Decision-Making Style defined as a mental orientation that characterizes a consumer’s approach to making choices and it was evaluated as a basic consumer personality, analogous to the concept of personality in psychology. Knowledge of consumer decision-making styles is clearly important to marketers because it is closely related to purchase behavior. Characterizing consumers in this way allows marketers to differentiate their offerings. This research was undertaken to identify decision-making styles of Turkish consumers by using a revised consumer decision-making styles inventory (CSI). Data was collected from an adult consumer sample. Nine decision-making styles factors were identified for Turkish consumers.

This paper explores how British and Brazilian consumers dispose of their unwanted or no longer used goods. Post-consumption environmental impact has become a global issue, and the need for consumers to reduce, reuse and recycle is paramount. A study of seven participants with recycling experience was undertaken. Divergent concerns in relation to waste, and distinct symbolic roles for disposal reflected the economically distinct contexts of the participants. Insights from this study can inform future consumer and policy research, and provide a more holistic view of the consumer behavior cycle.

Empirical research about the competitive consequences of environmental marketing is still scarce and inconclusive. The aim of this study is double. First, it analyses whether implementing proactive environmental marketing influences different dimensions of organizational performance. Second, it studies if companies with a stronger environmental orientation may achieve better results by developing these practices than the less oriented firms. Findings suggest that environmental marketing drives companies to optimize its operational and commercial results and such improvement is a source of higher economic results. And, the intensity of this influence varies depending on the company’s environmental orientation, what determines the success of environmental marketing.

Australia is the highest per capita emitter of carbon dioxide in the world, therefore improving energy conservation efforts is important to Australia’s economic, social and environmental wellbeing. The use of Social Marketing as an intervention mechanism provides a means of affecting the required societal paradigm shift to enhance energy conservation. This paper focuses on the application of market segmentation to social marketing as a potential motivator to electricity conservation efforts in the context of residential New South Wales (NSW), Australia.

Even though it is by no means a new idea, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is of high topicality both in business practice across all in-dustries and in the academic literature. An impressive body of research has addressed the impact of CSR activities on corporate perform-ance, for example, with a focus on the company market value or financial performance (see Orlitzky, Schmidt, and Rynes 2003 and Wu 2006 for meta-analyzes). Anyhow, despite the number of studies on this particular relationship, there still is a limited understanding of whether and how CSR actions have a positive impact on firm performance (Luo and Bhattacharya 2006). Only few studies have analyzed the role of CSR in retailing in a comprehensive manner. With our study, we address the question whether and how CSR activities of retailers contribute to retailers performance.

In the modern world, both individuals and cultures need not be territorially-bounded, yet the conventional method of segmenting international markets has hitherto been at the country level. The unprecedented interconnectedness between economies, cultures, and individuals has blurred the traditional boundaries between ‘home’ and ‘away’. Furthermore, a growing number of theorists contend that many individuals worldwide now develop bicultural identities, consisting of their local or traditional-culture identity with an identity connected to an emerging global culture. Researchers and practitioners increasingly recognize that consumer segments transcend national borders. Consequently the focus of international marketers should expand beyond deriving within- and between- country segments, towards identifying common groups of consumers irrespective of where they might live. Psychographic dimensions are suitable bases for international market segmentation, complementing the more commonly employed demographic approaches. Cosmopolitanism (COS) is a theoretical concept that is found in the fields of anthropology, sociology, and psychology, with growing applications in marketing and management. COS refers to a specific set of beliefs, attitudes, and qualities held by certain individuals, specifically an openness towards and appreciation of distinctive cultural systems, a willingness to engage with peoples from other cultures, along with personal competence in navigating different cultures. Global forces (e.g., mass media networks) have now made it possible for a wider variety of individuals to inculcate cosmopolitan values and to exhibit the traits of cosmopolitans, even without ever having left one’s own country of birth. Thus, belonging to an elite class is no longer a prerequisite for COS. To date, the application of COS has been widespread yet chiefly theoretical. Among the few empirical studies, most have focused on the outcomes rather than the causes of COS.

Literally hundreds of articles have examined factors related to country of origin (COO) over the past thirty years. Additionally, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has mandated that “all or virtually all” of a product claiming to be “Made in USA” must be made with US parts by US laborers. The questions are, in a global marketplace, does COO still play an important role in consumers’ decision-making process, do consumers associate a COO claim as reflecting a level of parts and/or labor content from the specified country, and is the FTC’s standard still needed? This study presents an internet-based empirical analysis of factors important to 897 US consumers considering purchase of a small home appliance and their perception of a “Made in USA” claim separately and as compared to a “Made in China” claim. The results show that COO is one of the least important factors in a purchase decision and that products with a “Made in China” label are seen more favorably than those with a “Made in USA” claim. Implications and directions for future research are presented.

In this paper, we examine DiMaggio and Powell’s theory of isomorphism and whether or not the theory can be transplanted from the organisation and used to explain the buying decision making process of global consumers.

Despite over fifty years of research, definitional and measurement problems have clouded the debate on the appropriateness of “uniform” versus “responsive” international strategies in overseas markets. In this paper, discussion is framed in terms of international advertising strategy, with the intent of focusing on definitional and measurement problems that are primary reasons for the difficulty in reaching robust, normative conclusions that can provide meaningful guidance for practitioners. Attention is also given to potential pathways to dealing with the problems identified.

Government or company actions can lead consumers in other countries to form poor perceptions of the countries involved. For example in the recent press, countries in the Middle East boycotted Danish manufacturers of consumer products because the Danish press published of a comic that Middle Eastern consumers considered offensive (Munter 2006). This phenomena has also been observed in the United States when the populous advocated renaming “French Fries” to “freedom fries” when France refused to join the United States into war (Loughlin 2003). Ample anecdotal evidence clearly indicates how consumers feel toward particular countries will affect their behavior in the market place.

Although retailers continue to devote scarce resources to customer loyalty programs as a means to build customer loyalty, controversy over their effectiveness exists. Based on identity congruency concept (Sirgy 1982) and Bhattacharya and Sen’s customer-company identification model (2003) built on social identity theories, this study proposes and tests a model describing how characteristics of a loyalty program (i.e., loyalty program – identity congruency and distinctiveness) influence a consumer’s identification with his/her loyalty program membership and attitude toward the focal retailer. Additionally, the moderating impact of loyalty program involvement on the evaluation of the loyalty program is examined. Using data collected from a web-based experiment, this study provides overall support for the model. Implications for retailers and researchers are discussed and suggestions for future research are provided.

In order to measure the outcomes of service delivery activities public administrators often relies on citizen surveys. At the same time citizen surveys have been severely criticized and labelled ad useless and unreliable. Drawing on available literature, the aim of this paper is to explore the antecedents of the decision to adopt those tools from the decision maker point of view. Data were collected through questionnaires sent to a sample of Italian town mayors. Results particularly emphasize public officials’ perception that surveys are often useless for their decision process. On the other side findings do not support the hypothesis that surveys are not conducted because they are believed to be as not reliable as objective indicators. Results are discussed and managerial implications are drawn.

Supporter loyalty refers to loyalty by various types of supporters (such as donor, volunteers) to nonprofit organizations (nongovernmental organizations, etc.). A conceptual description of the supporter loyalty construct is first developed. Then a scale development study is described for a measure of supporter loyalty.

The purpose of this manuscript is to advance theoretical underpinnings that can assist small NPOs with planning, executing, and evaluating brand strategies that can be used to better position them in the marketplace. Small NPOs, because of organizational and capacity issues, are dissimilar to larger, more affluent national/international NPOs and require their own tools for strategic planning and brand management. Thus, the current manuscript suggests a customized branding model to assist small NPOs to achieve their objectives of enhancing awareness, improving image in the community, managing limited resources, increasing funding, and ultimately enhancing the long-term health of the organization. The proposed model is derived from three, existing models that cover the tasks of planning, executing, and evaluating a branding strategy. The objective is to adapt the existing models to better address the needs of small NPOs. Although our discussion does not address details of individual branding activities such as logo design, event planning, and survey creation, we will provide an overall framework customized to the needs of NPOs with less than $1 million annual income.

This article considers internal and external determinants for creating strategic plans in NGOs activities. According to the literary overview, it seems to be obvious that every organization ought to have short-term and long-term plans with accurate goals. But evidence from practice put forward in this statement is not fully true; conducted research shows that 30% of Polish NGOs generally do not plan anything and the next 43.5% do this for only one year, therefore the great bulk do not deal with strategic planning at all. These results are a motivation for trying to find the causes of this situation and propose some areas for future surveys.

Market orientation, corporate entrepreneurship and learning orientation are relevant and important organizational capabilities determining performance particularly for exporters who face an increasingly complex environment. A survey was undertaken in China to investigate their inter-relationships as well as their impact on performance. Results show that learning orientation is the major cultural precursor instrumental to market orientation and entrepreneurship development. It was also found that corporate entrepreneurship is a perfect mediator between learning- and market orientation-performance relationships. Chinese exporters are advised to cultivate themselves in developing a learning culture which can help them become more market-oriented and entrepreneurial, and thus outperform in foreign countries.

International trade patterns reveal that most international business is conducted within home regions and not globally. This regionalism, or semi-globalization, refers to incomplete economic integration between regions, nations, and markets. Our research adds to the body of internationalization knowledge in two ways: first, it considers the impact of regional factors on national retail markets. Further, we do so with a more fine-grained approach, considering ten regions which encompass a larger portion of the world’s markets than do previous studies. Secondly, we examine for the first time how a country’s retail market attractiveness is affected by the region within which it is located. A country’s market attractiveness is a key determinant in a retailer’s decision to expand to that country. The current model is unique in that it shifts focus from firm or industry attributes to explore how much regional factors matter in explaining variation between countries.

According to a recent survey by GMAC, American corporations are increasingly assigning their employees to foreign markets to establish or sustain their relationships. Various reasons are cited for the increase in expatriate population such as market growth in China, globalization, knowledge and experience accumulation, and the Sarbanes-Qxley Act of 2002. Often times, these international assignments involve spouses and children. In fact, 83% of expatriates are accompanied by their spouse and 51% have children with them during a foreign assignment. Consequently, the degree and speed of family adjustment very much affects the outcome of the assignment. The present paper attempts to address an important gap in the literature by presenting a conceptual model of the relationships between family training and job performance of expatriate marketing managers. In addition, the following questions are raised in the paper:

1.

Do the family members of marketing managers receive formal training prior to a foreign assignment? If yes, what types of training do they receive?

2.

How does family members’ training affect expatriate job performance?

3.

What are the manager’s perceptions of family training?

4.

Do the foreign counterparts of U.S. international firms differ in cultural training provided? Are U.S. firms competitive enough in preparing their expatriate employees and their families for an international assignment?

Today, an increasing number of products made in countires other than the country in which the product is consumered. Products made in a particular country may be preferred to products made in other country because consumers perceive them as being of higher quality and/or because consumers have a favorable image toward the “made in” country. Regarding these country-of-origin effects, recent studies have suggested that country-of-origin information can be treated as an extrinsic cue of product quality (a signalling effect) or as a product attribute that can provide consumer benefits (an attribute effect). However, no reported research has yet provided a causal model that describes the purchase decision-making process with both signaling and attribute effects of the country of origin. Thus, we proposed a structural equation model and tested the model with a consumer data set. By dividing the data set into consumer groups, we conclude that signaling and attribute effects of country-of-origin may be influenced by the level of consumer knowledge as well as consumer involvement.

Population explosions and increased purchasing power amongst Hispanic consumers has marketers scrambling for there attention. Hispanics are fuelling growth in almost every area of the economy, especially consumer products and services. They are now not only earning more, but also spending more. The convergence of media and technology combined with a digital revolution amongst Hispanics has now created low cost communication channels in which marketers can efficiently communicate with Hispanics.The aim of this study is to discover the extent to which Hispanics promotion –orientation affects their purchasing behaviour. Because of the complexities involved with this type of research we conducted interviews with small groups and individuals, this was considered the most effective approach. The researchers discovered new insights into the understanding of Hispanic consumer’s responses to sales promotions. One of which being that hedonic prizes which stimulate inspirational emotions to win are highly desirable, and evoke positive emotional responses from Hispanic shoppers when compared to utilitarian money off offers. When marketers understand and interpret trends, they can utilize this knowledge to design future promotions that are highly engaging and very profitable. The researchers identified a number of commonalities Hispanics find important in promotion orientation.

This research centres on students’ decision making process for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) focusing on the pre-purchase stage. The study aims at contributing to a deeper understanding of the information sources that students resort to when applying to HEIs. A study was carried out in a Portuguese University focusing on the sources used when selecting a HEI. A survey was applied to students enrolling for the first time, yielding a sample of 1641 cases. Findings revealed that the ‘university website’ is considered the most important source of information followed by ‘Former/current ABC university students’. Moreover, results indicate that there are significant differences among groups of students regarding preferences for sources of information The paper further discusses and draws conclusions about information sources that enlighten decision making for HEIs. Finally, implications and avenues for future research are presented.

This paper investigates how item response models can be used to select efficient items for concept testing and assess differential item functioning among major innovations and minor innovations. The results indicate that the six-item scale utilized in the on-line testing performs differently across the performance continuum. Surprisingly the scale as a whole is not effective at identifying the most promising and the least attractive concepts. As for the single item efficiency, believability and importance provide the most information for identifying the poor concepts. Purchase intention, problem solving and uniqueness are super at selecting good concepts. In addition, all six items display large DIF among major and minor innovations, which indicate that items perform significantly different for concept tests of major and minor innovations. Minor innovations are disadvantaged on average across six items. Liking, importance, uniqueness and believability discriminate better for major innovations, while problem solving item is more effective for minor innovations. This research provides an alternative methodology for item analysis other than classical test theory.

This paper describes a case study of the Retail Food Group (RFG) and its co-branding arrangements. Co-branding is becoming increasingly popular in franchised retailing as a means of stimulating growth in the mature Australian sector. Current franchising theories and the Australian regulatory regime are briefly examined and found to be inadequate when positioned to explain the phenomenon of co-branding in this context. This case study provides an organisational perspective of co-branding extending existing literature away from product specific co-branding to a retail format. Data were collected from company documents and an interview with senior company executive. A case study protocol was then used to analyse the data. The study reveals that incentives for introducing other franchised retail brands into the Retail Food Group brand portfolio include search for a suitable retail brand; attracting new customers; and resilience from internal and external competition. This preliminary investigation provides a starting point for a broader research study into co-branded franchising arrangements.

Retailers are increasingly employing low price guarantees. A low-price guarantee (LPG) typically offers consumers some type of refund if they find an identical product offered by a competing retailer at a lower price. For instance, an LPG retailer may refund a customer the difference between the retail price paid and the lower retail price offered by a competing store. Another variant of this tactic is a price-beating guarantee, which offers a customer varying amounts of “refunds” (e.g. several times the price difference). Retailers hope that by offering an LPG in some form, consumers will perceive their stores as offering low prices overall. Retailers in practically all product categories offer LPGs including durable goods sellers and those offering common general merchandise goods like hardware, groceries and household items.

Retail brand perception, store image, and even the positioning of retail firms have been examined frequently in research for many years. Studies analyzing retail formats on the basis of retailer attributes perceived in a particular retail sector are, however, relatively rare (Morschett et al. 2006). The present study provides a fairly unique perspective so far because it does not deal with retail formats in well-known Western and more or less saturated markets, but with analyzing the store image of retail formats in the context of one grocery retailing market in Eastern Europe.

Retail firms have increasingly developed portfolio of store types or formats to remain competitive and to attract different market segments. The retail market offering and retail know-how comprise retail format. Examples of retail formats include: (1) specialty stores (e.g., Benneton, Zara), (2) department stores (e.g., Macy’s, Marks & Spencer), (3) discount stores (e.g., Target, RT Mart), (4) off-price stores (e.g., Ross for Less), and (5) catalog retailers (e.g., L.L. Bean, Lands’ End). Wal-Mart Stores, for example, operates several retail formats in its portfolio including supercenters, discount department stores, supermarkets, and warehouse clubs.

Using the extant literature on social networks and organizational learning, and drawing from the available work on social networks in marketing, we propose a model of vertical and horizontal network relationships among boundary spanning service employees, the climate of communication openness, information processing, customer orientation and the customer orientation of retail stores. The model is tested using a sample of 413 service employees within a national retail organization comprising 112 stores. The model is largely supported by the data. Implications for management and further research are discussed.

The directionality of causal relationship between customer orientation and job satisfaction is unclear from previous research. Additionally, research on this topic is based on service-workers, while middle managers are ignored, although their critical role. Drawing from literature on person-situation interaction and fit theory we develop some hypothesis on middle-manager customer orientation and job satisfaction. We test this hypothesis with 535 branch managers from a commercial bank. Results confirm that customer orientation is an antecedent of job satisfaction, and job fit and customer contact time moderates this relationship.

As co-producers of value, customers actively contribute to service production and delivery. In contrast to the production of tangible goods, services are produced while being consumed. Consequently, representing a part of the service delivery system, customers are involved in the production of the services they receive. Referring to that, it is widely accepted that customer participation affects the service production process, and hence, customers’ satisfaction with the service outcome. Particularly in human services, customer performance tremendously affects quality and effectiveness of service processes.

Many manufacturers are seeking business in international markets in the context of mature domestic markets. The selection of an appropriate channel represents an important choice for such manufacturers. According to previous studies on this subject (e.g., Anderson and Coughlan, 1987; Klein, Frazier, and Roth, 1990; Aulakh and Kotabe, 1997), this decision involves two key issues: channel integration and channel control. In other words, will the product be distributed by the manufacturer’s own sales force or by independent intermediaries? Second, when independent intermediaries are used, do they work exclusively for that particular manufacturer?

Over the last decade there has been a growing amount of interest towards the integration of various elements of the Supply Chain Management. The category of problems arising from the combination of distribution and inventory management decisions is possibly the most typical example of that notion and is known as inventory routing problems (IRP). IRP for a single product, deals with the distribution of the product, from a single depot to a set of n customers over a specific number of time periods, using a fleet of homogenous vehicles. The objective is to minimize the average daily cost for the planning period, while ensuring that no stockouts will occur. In this work a two-phase approach is examined. The epicentre of the first phase is a Mathematical Programming model used to provide an accurate description of the problem. At the second phase a Genetic Algorithm (GA) with suitably designed genetic operators, will be employed in order to obtain near optimal solutions.

Knowledge calibration, or the agreement between knowledge accuracy and confidence in that knowledge, provides a foundation for supply chain management (SCM) decisions. We introduce the notion of knowledge calibration capability to maximize knowledge utility or the desirability of utilizing available knowledge. We present a conceptual framework of knowledge calibration capability for SCM by defining the construct and suggesting its potential antecedents and consequences. This paper offers a research agenda for knowledge calibration capability in a supply chain context.

Nowadays products are increasingly produced in supply chain networks. The questions dealing with strategies and management of such networks have been widely addressed in literature. However, the importance of network goals for the network’s strategy and management is undisclosed. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to provide the theoretical elaboration on the role of network goals in strategic chain management.

Seminal pieces on the bottom of the pyramid model (e.g., Prahalad, 2005; Prahalad and Hart, 2002) have stimulated discussion on the role of business in developing markets. The main argument in these discussions has been to recognize and acknowledge the market potential of those who live on less than $2 per day, a market of over four billion people. While appealing in its promise for business and poor consumers alike, BoP models to date are focused on demand stimulation and seem to advocate a mere transplantation of the marketing and consumer models that have worked well in developed economies, without recognizing the need to address associated problems. This approach ignores the input of the poor people who are most affected by these schemes (Simalis and Hart 2008; p. 1). Corporate social responsibility in these contexts is defined merely by way of training the poor them to be global consumers like the rest of us.

The purpose of this research is to explore the current theories, models and strategies relating to the “Bottom of the Pyramid” (BOP), to investigate if and how U.K. businesses are active at the BOP, and to outline recommendations for further research and analysis of U.K. business activity at the BOP. The basic BOP theory argues that business could profitably serve the four billion people living in poverty throughout the developing world by treating the poor as consumers, which would in turn become the catalyst for sustainable global development. Previous literature provides little evidence of how U.K. businesses are realising the opportunities at the BOP. As such the intention of this research is to initially survey the theories and models relating to the BOP and explore if and how U.K. businesses are active at the BOP. To accomplish this, we divide the paper into three sections. First we review the relevant literature on corporate social responsibility and globalisation in emerging markets as these themes relate to business activity in the BOP. Second we outline examples of case studies, social enterprises and organisations active at the BOP. Finally, we delineate recommendations for further research and analysis of U.K. business activity at the BOP.

The recent development in globalization has seen multinational corporations (MNCs) recognizing and exploring the enormous opportunities in new and emerging markets when developed world markets are becoming increasingly saturated. Most global marketing strategies in emerging markets have been targeting mainly at the wealthy elite segment and the middle-income class. In the latest development, an increasing number of MNCs started to launch new initiatives to explore the opportunities in the underserved segment – the base of the economic pyramid (BOP), the largest and fastest growing segment of the world’s population. Our understanding of the BOP markets is going through a seismic shift in the last decade. Increasingly, the BOP consumers are recognized as highly resourceful entrepreneurs who possess valuable knowledge, resources and capabilities. As such, business development and enterprise creation driven by the poor has emerged as a powerful philosophy and tool for addressing poverty and marginality, bringing both social and economic value to the BOP markets. While the opportunities associated with BOP markets are becoming increasingly apparent to researchers and practitioners, there are crucial and unique challenges when MNCs attempt to balance firm’s profitability responsibility and social responsibility in their BOP ventures. The purpose of this paper is to synthesize previous studies and present a review of the accumulative knowledge in this important topic area. Implications to practitioners and researchers are drawn, and further research directions and propositions are suggested.

It is generally accepted that sales managers and salespeople perceive many job-related constructs differently. However, this perceptual gap has received little attention in the context of sales management control systems. This study hypothesizes that there are, potentially, differences between how sales managers’ believe they are controlling the sales force, and salespeople’s perceptions of the control they receive from sales managers. The primary objective is to empirically assess the magnitude of this perceptual gap.

This study examines consumer worry prior to a service experience. The authors introduce a model of consumer worry with three sequential pieces: sources of worry (e.g., risk), components (or dimensions) of worry, and consequences (e.g., action tendancies) of worry. Analyzing data using the critical incident technique with a content analysis, the authors find that perceived risk, especially social risk, is the primary source of consumer worry. A major contribution of this research is that the authors show the multi-dimensional nature of consumer worry (i.e., cognitive, emotional, and physioloical dimensions). By understanding consumer worry, service providers can be better prepared to take the appropriate actions to minimize relevant perceived risks and the accompanying worries associated with this. Further, this model of consumer worry should be useful to the field as this concept and its sources, consequences, and moderators are studied.

Previous research in complaint management has assessed the role of commitment after service failures. It can be expected that affectively committed customers will be more likely to complain due to their sense of belonging to the company. Furthermore, several studies suggest reducing perceived complaint barriers, e.g. by offering various communication channels, will increase a customer’s propensity to voice a complaint. What has not been investigated is the interplay between complaint barriers and customer commitment. Moreover, it remains largely unknown if committed customers behave differently from less committed customers in their reaction to service recovery efforts. This study – comprising of two experiments – attempts to fill that gap in the literature and test the following hypotheses which are based on Hirschman’s (1970) theory of exit, voice, and loyalty: H1 A low level of complaint barriers have a positive impact on complaint intention. H2 Affective commitment has a positive impact on complaint intention.

Numerous empirical studies have identified a weak association between customer satisfaction and future behavioral intention. Furthermore, this satisfaction-behavior link may decline with the passage of time between the service encounter and the next opportunity for repurchase/referral. One reason for this weak relationship may be the omission of emotions from predictive models. This research compares cognitive and emotional measures as predictors of future behavioral intention. Research focused on a high involvement service encounter and monitored respondents’ cognitive and affective ratings of the event over a period of 12 months.

Relationship marketing theory emphasizes the importance of developing and maintaining customer-provider relationships. Strong customer relationships evolve over time and through repeated encounters. Through this process both parties learn from and adjust to each other, commitment and trust develop, and satisfactory experiences serve to reinforce customer loyalty. It is critical therefore that service providers understand how these relationships develop. The purpose of this study is to develop and test a relational model of customer loyalty in the context of a high involvement, high contact service. Specifically, we develop hypotheses relative to the impact of satisfaction, trust, delight arousal, delight pleasure, calculative commitment, affective commitment and involvement on loyalty. As an aside, we additionally consider the moderating role of consumption experience in the development of loyalty.

This exploratory field study aims to help identify necessities and consuming habits of people in low income segments as a necessary condition to envision business opportunities and develop successful business models in the Mexican Base of the Pyramid (BOP). In depth interviews were done with families, owners/people in charge of small businesses, and opinion leaders in ten different BOP communities, randomly selected from each of the five regions in the country. Results give relevant information about unattended basic necessities, consuming habits, as well as differences and similarities between rural and urban BOP communities, from which business opportunities might be discovered. For instance: job creation is quite necessary almost everywhere; formal financial services are practically non existent in rural communities; telecommunication infrastructure is quite limited and expensive; high schools and universities are demanded, as well as an educational scheme that helps improve the entrepreneurial capabilities of the Mexican BOP. Business opportunities like those exploited by credit stores, such as Elektra and Coppel, which offer direct credit to consumers in low income segments for the purchasing of furniture and appliances, could be found in the lack of basic services. On the other hand, commercial firms could take advantage of the widely spread entrepreneurial initiative and disposition of the Mexican BOP, in order to co-create commercial networks in these unattended markets.

Whether in the commercial or social arena, entrepreneurship involves the identification of venture ideas and opportunities which, through the effort and abilities of entrepreneurial individuals and organisations, are developed into offerings that have perceived value in industry, the market or society. While such ideas are generated in diverse ways and may come from diverse sources, an ultimate source is from society itself, forced to seek new ways of adapting to various ever-changing forces and situations. This is particularly the case with social entrepreneurship, that specialised field of entrepreneurship which seeks to solve a problem and thereby achieve changes that deliver improvement to a prevailing condition. How is this done? What does social entrepreneurship involve and what are its boundaries? Can it be extended to address macro level problems in society and the economy?

The contribution of not-for-profit organizations (NPOs) creating social value is well documented. This paper drawing on the dynamic capability view of competitive strategy, attempts to model the antecedents of social value creation in networks.

Several authors (Fram and McCarthy 2003; Jacobs 2003; Mitchell 2002; Worcester and Dawkins 2005) suggest that staff positive word-of-mouth within their social networks can be a powerful marketing tool. This might be termed Staff Word of Mouth (SWOM). Yet, surprisingly little is known about SWOM within informal social networks. This research starts to bridge the gap by finding a concensus on the content, triggers and motivations for SWOM from those with expert knowledge, in this case retail staff members. The Delphi technique optimizes the use of group opinion whilst minimizing the drawbacks of discussion groups (Rowe et al., 1991). Improving understanding should provide a basis for further research and guidelines for management of SWOM activities, such as how to design and deliver motivational messages targeted at employees.

This article addresses how sales representatives’ behavior in a retailing context influences customer trust - both in the salesperson and in the retail store – as key antecedents of consumer buying behavior. The salespersons’ behaviors analyzed are derived from commonly suggested personal selling techniques. However adaptive sales strategies are frequently discussed in marketing literature, the specific influence of those techniques on consumers is analyzed only rudimentary in empirical research. This gap is addressed by developing a conceptual framework incorporating important adaptive behavioral selling techniques which are perceived by consumers. Empirical data, computed in a structural equation model, demonstrates different influences of specific behavioral patterns of salespeople on consumer behavior. Findings show that especially techniques relating to salespersons’ support of the customer in making an optimal buying decision influence their buying behavior more than techniques focusing customers’ or salespersons’ characteristics. Results will provide managerial implications for both salespeople and management.

The existing body of literature about the phenomenon of own label reveals research gaps with regard to developing countries. Furthermore, in the specific context of the Colombian food retail sector there are just two studies referring to the phenomenon of own label in this country: one examined the implementation of own label from a manufacturers perspective; the other analysed own label from a consumer perspective. However, there is lack of knowledge (no previous studies) regarding this phenomenon from a retailers’ perspective. Therefore, the focus of this study is to explore the emergence, importance, and implementation of own label in the food retail sector of this country.

When a product is in its introduction stage, the proportion of consumers with information about product quality is relatively low. For most consumers, price is the only indication of a product’s quality. The rational expectation model predicts that at the introduction stage, the price should be stable in order to communicate quality-related information efficiently. Therefore, manufacturers have incentives to use resale price maintenance (RPM) to reduce the noise from intrabrand price competition. Over time, the demand for RPM declines as the proportion of consumers with access to quality-related information gradually increases.

As the only marketing variable that directly generates revenue for the firm, marketers often “play around” with price in an attempt to maximize the firm’s revenue and/or profit. However, as one of the most regulated marketing variables, unwary use of certain pricing strategies can lead a marketer into legal troubles. This paper conducts a brief overview of legal issues related to pricing and draws the awareness of marketers to common pricing and promotion legal mine fields such as “naked” or tacit agreements to divided the field and

ladies’ night

price discount promotions. It also outlines other areas of intersection between marketing and law that could benefit from future research.

Although bundles of products or services are typically offered at retail prices that are less than their components, some bundles offer little or no discount. One explanation for why consumers would purchase of such bundles lies in how consumers process item price information. When circumstances favor a piecemeal processing approach – as in previous bundling research – discounts play an important part in the evaluation of bundles. However, when circumstances favor a more holistic processing approach, discounts have little effect. This paper reports the results of an experiment that indicates that the effect of discount size on bundle choice is moderated by the extent of piecemeal processing, which is instantiated by factors that make the item prices easier to process. Specifically, we consider the amount of a price discount and the salience of price information on bundle choice. The findings have theoretical implications in regard to the processing of bundled information and practical implications for retail bundle pricing and consumer welfare.

This paper examines the role of social marketing programs in preventing drunk driving, and how Protection Motivation Theory can be used to create effective anti drunk driving communications. Communication and program materials aimed at reducing drunk driving were identified and gathered from English-language websites from the U.S.A., Canada, U.K., Australia, and New Zealand, and a qualitative review was conducted. The review provides a description of the key themes and messages being used in anti drunk driving campaigns, as well as target population, campaign components, and sources of funding. A key facet of this review is the examination of the use of Protection Motivation Theory in social marketing campaigns designed to prevent drunk driving. The review presents social marketing campaigns aimed at preventing drunk driving in English-speaking countries, and shows that Protection Motivation Theory can be successfully used in this context. The paper provides a guide for future initiatives, as well as recommendations for social marketing practitioners.

Over the recent years, the concept of market orientation has become an attractive avenue for research in marketing. However, despite an array of theories, a systematic framework investigating the role of market orientation in non-profit organizations remains limited.. Through the integration of concepts from strategic marketing and religion literature, the study put forth a comprehensive model that explains the role of market orientation in church participation context.

This research focuses on marketing practices of Benedictine monasteries. These communities make marketing decisions with respect to the products they make and sell, as well as their retailing and retreat businesses. These provide a setting for an examination of the role that marketing decisions play in raising funds to support one the world’s oldest nonprofit causes, that of religion and religious organizations. In addition, this study also provides a unique setting for examining how the role of religion as interpreted by religious rules for living and religious tradition affect marketing decisions. Exploratory investigation of this previously un-researched area helps to shed light on nonprofit marketing in religious settings, one of the lesser developed streams of nonprofit marketing research. Further, it also integrates the role of tradition, history and religious (highly mission related) directives into marketing decisions. The Rule of St. Benedict, written sometime close to 500 A.D. still governs the behavior of the largest group of monks and nuns. Testing reveals that “The Rule” still has a major effect on the marketing choices made in the monasteries but qualitative and other data demonstrate the variety of interpretations.

More than 30 studies have explored the effects of brand personality on attitudes towards a brand. However, no studies have explored the influence of brand personality on evaluations of

utilitarian

brand benefits. Based on an analysis of thirty-seven brands, many of them utilitarian in nature, Aaker (1997) identified the brand personality dimensions

Sincerity

and

Competence

as first and third in terms of explained variance. These dimensions do not appear to be very relevant for social-identity brand concepts, However, they do represent key components of

trustworthiness

: credibility and benevolence.

Competence

– as described in Aaker’s scale (reliable, intelligent, successful) closely mirrors “credibility” (reliable, knowledgeable, honest), while

Sincerity

(honest, wholesome, down-to-earth) closely mirrors “benevolence” (caring, likable, friendly). We suggest that under certain conditions, the two dimensions Competence and Sincerity may be perceived as diagnostic for evaluating brand functionality, especially if consumers can use this information to reduce uncertainty about a brand’s expected performance. Conversely, the brand personality dimensions more closely linked to social-identity benefits – Excitement, Sophistication, and Ruggedness – are not expected to affect evaluations of utilitarian benefits.

A large body of research has provided strong evidence of country of manufacture effects on product evaluations however; country of manufacture effect on brand image is appeared to be ignored. This research based on country of manufacture effect on brand image of strong and weak brands. The main purpose of the study is to explore the differential effects of country of manufacture on brand image for strong and weak brands. In the study, consumer judgments of two digital camera brands varying in their level of brand image, manufactured in developed and developing countries were measured. In order to identify the differential effects of country of manufacture on brand image, 600 respondents were surveyed. Results show that when a product made in developing country rather than developed country, it produces comparatively more negative effect on brand image of strong brands compared to weak brands.

The Buying Center / Buying Network concept is still being stubbornly cited in industrial business relations analyses. However, professionals doubt whether this concept is sufficient to explain the specific behaviors of industrial customers and to derive suitable marketing measures. This paper will examine industrial buying behavior from a completely different research perspective. Qualitative market segmentation approaches form the basic framework yet “lifestyle typologies” (or social background studies), traditionally applied in consumer marketing, can just as easily be inserted into the inter-industrial marketing segmentation framework. A number of industry targeting workshops were conducted with young professionals and trainees from more than fifty, largely globally active enterprises to empirically analyze and position “Industrial Lifestyles”. These companies recruit energy supply and industrial services from the mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and automotive industries. Recommendations and their implications were derived from this industrial lifestyles positioning exercise that can be implemented for price negotiations.

The impact of service recovery strategies has attracted increasing research and practitioner interest in recent years. The majority of studies, however, have been conducted in a business to consumer setting, rather than in a business to business (B2B) setting, where customers tend to be more experienced with the service. This paper extends previous work by examining customer perceptions of service recovery in a business market (the Greek IT market), and models the effect of service quality and service recovery perceptions on overall satisfaction and on customers’ behavioural intentions, using key informants who have been involved directly in a service failure incident. Customer perceptions of reliability are found to be critical, with direct and indirect effects on service recovery satisfaction, overall satisfaction and customer loyalty. Service recovery perceptions are also found to have both a direct effect on behavioural intentions, and an indirect effect (via satisfaction).

Firms frequently use trade shows in their B2B (Business-to-Business) marketing mix. The importance of trade shows has been well documented in the United States and Europe in terms of show participation and expenditure levels. Trade shows are accelerators which boost economic effectiveness and innovativeness of involved firms. Within the significant role of trade shows as a platform for business to business communication, a better understanding of at-show interaction implies the in-depth analysis of its dimensions and drivers, as well as the identification of those business visitors with special interests in interaction with exhibitors.

This paper integrates the extant literature in inter-firm control by rethinking the nature of control in inter-firm relationships as it applies to the context of low power suppliers. This study contributes to the literature in several ways. First, it compares the power context between two inter-firm relationship types – preferred supplier agreements (PSAs) and buyer-supplier partnerships. Second, this study brings the power concept to the fore of the literature by defining the ‘low-power supplier’ and then develops a conceptual framework for investigating the control mechanisms used by low power suppliers. Third, this is one of a handful of studies to analyse performance from the supplier’s perspective.

Statements of corporate values and ethics have been popular for decades. Organizations also have increasingly asked employees to sign ethics statements to confirm their agreement with core values. Recent well-publicized corporate malfeasance has drawn attention to whether these tools are effective or are true reflections of an organization’s principles and values. Corporate ethical values (CEVs) can be viewed outside the realm of organizational training, standard operating procedures, reward and punishment systems, formal statements, and as more representative of the real nature of the organization (Organ, 1988). CEVs steer the organization’s approach for taking action related to stakeholder groups, including customers, competitors, channel partners, employees, and society in general (Hunt, Wood and, Chonko, 1989). CEVs may be viewed as an organization’s true values, as perceived by employees and other relevant stakeholders.

Social marketing aims to improve the health and wellbeing of society; however the development and implementation of interventions may have ethical repercussions for both intended and incidental targets, and in general ethical terms. To date there is little systematic analysis in the literature of these issues or possible solutions. There is a lack of unambiguous ethical frameworks to guide social marketers, with different outcomes possible under intention-focused (deontological) reasoning versus consequence-focused (teleological) reasoning. While ethical checklists and codes of ethics have been proposed for the sector, significant questions relating to administration and enforcement remain unresolved. This article reviews these issues and suggests routes for developing such guidelines and codes, and future research.

Globalization depicts an increasingly interconnected and interdependent worldspace. While globalization continues to alter the economic and political landscapes, global forces are increasingly impacting the social and cultural environments of the world. Given that culture is the single most profound influence on consumer behavior, a key question concerns how the cultural flows emanating from globalization impact local cultures, and how global and local cultural influences combine to influence consumer behaviors. With globalization, is it the case that cultures and consumer behaviors worldwide are becoming less distinctive? Or, in the wake of globalization, are consumers increasingly motivated to resist global forces, leading to the reactivation and retrenchment of cultural and behavior differences? With globalization, the interplay of local and global forces may in fact lead to hybridization, implying increasing homogeneity and heterogeneity of behaviors occurring simultaneously. Focusing on Japan—the world’s second largest economy, and socio-culturally, straddling the boundary of East and West— the primary question posed by this research is: how do local and global cultures influence what consumer behaviors? Our first objective was to assess the structure and reliability multidimensional measures for (Japanese) ethnic identity (JEID) and acculturation to global consumer culture (AGCC). Within a greater nomological network, we examined how JEID and AGCC were antecedent to two dispositional constructs associated with globalization: materialism and consumer ethnocentrism. Lastly we sought to identify different acculturation patterns corresponding to how JEID and AGCC apply to consumer behaviors spanning a broad variety of product categories, including foods and beverages, hygiene and fashion/apparel, appliances, consumer electronics, media and communication devices, as well as luxury products.

Self-gifts are a common consumer behavior and are typically characterized as highly self-motivated, context bounded, self-directed, and hedonically oriented (Mick and DeMoss 1990a). Research on self-gifts can be viewed as two distinct but interrelated directions. One is from the extrinsic aspect, such as the four most frequent occasions for self-gifts: accomplishment reward, failure therapeutics, birthday, and with extra money (Mick and DeMoss 1990a). The other approach to explain self-gifts is from an intrinsic aspect such as attribution theory, which provides us with more precise and richer insights to individuals’ psychological phenomena (Mick, DeMoss and Faber 1992). However, a practical question exists: How to define and segment consumer according to their successful or failure condition and further make inference about their own intrinsic attribution in advance? Thus, we propose another viewpoint to explore the goal and process of self-gifts through the lens of “self-regulatory” (Higgins 1997) and “goal-attribute compatibility” (Chernev 2004) to gain more understanding within. In this research, we intend to further investigate whether there are more effective ad appeals to evoke or strengthen consumer to buy themselves gifts.

In order to tie customers more closely to the relationship, wholesalers implement a variety of bonding strategies. Using PLS regression, we analyze the effects of structural bonds on relationship quality as well as the mediating effect of the competitive advantage that customers gain through the relationship. We assess different dimensions of structural bonds (relationship-specific investments, operational linkages, information exchange and contractual bonds) and analyze their respective impact on relationship quality as well as on competitive advantage. Our results imply that while structural bonds have a significant influence on the quality of the relationship, the effects of the four dimensions of structural bonds differ considerably and therefore need to be addressed accordingly.

The present study examines whether consumer shopping orientation (utilitarian/ recreational) moderates the effects of online atmospheric qualities on consumer’s e-shopping behavior. Results, suggest that the interactions effects are more important in explaining in-store behavior than direct effects, and extents findings from offline shopping contexts to online ones. Implications for researchers and e-store developers are discussed.

The study investigates website interactivity and social presence and the effects on patronage intentions in the luxury goods (jewellery) sector. As luxury goods, jewellery products are chosen for this study as they are a complex product more difficult to describe online, even with pictures, than those products where physical attributes dominate (Zeng and Reinartz 2003). Jahng et al. (2007) and Pavlou et al. (2007) suggest that buying a complex product on the Internet requires a higher social presence. Because of the inherent difficulties of accurately describing the attributes of jewellery products online, they possibly require higher levels of social presence and interactivity. The less perceived distance between buyers and sellers achieved through perceptions of social presence, the more the online exchange relationship can be similar to a traditional interpersonal relationship (Kumar and Benbasat, 2002).

Trust is considered as a crucial objective in e-commerce. However the antecedents of e-trust are still not very clearly understood. Several authors have considered e-service quality as an antecedent of e-trust. While the empirical relationship between e-service quality and e-trust has been established in may studies, we still don’t know much about the possible moderators with regard to this relationship. Our paper looks at the moderating role of Technology Readiness in the relationship between the different dimensions of e-service quality and e-trust. Technology readiness is an important construct as this reflects the individual’s ability and readiness to interact with technology. Since the internet is shown to induce some level of technology anxiety among its users, it is possible that people with high level of technology readiness will use the internet more and become more familiar with the technology. Since familiarity is often considered as a pre-condition to generate trust, it is therefore natural to assume that users with high levels of technology readiness will also have a stronger relationship between service quality and e-trust. Similarly users with low levels of technology readiness will be less familiar with the technology and consequently may have a less stronger relationship between the perceived level of e-service quality and e-trust. We focus on four different dimensions of e-service quality – efficiency, fulfillment, systems availabiligy and privacy. The propositions are tested through an empirical study conducted among users of job-sites in India. About 350 responses were collected to test the hypotheses. In general the moderating effect of TRI was quite evident except in the case of the relationship between privacy and e-trust. Results show that technology readiness index does have a positive moderating role as proposed across all the four dimensions of e-service quality. The moderating role is not very significant in the case of the relationship between privacy and e-trust.

This research examines the nature and scope of electronic marketing practices in the sustainable tourism industry; specifically, the congruency of tourism organizations’ sustainability credentials with their electronic marketing efforts as reflected in website content. Content analysis of the websites of a global sample of 72 sustainable tourism providers, compared with the providers#x0027; documented sustainability credentials, reveals a low average congruency between credentials and electronic marketing efforts. Breakdowns of the results by region and by specific sustainability dimension are also reported, and the primary implication—missed opportunities—is discussed.

Developing alternative fuels and engines in the automotive sector touch the scope of duties for a sustainable and environmental energy policy with reference to the ecological and economic importance of automobiles. Within the ongoing trend to economical passenger cars and the growing number of offered alternative engines and technologies by the worldwide leading car manufactures, compressed natural gas (CNG) is seen as a short call alternative for traditional combustion engines. Understanding how firms can effectively manage the development of structural and technological challenges of alternatives technologies has become an important topic to researchers and practitioners in recent years. Part of this interest stems from the target of car manufactures and power suppliers to participate in the development of sustainable traffic solutions. In spite of the development of technologies with lower carbon dioxide emissions, the question of why the registration numbers of natural gas vehicles (NGVs) are contemporary lower as petrol or diesel driven passenger cars has been largely neglected by academic research.

Recent evidence has shown that green advertising has grown exponentially in the last two decades (Futerra 2008), becoming the driving force behind increasing public awareness of ecological issues and skyrocketing demand for eco-friendly goods (Easterling et al. 1996; Polonsky et al. 1997). However, green advertising activity has recently run into major problems. The advertising industry, being quick to grasp changes in consumer tastes and moods, has noticed that many people are becoming increasingly sceptical about the credibility of environmental advertisements (Pfanner 2008). This is because of the increasing popularity and usage of environmental advertising among organizations, the growing number of consumer complaints regarding the misleadingless of these claims, and their serious concerns over their presentation. This urges for an evaluation of the practices and trends in the field. In light of the above, this study provides a thorough assessment of and establishes trends in international green advertising practices. Specifically, our study sought to assess international advertisements with regards to their: (a) key features; (b) message aspects; (c) copy characteristics; and (d) situation points.

Business managers need to monitor several trends relating to the protection of a firm’s intellectual property on the internet. On the one hand, the internet has presented many companies with the opportunity to explore markets, gather information, and sell through the web. On the other hand, this virtual marketplace has been a way for unscrupulous players in an intricate game of cyber crime to renounce a company’s intellectual property rights and channel illicit goods by way of the internet piracy pyramid. The overall positive growth in global technology, such as internet penetration rates, has paradoxically created a lucrative distribution channel for the counterfeit trade. The Business Software Alliance forecasts that the increased use of the internet, the proliferation of peer-to-peer networks, and the growth of broadband access will increase software piracy rates, especially in emerging markets such as China, India and Russia. A recent study conducted for the Business Software Alliance by Harris Interactive, involving 1,644 youth, found that young people clearly viewed downloading music (60%), software (56%), and games (54%) without payment less harmful than stealing from a store (92%). In 2005, the Motion Picture Association (MPA), in their study on the cost of movie piracy, found that the typical consumer of fake goods was aged 16-24, male, and lived in an urban environment. Although this demographic profile does not yield detailed segmentation, it does show the bias of the younger generation, the so-called Generation Me, as a ‘willing player’ in the internet piracy game.

This paper explores the internationalization process of the Italian SMEs (small and medium enterprises), and aims to investigate their behaviour in the international contexts to ultimately outline general models able to optimize their peculiarities. The empirical study firstly examines 546 SMEs along their internationalization. The internationalization process is examined through its phases: decisions, marketing strategy, achievements and future perspectives. A second aim is to define sustainable paths for SMEs willing to expand successfully over the Country borders. It also proposes issues and managerial implications to be considered in the international development of Italian SMEs.

This research is concerned with determining the potential antecedents of program loyalty in the context of small businesses. There are several component attitudes of high order constructs that determine loyalty towards a rewards scheme. These include program satisfaction, program perceived value, program affect and program trust. A multiple regression analysis indicated that the four predictor variables together explain 69.9 per cent of the variance (R-Square) in program loyalty. Program trust has the most influence in predicting program loyalty. This is followed by program affect, program perceived value and program satisfaction respectively. The implications for managers of small businesses are discussed.

The importance of service quality in service firms is paramount and has led to increased awareness of the significance of internal marketing to employees. This paper investigates the implementation of service excellence within an SME with emphasis on how organisations should treat their employees as customers in order to motivate them and in turn provide clients with outstanding service. It identifies the practices that organisations should be implementing in order to achieve organisation goal.s

As resources for businesses become increasingly rare, awareness of responsible marketing management practices is growing. Accordingly, relationship marketing strategies have gained importance over the last two decades. While a lot of research has been conducted in large organizations, little is known about how SMEs are implementing such strategies. In particular, little is known how the development of internal trust is used in developing service brands in SMEs. This paper addresses this gap by comparing the development of internal trust in service branding strategies between large organizations and SMEs. Semi-structured interviews with managers of large organizations and owners of SMEs were conducted. The qualitative findings suggest that while there are similarities in the importance placed on the development of internal trust, there are also important differences such as the management practices used to develop trust as well as the motivations behind it.