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When expanding abroad, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) experience various constraints, especially the liabilities of small size and foreignness. In this study, the authors examine postures, capabilities, and strategies related to international brand marketing that help SMEs overcome such challenges, establish a brand presence, and attain superior performance in foreign markets. Framing the investigation in the internationalization and capabilities perspectives, the authors employ multimethod approaches in a two-phase study among internationalizing SMEs based in Taiwan. In the first phase, they undertake an extensive literature review and then conduct case studies to formulate a conceptual model. In the second phase, the authors validate the model and associated hypotheses using survey data from a large sample of SMEs that target their products to markets worldwide. Results point to critical roles for these key constructs—international entrepreneurial orientation, international social media capability, and international market knowledge capability—as key antecedents to international branding capability and international brand strategy, in SMEs' international performance. The authors discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of these findings, highlighting the role of the critical constructs identified previously in driving superior international performance in resource-constrained SMEs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Firms from a variety of industries regularly partner with Formula One racing teams to achieve marketing objectives on an international scale. The sponsored properties offer signals of brand foreignness/localness, country of origin, and the potential for highly visible achievements. Firms enter and exit brand partnerships with some of the world's most famous athletes and iconic teams, yet the partnership decision-making process remains opaque, particularly concerning the impact of geographic origin and team performance among other criteria, including macroeconomic conditions and brand-related factors. This study contributes a quantitative model that analyzes 53 years of data encompassing more than 3,000 sponsorships across six continents. The findings improve understanding of brand partnership continuity/dissolution by explicating a shared nationality effect and a link with sponsored organizational performance that is robust across three distinct eras of Formula One. In doing so, the study contributes to theory by completing the sponsorship performance cycle and distilling partnership limits with regard to brand foreignness. The theory and quantitative analyses are buttressed by interviews with brand decision-makers, excerpts from which also shape the discussion of managerial applications. Implications include efficiencies in partner prospecting that enhance the likelihood of enduring brand relationships in sponsorship-linked international marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade there has been significant interest in international expansion of emerging market firms (EMFs) due to their distinctive patterns compared with developed market firms (DMFs). In this article, the authors develop an analytical model to generate prescriptive insights for pricing strategies when EMFs enter new foreign markets. Grounded in the international marketing and organizational learning literatures, the model accounts for local and multinational competition, the influence of country-of-origin effects, and the role of organizational learning in foreign markets. The results suggest that when an EMF enters a host market with a local competitor, it could generate higher profits even when charging a lower price than the local competitor. Additionally, the authors find that DMFs enjoy greater profitability than EMFs in foreign markets as a result of positive country-of-origin effects. Finally, the authors propose and validate the use of organizational learning as a process EMFs can use to surmount the negative impact of country-of-origin effects and achieve greater profitability than DMFs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marketing products/services internationally entails a bold decision that has high-cost implications and significant performance consequences: Should the firm standardize or adapt its marketing strategy across borders? The dilemma is a seminal issue, and perhaps the most enduring in international marketing scholarship. However, despite the voluminous work on the topic, an ontological assumption induces inconclusive conceptualizations and impedes theoretical advancement. The author contends that a self-contained, atomistic representation of the standardization/adaptation decision is such an impediment. This work problematizes a portrayal of the decision as if it is taken following a detached, own judgment of broad environmental contingencies. In turn, the study builds on fit literature and promotes an alternative perspective that acknowledges relational imperatives for requisite theorizing. Hence, standardization/adaptation is framed as a coconstituted process toward relational fit, with international marketing strategies being contingent on the role of significant "others." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although rapid technological development has resulted in the proliferation of digital platforms, there is limited understanding of these platforms' roles in international markets. Drawing on the information economics perspective, the authors investigate whether live streaming, as an emerging platform-based function, enables foreign sellers to enhance their sales performance in host markets. Using a unique longitudinal data set from a business-to-customer digital platform in China, the authors find that live streaming use is positively associated with international seller sales performance. This positive effect is stronger when cultural distance is higher. Moreover, the influence becomes stronger when product price is higher, while the effect is weaker for name-brand products than for non-name-brand products. These findings provide rich insights on the role of digitalization to the international marketing literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the prominence given to firm-level international experience (IE), there is a dearth of comprehensive and unified conceptualizations of this concept in the literature. This problem necessitates a targeted study to investigate IE, compile its common conceptualization methods, and integrate the existing literature with a new comprehensive approach. The author aims to achieve this by employing Dewey's philosophy to define IE, reviewing 306 high-quality articles to extract extant approaches to the concept, and integrating these results to provide a new conceptualization. This article supports situations as generators of experience and demonstrates that previous approaches primarily focus on only some aspects of IE, overlooking the phenomenon as a whole. The new IE conceptualization is a seven-dimensional construct that includes length, breadth, depth, intensity, diversity, complexity, and echo. Additionally, the author discusses that IE can be analyzed at six levels depending on its origin (entry mode specific, international marketing specific, or both) and geographical scope (regional vs. global). The results provide a robust foundation for scholars and managers aiming to investigate and explore the realm of experiential knowledge and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The marketing literature has long recognized the positive relationship between advertising spending and sales at the firm level. However, this literature overlooks country-level heterogeneity of both the advertising channel and retail format evolution, limiting global managers' understanding of the heterogeneity and evolution of advertising channels and retail formats across country markets and, therefore, managers' ability to effectively formulate a global marketing strategy that adjusts for such differences. The authors call for a glocal approach when considering the association between ad spend by media channels and retail format sales at the country level, accounting for country institutional environments. They explore this topic using a 29-country, seven-year unbalanced panel data set. The authors find that there is substantive heterogeneity in ad spend by media channels and retail format sales across countries. Further, they find that changes in ad spend in specific media channels are positively associated with changes in related retail format sales at the country level, whereas the associations between changes in ad spend in media channels with unrelated retail format sales are more nuanced. The findings are informative to international marketing managers navigating the complex and ever-evolving retail landscape and highlight the importance of thinking globally while acting locally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geospatial data have a long history in marketing research that goes back to Huff's seminal gravity model from the 1960s. Their applications in research and practice range from location-based mobile targeting of individual consumers to store competition analysis and city marketing. In the past decades, geospatial data have become more readily available and have grown considerably in both breadth (i.e., countries and regions covered) and depth (i.e., granularity and diversity of information covered). Nonetheless, international marketing research has not yet fully embraced the opportunities that geospatial data bring to the field. To address this shortcoming, this article shows how geospatial data may propel international marketing research in various domains and develops future research questions for the field. In addition, it introduces OpenStreetMap as a rich geospatial data source to the discipline. The authors illustrate the use of geospatial data in general and OpenStreetMap in particular through a concrete application in which they analyze city center composition in nine countries across three continents. In doing so, they reproducibly describe the extraction of geospatial data, constructions of metrics and operationalizations, and visualizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multinational corporations (MNCs) must balance opportunity-seeking initiatives locally with global programs and imperatives. This balancing act between generating and responding to local insights and exploiting standardized marketing programs calls for some form of marketing agility. Under this lens, this study investigates the relationship between market orientation (MO) and marketing program standardization (MPS)—two critical marketing capabilities—and their dual effects on subsidiary performance. The authors compare the cases of Western MNCs' subsidiaries operating in Japan and Turkey and inquire about the moderating role of a country's economic development (advanced vs. emerging market) and an industry's global competitive interdependence. Analyzing MO at the subcomponent level, they find a positive relationship between responsiveness and MPS in both markets. MPS also functions as a partial mediator between responsiveness and profitability in an advanced market. In an advanced market, both responsiveness and MPS are positively related to profitability and market share. In an emerging market, MPS is negatively related to profitability in support of adapting the marketing program. The results and follow-up discussions with executives from established MNCs support the conceptualization of MO and MPS as reflections of international marketing agility in subsidiaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relationship marketing managers around the world actively try to stimulate customer engagement because of its performance-enhancing effects. Research insights into how to engage customers, such that they voluntarily contribute their resources to support companies' marketing efforts, almost exclusively pertain to individual, domestic markets. However, the prerequisites of customer engagement strategies naturally differ across country-specific market environments. Therefore, the authors develop a conceptual, comprehensive battery of cultural, institutional, societal, and economic country-level contingency factors (CISE indicators) as well as between-country psychic distances on those indicators. A set of 11 high-level research propositions aims to enhance marketing researchers' and managers' understanding of the contingencies of international customer engagement strategy effectiveness and customer engagement's performance ramifications. The analysis reflects the richness and complexity of potential contingency effects across the four CISE categories and encourages empirical research on their separate and joint effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial well-being—the evaluation of current personal finances and expectations for the financial future—has gained attention in research, practice, and policy. Yet, there is no consensus on its conceptualization or its operationalization. The authors contribute to this area of research by proposing a conceptual framework and reassessing a measure used in data on subjective financial well-being from 16 countries. The findings highlight methodological concerns in international marketing studies and show not only financial well-being but also its measures to be context dependent. Furthermore, although many studies use unidimensional financial well-being measures, some conceptualizations have at least two components: a current and a future element. The authors analyze the effects of individual and contextual factors on current and future financial well-being and explore their possible interaction. They observe income to be a significant predictor of both components of financial well-being, while institutional settings are correlated with current financial well-being and national culture with future financial well-being. They conclude that initiatives aimed at increasing financial well-being need to clearly target either its current or its future component as their antecedents differ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does collectivism influence an individual's willingness to trust others? Conflicting empirical results from previous research and the role of trust in international marketing make this question important to resolve. The authors investigate this question across cultures and at the individual level with four studies using multiple methods. Study 1 establishes correlational evidence between societal-level collectivism and individual-level trust propensity with results from a multilevel analysis of data from over 6,000 respondents in 36 countries. Study 2 offers an individual-level analysis using the trust game, introducing a more rigorous behavioral outcome variable. Study 3 contributes causal evidence at the individual level based on experiments in both the United States and China and offers evidence of social projection as the explanatory mechanism. Finally, Study 4 demonstrates managerial relevance by using advertising to prime collectivism and assessing its effect on trust in the firm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the strategic marketing literature promotes ambidexterity as a critical innovation strategy that can enhance firm performance, its value in the international marketing context remains underexplored. Combining the ambidexterity and international marketing literatures, this study investigates how ambidexterity affects performance of the international joint ventures (IJVs) and how parent control asymmetry and cultural distance moderate the effects. Using polynomial analysis, this study simultaneously considers both the balance and intensity elements of ambidexterity and examines their effects on IJV performance in China. The authors argue that ambidexterity balance has a U-shaped effect on IJV performance, whereas ambidexterity intensity exerts an inverted U-shaped effect; such effects are further moderated by the unique features of IJVs—that is, parent control asymmetry and cultural distance. With a data set that combines survey and archival data on IJVs in China, the authors find strong empirical evidence for the hypotheses. These findings offer important advances to innovation research on IJVs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital technologies and digital media are changing the environments in which firms interact with customers. However, the evolution of digital organizational forms, customer technology use, and the nature of customer journeys differ significantly across global markets. Drawing on observations of customer journeys across different international markets, the authors propose a framework to explain the observed differences in terms of the cross-cultural and socioeconomic factors that influence customer journeys. The authors put forth several propositions built on logical extensions of the extant research findings and identify areas for future academic research. In addition, they outline the managerial implications arising from the application of the framework for multinational firms seeking to market their products and services across global markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the impact of digital platforms on international marketing. It describes the evolution of social media and its influence on marketing. After identifying a typology of context for international marketing, the author identifies and describes five dimensions of value creation in marketing: access, affordability, acceptance, awareness, and activation. Finally, this article provides future implications for areas of research in social media and international marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research indicates the importance of new product launches across international markets for firm performance. However, little is known about if, and how, new product launches in international markets drive firm financial value. This study examines the drivers of stock market reactions to a new product introduction in a foreign country, along with the moderating impact of cultural context. Using a sample of 1,154 products in 34 product categories launched in 48 countries between 2011 and 2018, the authors investigate how product characteristics such as product innovativeness and product type affect abnormal stock reactions to a new product launch event. Furthermore, the authors assess the role of the national culture by considering the individualism, uncertainty avoidance, and indulgence characteristics of the country where the new product is launched. Results of a mixed-effects estimation model indicate that product launches in international markets with innovativeness and hedonism characteristics positively affect firm value. The effects of culture are complex and multifarious, providing valuable insights regarding the impact of new product introductions in global markets on firm value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid global economic development and liberalization have increased the motivation and opportunities for firms to enter into international joint venture (IJV) agreements. Numerous studies in the international marketing literature have examined the impact of international partners' cultural differences on IJV longevity; however, results are inconclusive, potentially due to limitations in the methods used. While this study examines the varied impact of cultural differences on IJV longevity based on the IJV's age, it uses quantile regression, enabling the detection of varying effects' strengths across the dependent variable's entire distribution. The results demonstrate variations in the role of cultural differences across individual cultural dimensions as well as variations in the patterns of association between cultural differences and IJV longevity dependent on the IJV's age. Implications for theory and the practice of international marketing are offered as well as potential applications of this study's methodological approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding how consumers use a product's country-of-origin (COO) cue is fundamental to explaining their behavior in a globalized marketplace. While the study of COO is one of the most popular topics in international marketing, the ambiguity regarding its conceptualization, composite nature, operationalization, and measurement deserves further scrutiny. The authors propose an integrative framework that unites two separate areas of research on the COO cue: performance-related COO images and performance-unrelated country emotions. The authors reconcile diverse existing perspectives from both areas into the overarching country-induced predispositions model. Conceptualizations and measurement approaches for the model's five components are developed and empirically validated across three countries and with five COOs. The model offers researchers and managers with an interest in the COO cue a flexible and operational roadmap, with scales both for in-depth analyses and parsimonious additional testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike their counterparts in developed markets, emerging-market firms are characterized by limited resources, including international experience and access to relevant information, which are essential for developing suitable international marketing strategy (IMS). Under such circumstances, strategies are expected to produce suboptimal results, especially when targeting competitive markets in advanced economies. Prior IMS research has largely focused on developed markets. In contrast, the authors examine IMS of exporters in Thailand, an emerging market. Despite major differences in environments and processes in emerging markets, they establish that Thai exporters that match their IMS to local market conditions realize superior performance, as predicated by strategy coalignment. The authors validate these results and discuss emerging-market firms' capacity to adapt their strategies and succeed in highly competitive advanced economies, despite relative inexperience, volatility, and information asymmetry at home. Exporting remains of critical importance to the economies of emerging markets, and the findings provide greater optimism for their firms' ability to address host-market conditions in their marketing strategies, as well as pointing to the competitive threat posed by these emerging-market neophytes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relatively little is known about pricing in the export business, particularly how to organize and implement export pricing within firms and how these issues affect export performance. Therefore, this study investigates antecedents of export performance, specifically the organizational aspects of export pricing and price adaptation and the moderating role of export market characteristics, including export market turbulence, enforcement of contracts, and corruption ranks of the export market. Using a large-scale survey sample of 295 exporting firms in Austria and Germany and secondary data on the export markets involved, the authors show that both the intensity of internal pricing coordination and price adaptation have a positive effect on export performance. Specifically, in highly turbulent export markets, the intensity of internal pricing coordination contributes to export performance. Furthermore, a high level of horizontal dispersion of pricing authority is advisable in countries in which the enforcement of contracts is difficult. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is no intensive review available of research at the interface of international marketing and entrepreneurship. This article systematically logs and organizes the subject matter and provides research suggestions. An organizing framework with three main dimensions—international marketing, the nature of marketing, and entrepreneurship—guides the literature review, which relies on a full search of articles relevant to international marketing and entrepreneurship published in academic journals over the past two decades (1997–2016). The study adopts a qualitative research approach to analyze 169 articles that meet the definitions of both international marketing and entrepreneurship research. Nine research types emerge at the intersection of international marketing and entrepreneurship research, and the study examines the theoretical and empirical trends of each type. A promising avenue for future studies would be cross-cultural comparative research on the individual–opportunity nexus in marketing across countries. More mixed-method and longitudinal research designs are also welcomed. The authors conclude by offering suggestions for future interdisciplinary research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By investigating gendered shopping styles across countries, the authors explore whether the differences between male and female shopping styles are greater than the differences in shopping styles exhibited by consumers across countries. With a conceptual model, this study tests an extant convergence hypothesis that predicts that men and women should grow more similar in their shopping styles as traditional gender-based divisions in wage and domestic labor disappear. The results of a survey of shopping behavior across 11 countries indicate though that men and women are evolutionarily predisposed to different shopping styles. These differences in shopping styles also are greater in countries with higher levels of gender equality. Empathizing, or the ability to tune in to others' thoughts and feelings, mediates shopping styles more for women; systemizing, or the degree to which a person possesses spatial skills, mediates shopping styles more for men. These results suggest that gender-based retail segmentation is more strategically relevant than country-based segmentation. The authors discuss the implications of their findings for international marketing theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) has become a key method in international marketing research. Users of PLS-SEM have, however, largely overlooked the issue of endogeneity, which has become an integral component of regression analysis applications. This lack of attention is surprising because the PLS-SEM method is grounded in regression analysis, for which numerous approaches for handling endogeneity have been proposed. To identify and treat endogeneity, and create awareness of how to deal with this issue, this study introduces a systematic procedure that translates control variables, instrumental variables, and Gaussian copulas into a PLS-SEM framework. We illustrate the procedure's efficacy by means of empirical data and offer recommendations to guide international marketing researchers on how to effectively address endogeneity concerns in their PLS-SEM analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a study on the impacts of discretionary adaptation (DP) on the export performances (EP) of U.S. small and medium-sized enterprises. Topics mentioned include the difference between DP and mandatory adaptation, and the other factors affecting EP including a firm characteristic and product positional advantage. Also explained are the study's theoretical implications for the international marketing literature.

The article discusses a study on the significance of the length of global product rollout (GPR) in the U.S.motion picture industry using the resource-based view (RBV). Topics mentioned include the effects of brand equity, financial resources and competitive intensity on the length of GPR, and the inverse correlation between the length of GPR and GP performance. Also presented are the study's implications for international marketing academics and practitioners.

The article discusses as study which examined four place-related constructs, country and people images, product images, affinity and animosity, among ethnic consumers. Topics covered include the influence of the constructs on consumers' attitudes towards the product of countries perceived as friendly or hostile in relation to their original home countries, the influence of affective and cognitive factors on product and people evaluations, and implications from the findings.

The article discusses a study which distinguished three global customer groups prevalent in countries of various economic development. Topics covered include an introduction to the tenure-based customer retention model, a large-scale consumer study which validated the model, and findings that support the standardization of international marketing over different countries but not across different buyer segments.

The article discusses research which examined the effects of continuity expectations, equity and cooperation on the dysfunctional and productive behaviors of distributors. Topics covered include the effects of relational norms on opportunism in the context of the realities and tests relevant moderating effects of exporting small and medium enterprises (SME), and the role of norms in relationship marketing in structuring the ideology of a business dyad.

Foreign and domestic product purchase behavior largely depends on consumer predispositions. The dominant construct in international marketing literature explaining such behavior has been consumer ethnocentrism, which is conceptually anchored in social identity theory. However, such a perspective overlooks evidence that certain consumers are consistently attracted by the "foreignness" of a product. Drawing from system justification theory, the present investigation conceptualizes and provides an empirical test of the consumer xenocentrism construct that is intended to explain consumer attraction toward foreign products. Using survey data from five complementary studies, the authors develop and validate a new scale (the C-XENSCALE) to measure consumers' xenocentric tendencies and offer extensive evidence on its ability to explain consumer preferences for foreign products. The authors discuss implications of the findings for theory and managerial practice and identify future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation-performance research, when conducted at the firm level, neglects the role of innovation that is created without firm involvement. In this article, the authors test Schumpeter's lone-genius hypothesis: "Change in economic life always starts with the actions of a forceful individual." To do so, the authors introduce country-level internationalizinginnovation profile (IIP), which characterizes a country's innovation resources, and internationalizing-innovation experience (IIE), which characterizes a country's level of patenting activity into the United States. Using fixed-effects panel data analysis for 50 countries from 1990 through 2010, the authors demonstrate that a country's IIP moderated by IIE influences high-technology exports. The findings suggest that lone genius does have an impact, depending on the phase of a country's IIE development. The implications of these findings for theory, public policy, and international marketing managers are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional country-of-origin strategy in international marketing uses a country-image halo to cue beliefs about the country's products. With expansive trade globalization, domestic consumers are likely to have experience with foreign products but know little of the products' origin country. Thus, equally important as traditional theory is the question of whether product beliefs can imbue country image, but little is known of this reverse influence. If product beliefs can generalize into a favorable country image, a chain effect will then enable traditional country-of-origin effects to benefit the country's other products. In this study, the results of three surveys across two countries show that product beliefs can indeed influence country image. However, the influence weakens with increasing country familiarity and exists only when the product and country are congruent. Furthermore, the influence can operate outside of conscious awareness. The authors draw on the associative network theory of memory to explain their findings. This research improves the theoretical understanding of country- and product-image halo and provides the grounds for product and brand managers to work with government and tourist organizations for increasing mutual effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marketing and technological capabilities are major drivers of new product performance. Prior research has suggested that marketing capabilities outperform technological capabilities. This study shows that the relative advantage of marketing over technological capabilities for new product performance depends on the institutional context in a country. Meta-analytic data of 341 effect sizes of the relationship between capabilities and new product performance taken from 50 articles with 57 independent samples and collected in 17 different countries reveal new contingencies to the capabilities framework. Although in general, marketing capabilities have a stronger influence than technological capabilities on new product performance, this effect is moderated by institutional context factors. The relative advantage decreases and even reverses with increasing growth rates; it further decreases with increasingly stronger rules of law in a country; and it increases in societies that put emphasis on self-expression values over survival values. These findings contribute to research on the utility of different capabilities, inform the institution-based view of firms in international marketing, and provide implications for international marketing managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International marketing research has shown vivid interest in consumers' positive dispositions toward foreign countries and globalization. Motivated by the aim to segment international consumer markets, the literature has introduced and adopted a plethora of constructs and measurement instruments to capture such dispositions. However, the current state of literature is problematic because of an unsorted range of constructs with overlapping conceptualizations, diverse operationalizations, and fragmented empirical findings regarding the impact of these constructs on consumer responses. Consequently, making an informed choice on which construct(s) to employ in substantive research (and why) is extremely difficult. This article aims to advance the international marketing literature by (1) developing a conceptual taxonomy of constructs of positive consumer dispositions that highlights their similarities and unique features; (2) undertaking a comprehensive review of the relevant conceptualizations and operationalizations; and (3) providing guidance for further research on positive dispositions, including antecedents, response variables, and potential mediating and moderating influences. To move substantive research in this field further, this article also proposes a research framework that comprises antecedents, causal sequences of dispositions, effects on consumer response variables, and potential boundary conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although collaborative business arrangements based on relationship marketing have become ubiquitous over the past decades, research studies of relationship value in international marketing channels are scarce. Drawing on the relational view of competitive advantage, this study investigates the drivers of relationship value in exporter-importer relationships and its impact on customer loyalty. The study findings reveal that relationship-specific investments, knowledge sharing, complementary capabilities, and relational norms are powerful contributors of importer-perceived value in an overseas supplier relationship. Importantly, exporter cultural sensitivity weakens the negative effect of psychic distance on relationship value; when cultural sensitivity is low, psychic distance takes on greater importance in attenuating relationship value, whereas when cultural sensitivity is high, psychic distance has no discernible effect. In addition, the results demonstrate that relationship value results in insensitivity to competitive offerings and future purchase expansion. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for international marketing theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Companies expend vast resources to create product and brand portfolios in the global marketplace. Yet knowledge of the market-based performance implications of various positions in a firm's portfolio architecture is lacking in the literature. To further the understanding of managing brands in the global marketplace, the authors develop a conceptual framework based on the tenets of signaling theory, explore the relationship between global brand architecture and market-based performance, and consider how culture moderates this relationship. The results of the analyses, from a panel data set of 165 automotive brands operating in 65 countries from 2002 to 2008, reveal that global brands perform better in the marketplace than their nonglobal counterparts. Cultural values indeed provide boundary conditions for this relationship, suggesting that alternative strategies for some markets may be advisable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the growing global importance of sustainability issues, scant research has examined marketing strategy sustain-ability issues in international settings. Although significant prior work has examined drivers and performance consequences of adaptation/standardization of marketing strategies in international markets, researchers have yet to apply this avenue of inquiry to sustainable marketing strategies. Building on contingency theory and the concept of strategic fit, the authors develop a model of drivers of sustainable export marketing strategy adaptation and explore the circumstances under which such a strategy affects export performance. Using a sample of U.K. exporters, they find that various macro- and microenvironmental factors are responsible for sustainable export marketing strategy adaptation, which shapes the nature of sustainable export marketing strategy fit and its export venture performance outcomes. The results indicate that sustainable export marketing strategy adaptation is the outcome of the differences between home and export markets in terms of economic and technological conditions, competitive intensity, customer characteristics, and stakeholder pressures. Moreover, the performance relevance of sustainable export marketing strategy adaptation requires adequate fit with these macro- and microenvironmental factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global usage of the Internet has increased remarkably in the past few decades, thus necessitating a better understanding of e-commerce adoption across cultures. Against this backdrop, this study contributes to the existing technology adoption and acceptance literature in the following ways. First, the authors develop an extended technology acceptance model that incorporates trust and perceived behavioral control and examine it in settings outside the United States to better understand the adoption of e-commerce across cultures. Contrary to the authors' expectations, the predictive power of the technology acceptance model seems robust and holds true for both Pakistan and Canada, despite some noteworthy differences between the two cultures. Second, although the importance of perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness on consumers" intentions to shop online was validated across both cultures, the results highlight the complex relationships between perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and intention to adopt in each country. The authors offer suggestions to technology managers and e-retailers regarding navigating through new technology and e-commerce adoption under various cultural contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychic distance is a key element in the field of international marketing. Unfortunately, the literature exhibits a lack of consistency with respect to its effects. To help increase understanding of the influence of psychic distance, the authors investigate business and cultural psychic distance as separate constructs. They develop a model in which an export manager's business and cultural psychic distance influences the structuring of the export relationship (i.e., whether it has complementarity of capabilities) and explore whether business and cultural psychic distance enhances or dampens the leveraging of complementary capabilities to increase an export manager's satisfaction with export performance. The results, based on a survey of 151 U.S. export managers, indicate that when export managers perceive greater business psychic distance, they select export partners with fewer complementary capabilities. Although more complementarity of capabilities results in greater satisfaction with export performance, this relationship is moderated by psychic distance. Specifically, greater cultural psychic distance enhances the positive influence of partner complementarity of capabilities on satisfaction with export performance, whereas greater business psychic distance dampens the positive influence of partner complementarity of capabilities on satisfaction with export performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has provided limited insight into (1) the cross-national effectiveness of marketing communication aimed at engaging consumers and (2) the moderating role of national characteristics. This study assesses the effectiveness of a cross-national advertising campaign in terms of changing behavioral intentions. The authors examine the moderating effects of country-level indicators representing three institutional pillars (regulative, normative/moral, and cultural-cognitive) on the mediated associations between three advertising persuasion measures (message comprehension, attitude toward the campaign, and message elaboration) and behavioral intentions. The authors examine a multilevel analysis using survey data related to a 25-country advertising campaign to test hypothesized within-country and between-country effects. The results show that message comprehension affects message elaboration less strongly in countries with stronger regulative, normative/moral, and cultural-cognitive pillars. Attitude toward the campaign affects message elaboration less strongly in countries with stronger normative/moral and cultural-cognitive pillars. Message elaboration affects behavioral intention less strongly in countries with a stronger regulative pillar but more strongly in countries with a stronger normative/moral pillar. The authors discuss implications for international marketing theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, export segmentation effectiveness has attracted increasing attention in academic literature. The current study acknowledges this construct's ability to capture the proximal outcomes of export segmentation efforts and contributes to the literature by investigating its key drivers and link to export performance. The results identify export segmentation commitment, export segmentation strategy, and number of segmentation bases used as the key drivers of export segmentation effectiveness. A segments-within-countries strategy proves the most promising choice because it affects all export segmentation dimensions, which, with the exception of cost reduction, are significantly linked to customer satisfaction, strategic export performance, and, ultimately, financial export performance. The findings also provide support for the sequential segmentation → targeting → positioning process and highlight the importance of managerial commitment to export segmentation when facing heterogeneous markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Country-of-origin research has primarily held the view that country-level beliefs influence product-level beliefs. In this study, the authors investigate whether the relationship may also move in the opposite direction. Grounded in prototype theory and schema change theory, this study examines shifts in consumer attitudes toward a country as a result of a brand transgression. The authors confirm the conceptual framework using experimental methods. The results offer evidence of a relationship in which product-level beliefs affect country-level beliefs, a finding that contrasts with the majority of country-of-origin research. The effects of brand transgressions are moderated by the degree of prototypicality of the transgressing brand and the level of development of the transgressing brand's home country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the effect of the chief marketing officer's (CMO) social capital along the dimensions of utilization of managerial ties, trust, and solidarity on his or her influence in the top management team (TMT) in a multicultural context. The study uses primary survey data from 412 CMOs across six country groups (Australia and New Zealand; Austria; Germany; China, including Hong Kong; Singapore; and the United States) to investigate the moderating effects of national culture on the relationship between social capital and the influence of CMOs in the TMT. The findings show that the social capital dimensions of managerial tie utilization and trust are strong drivers of a CMO's influence in the TMT and that these relationships are culturally dependent. Trust tends to be more effective when the national cultural dimensions of collectivism and uncertainty avoidance are high, and solidarity in the CMO's network relationship increases his or her influence only in collectivistic cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much scholarly work has explored the benefits firms accrue from innovation activities. Although some research has shown that firm innovativeness is associated with enhanced export success, the conditions under which firm innovativeness activities are most and least beneficial are not well understood. The authors take a contingency perspective and use social capital theory to investigate how internal channel networking capability and structural factors as well as external environment factors affect the innovativeness-export performance relationship. Analysis of samples of exporting firms from Ghana and Bosnia and Herzegovina indicates that innovativeness is most beneficial for firms operating in competitive and dynamic export markets; those in less competitive and static markets do not benefit from their innovation activities to the same extent. Stronger networking capabilities and a more organic structure also enhance the innovativeness-export performance relationship. The findings imply that the management of firm innovativeness is not a straightforward task in which greater emphasis on innovation activities is always beneficial for firms; rather, exporting organizations must match firm innovativeness levels to external environmental conditions and internal capabilities and structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite growing concerns about environmental issues worldwide, research on the subject in the context of international marketing is virtually absent. The current study sheds light on the green aspects of exporting, using data collected from 216 exporting manufacturers. Drawing on the resource-based view and industrial organization theories, the authors show that certain organizational resources (i.e., financial, physical, and experiential) and capabilities (i.e., shared vision, cross-functional coordination, and technology sensing/response) are conducive to the deployment of an eco-friendly export marketing strategy (comprising product, price, distribution, and promotional elements). Such a strategy is more evident for exporters of industrial (vs. consumer) goods as well as for firms that sell to developed (vs. developing) countries. The results also suggest that the adoption of a green export marketing strategy has a positive effect on the firm's export performance. In addition, the authors find that the strength of the link between eco-friendly export marketing strategy and export performance is positively moderated by foreign market environmental public concern and competitive intensity [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]