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As companies expand their international footprint, insight regarding how to effectively organize international selling and sales management (ISSM) efforts is becoming increasingly important. Unfortunately, most prior research on personal selling and sales management is grounded in a domestic market perspective, which limits the relevance of its findings to situations in which sales activities occur between stakeholders located in different national markets. This special issue responds to the need for dedicated research on ISSM through six articles that explore phenomena arising from the interaction between international salespeople and international customers and their domestic counterparts. Moreover, this editorial builds on these six articles to advance a research agenda rooted in an interaction-based conceptualization of the ISSM field that identifies areas of inquiry related to international salespeople, international customers, and international managers, and subsequently prioritizes these research opportunities using input provided by sales practitioners. This special issue and editorial thus identify critical, underexplored research topics in the ISSM domain that are accompanied by a series of illustrative examples of how best to contribute to this emerging but important literature stream. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This article aims to provide greater clarity regarding the conceptualization and critical role of digital marketing ecosystems for the global expansion of multinational enterprises (MNEs) and offer novel research directions to prompt future research. Design/methodology/approach: The authors first review the marketing literature related to marketing ecosystems, highlighting the evolution of this body of work across a range of domains such as services, innovation and new product development, communications and marketing strategy more broadly. Next, two case examples of MNEs whose global expansion efforts have been supported by their marketing ecosystems are used to highlight the role of marketing ecosystems in global market expansion. Finally, novel research directions are offered to prompt future research and provide greater insight into this emerging area. Findings: The case examples we examine yield important insights into the role of marketing ecosystems for MNEs expanding from emerging markets (EMs) to developed markets (DMs). EM-MNEs such as TEMU face more communication and payment ecosystem challenges while opening their supply chain to DMs. Contrary to EM-MNEs, DM-MNEs face institutional and sociocultural challenges that require different marketing ecosystem orchestration approaches. Originality/value: Marketing ecosystems can provide MNEs with greater multinational flexibility, enabling them to adapt their global strategies to navigate increasing complexities in global markets, such as trends toward increased protectionism and geopolitical disruptions. However, there is surprisingly little research addressing this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the sharing literature makes claims of uniqueness relative to traditional markets, we show how any market can be understood by positioning salient actors in terms of social distance, and understanding the degree of mutuality in their norms. We introduce the Generalized Exchange Framework, which offers a theoretically rigorous model for understanding and managing any market. An ethnographic study of the craft beer industry illustrates elements of both mutuality and possessive individualism, highlighting normative structures influencing actors in firms' environments. We offer managerial implications based on an understanding of the degree to which industry actors value mutuality to differing degrees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the foreign market entry (FME) strategy of firms in the computer and office equipment and furniture sectors in four European countries. Bradley and Gannon identify four factors as having managerial implications for FME mode choice--namely, the generic marketing strategy of the firm, the level of demand uncertainty, the existence of transaction costs, and the level of value added in upstream activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study examining the effectiveness of intra-firm knowledge transfer based on the current knowledge as well as on two key factors, is presented. These two factors are willingness of employees to use the existing knowledge and to build upon it.