New product promotion is an expensive and time-consuming process that suffers from a high failure rate. Scholars have examined the relationships between product introduction and sales force management, but the importance of the sales force in selling new products can still be further explored (Fu, Richards, , Hughes, , & Jones, 2010; Spanjol, Tam, Qualls, & Bohlmann 2011). The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of perceived sales management controls on a salesperson’s new products sales performance (i.e., electronic goods) in a business-to-business context. In addition, the direct, mediated, and moderating influences of market orientation on sales performance will also be investigated.Through the literature reviewed (e.g., Evans, Landry, Li, & Zou, 2007; Matsuo, 2009; Matear, Osborne, Garrett, & Gray, 2002), this paper proposes its hypotheses. In terms of the antecedents of sales performance, this research focuses on the effects of innovativeness (Matsuo, 2009). Second, based on the works of Evans et al. (2007) and Matsuo (2009), this study proposes that management controls (i.e., behavior-based control, knowledge-based control, and output-based control) both directly and indirectly affect sales department performance by first influencing innovativeness. Third, this research intends to examine the effect of organization psychological climate, which is market orientation, on the innovativeness and performance of sales departments (Matear et al., 2002). Finally, this study investigates the moderating effects of an organization’s market orientation on the relationship between sales innovativeness and performance (Matear et al., 2002).EMBA and MBA students were recruited as interviewers to gather data. The companies involved in this study were electronics product manufacturers that were publicly listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. A total of 315 complete responses were obtained. The target research question was “what are the determinants of a sales department’s new product sales performance?” This study used partial least squares (PLS) to examine the proposed model.This research found that sales department innovativeness is positively linked with new product sales performance. For the effectiveness of management controls, the results show that sales management controls (i.e., output-based control, behavior-based control, and knowledge-based control) positively affect department innovativeness but cannot influence performance directly. As for marketing orientation’s influences, this current research confirmed an organization’s market orientation-ness cannot positively affect sales department’s innovativeness and performance when selling new product. However, market orientation can positively moderate the relationship between innovativeness and performance. Based on the findings of this research, managerial implications have been put forth.

Following more than thirty-five years of ten percent per annum growth, China is now the second largest economy in the world (Worldbank.org, 2014). Although some cooling has occurred in the past few years, China’s continued growth, expanding middle and upper classes, increasing tendency to follow the rule of law (accelerated by WTO entry in 2001), and a seemingly unlimited labor pool coupled with modest wages, have motivated entry by businesses from around the world. The result? China is an intensely competitive environment, with global companies battling each other for securing supply chain partners and/or developing Chinese domestic markets. And, the competitive battle is not just between global brands. Chinese companies, including State Owned Enterprises (SOEs), are intent on modernizing operations and changing business practices to be able to earn customer loyalty in both domestic and global markets.mostly focused on practices in North America and Europe. Meanwhile, KAM is on the rise in China, with Non-Chinese (WOFEs and JVs) and Chinese suppliers developing KAM platforms. KAM is a system of customer-driven resources dedicated to achieving profitable growth by providing special personnel and/or special activities to an organization’s most important customers (Homburg, Workman, & Jensen, 2000). Through KAM, there is the expectation that vendors benefit (Stevenson, 1981), enhancing profitability through appropriate resource commitments and effective value-based pricing (Ryals, 2006) and through greater switching costs to customers (Sengupta, Krapfel, & Pusateri, 1997). KAM is considered such a valued approach for serving key accounts that Friend and Johnson (2013) call it an “imperative for facilitating a firm’s long-term viability”.Over the past decade, we have interacted with hundreds of Chinese KAM personnel from non-Chinese wholly owned foreign enterprises (WOFEs), joint ventures (JVs) between Chinese and Western partners, and Chinese suppliers, discussing their KAM activities, along with their challenges a nd uncertainties in growing key account relationships. These KAM-involved companies range from component parts manufacturers, financial services providers, and pharmaceutical companies, among many more. In this rapidly evolving landscape, key accounts are located at each step of supply chains. For instance, in consumer markets Western retailers such as Walmart and Carrefour and Chinese retailers such as Bailian (Brilliance) Group in supermarkets and Gome in appliances are among the key accounts pursued by thousands of WOFE/JV and Chinese suppliers. In another instance, while WOFE/JV car manufacturers compete with Chinese car manufacturers such as SAIC Motor Corporation Limited, Chang’an Motors, FAW Group, and Dongfeng Motors, among others, to win the hearts and minds of consumers, nearly countless Chinese and non-Chinese suppliers compete for preferred status with each of these key accounts. The result of the intense competitive landscape across so many industries in China is that KAM is a lever embraced by both Chinese and non-Chinese suppliers.There are many reasons why Western-based KAM research cannot be presumed to apply to China. Among these, China’s market development path and scale, Chinese culture, and the Chinese state capitalism system create conditions that are distinctly China. By taking into account China differences, our major contribution is to introduce a KAM research agenda for China. A China-based KAM research agenda broadens the scope of analysis to one of the most compelling markets in the world. Guided by our knowledge of KAM literature, accompanied by extensive hands-on experience in China, we make propositions regarding conditions where WOFE and JV suppliers are at a competitive advantage or disadvantage relative to Chinese suppliers. We emphasize the role of guanxi relationships and how these relationships affect suppliers and key accounts behaviors including retention of key accounts, information sharing, and demands made by key accounts. We further propose that these relationships are affected by company-to-company matches/mis-matches. Finally, to fully understand the KAM landscape in China, we also encourage an expanded view of issues to include the effects on KAM of the ever-present Chinese government.

The importance of frontline employees (FLEs) for the success of organizations is recognized by researches and practitioners alike. However, their importance for the innovativeness of companies resulting from their boundary spanning role is often underestimated and has received little attention in prior research. The present paper identifies individual and firm-level factors that explain variations in idea collecting behaviors of FLEs. To test the hypotheses, data was collected from 31 different managers from the automotive, construction, IT, machinery, and chemicals sectors. In addition, a total of corresponding 237 FLEs were surveyed and matched to the firm-level data. Results of our study show that FLEs’ idea gathering is positively influenced by job satisfaction, desire for upward mobility, and lack of resources. Role ambiguity between FLEs and the employer decreases FLEs intention to gather ideas. Dissemination behavior is enforced by inter-sender role conflicts and reduced by role conflicts resulting from a lack of resources. Both dimensions of idea generation depend on the presence of a strong internal network. On a firm-level, learning orientation and providing feedback to FLEs are found to strengthen the interrelationship between idea gathering and dissemination. Based on these findings, implications for management and research are derived.

Recently, a television commercial by the Japanese tire manufacturer Autoway went viral on the Internet and received more than 3 million hits on YouTube. The advertisement, which depicts a car driver’s encounter with a grisly figure during a snowstorm, is preceded by a health warning: "Not for the faint of heart. We shall not be liable for any injuries, illness, and damages claimed to be caused by watching the contents." The popularity of this commercial, which explicitly points to its fear-inducing message, attests to the fact that fear appeals in advertising can draw attention. An area where fear appeals are particularly prevalent is social marketing. According to Kotler, Roberto, and Lee (2002), social marketing can be used to improve health, prevent injuries, protect the environment, and promote community involvement. Many of these issues, e.g., cancer screening, seat belt use, environmental pollution, or organ donations, are linked to negative consequences based on the action or inaction of consumers, which consequently lend themselves to fear appeals in advertising. Fear has been used in social marketing campaigns for various issues, such as road safety (Transport Accident Commission, 2002) or smoking (DeJong & Hoffman, 2000), as it can enhance the effectiveness of advertising but also lead to unintended side effects (Hastings, Steed, & Webb, 2004). While the literature has focused on the effectiveness of fear appeals, the effect of scary advertisements or public service announcements on consumers’ perceptions of other commercials surrounding them has been often overlooked. Social marketers might successfully use fear appeals in public service announcements, but the same advertisements could have an adverse effect on the effectiveness of the commercials surrounding them. In this study, we will investigate the carryover effects of public service announcements using fear appeals. Specifically, the goal of this research is to study the effects of fear appeals on the evaluation of commercials that follow.The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. First, we will give an overview of the influence advertisers have on the scheduling of commercials. In the following section, the literature on advertising context effects is reviewed and a hypothesis regarding the effects of fear-inducing public service announcements on the evaluation of subsequent commercials is developed. After the methodology section, the results of a laboratory experiment testing the hypothesis are presented and discussed.

Small- and medium-sized industrial companies in Germany and Russia mostly attach little importance to brand management and practice it only fragmentarily. Against this background, the relevance of brand management for these firms in B2B-markets is demonstrated. Beginning with a look at the importance of B2B brands for corporate success, relevant starting points for a successful brand management in B2B settings are shown, as far as these are supported by empirical research. The findings indicate the importance of internal as well as external dimensions of B2B brand management.

During the last decades more and more consumers worldwide, started integrating environmental considerations into daily purchases what leads the so-called ‘green consumer’ to ask for healthier, safer, and better quality food. Nonetheless, a deeper understanding of value dimensions consumers across nations perceive in the context of organic food products is still required to develop successful management strategies which might transfer positive consumer perceptions to satisfaction and resulting buying behavior. Against this backdrop, the present study focuses on a) the antecedents leading to the consumption of organic food products and b) the identification of differences regarding the relative importance of the value-based drivers across US and German consumers

The main purpose of this paper is to find the etic dimensions of beliefs towards comparative advertising (CA) and to test their relationship with global attitude and acceptance of CA in a cross-cultural setting. Samples from four linguistic and cultural different countries were used: Austria, Canada, China and Peru. The research instrument was an online questionnaire. Results uncovered three main etic belief dimensions: truthfulness and deceitfulness as societal (micro) variables, and product information as personal (micro) variable. Invariance tests indicate that the items comprising the scales proposed to measure CA beliefs, global attitude and acceptance of CA possess equivalence across the four countries. Our model shows that beliefs indirectly affect acceptance of CA, which is mediated by global attitude toward CA. Results reveal similarities and differences across countries on the magnitude and importance of the beliefs and global attitude total effects upon acceptance. Finally, results are analyzed vis-à-vis the Hofstede’s national cultural dimensions, which indicate that uncertainty avoidance and individualism/collectivism help to explain the main differences across the countries.

This study of Product Placements examines cross-cultural differences in the UK, Germany and Mexico using an online survey of 338 respondents. Although product placement can still be used as a standardised global marketing strategy significant cultural differences were found, Marketers must therefore pay attention to such differences for international product placement decisions.

Despite an extensive liberalization of the Chinese economy, cultural differences between western countries and China still affect international business relations. This qualitative study reveals that German professionals encounter significant cultural resistance in Chinese business environments. The results emphasize relationship orientation is a core element for successful Sino-German communication.

This study investigated the perception of the coupon benefit and behavioral response to the coupon. Consumer activism was tested as a moderator. All of the hypothesized relationships were supported. The multi-group differential test revealed that the perceptions of coupon benefit were significantly different between highly and less active consumers.

Employing a 2 (Source disclosure: Health agency vs. Co-created) x 2 (Co-creator identity: General vs. Specific) between-subjects fractional factorial design, this research explores how the disclosure of consumer involvement in developing public health messages can increase advertising effectiveness. This effect is enhanced by revealing the co-creator’s identity and experience with the health issue.

Today's dynamic market necessitates the need for the marketing communication stimuli, which engages with the audience as consumers have become less attentive to traditional advertising. It is imperative to gain deeper understanding of how brand evaluations and subsequently brand relationships are created to allow for a successful marketing strategy. Within that context, the role of characters becomes important in placing brands in TV programmes as results of this study indicate that only character interacting with the placed brands were significant for the audience's likelihood to talk about the brands shown in a given placement sequence. Thus, industry practitioners may need to identify clear outcomes for the placed brand (generate awareness, enduring attitude/likability) before adopting the placement modality and media vehicle for its execution. The findings from this study provide promising results to strengthen the growing evidence of the importance engaging consumer experiences for effective buzz-marketing.

This study compares the male and female attitudes towards sexual imagery in press advertising and identifies the demographic and psychographic factors influencing their attitudes. Although this topic has received previous attention in literature, genders’ attitudes have not been exclusively compared and particularly not with a view to the factors influencing these attitudes. We employed qualitative methodology to gain a greater understanding of the participants’ views. The findings revealed the significance of gender and age on shaping consumers’ attitude. The contrast between male and female attitudes was undeniable, however overall interviewees implied their growing indifference to the genre.

This paper investigates how promotions of knowledge and social embeddness shape consumers’ participation in sustainable consumption. An extended model of goal-directed behaviour is tested under airline consumers who have participated in voluntary carbon offset (VCO) program. Results show consumer’s knowledge positively influences their subjective norm but not their attitude towards participation of VCO. Increasing consumers’ sense of social embeddedness is also found to be crucial in forming subjective norm and their attitude. Finally, positive anticipated emotion influences consumers’ desire to participate in VCO, while negative anticipated emotion did not. The findings of this research reveal how interactive promotions influence individual’s internal processes for sustainable consumption, as well as highlight the need for different emotional elicitation strategies for different sustainability programs.

This research employs two studies to examine the effects of individuals’ (promotion versus prevention) regulatory focus on a variety of environmentally responsible reactions. Results of Study 1 revealed a significant positive correlation between chronic promotion focus and general environmental concern but no significant correlation between chronic prevention focus and environmental concern. Study 2 examined the relationships between an individual’s regulatory focus, both measured and primed, and environmental concern, attitudes toward and intentions to perform environmentally responsible behaviors, and affect toward self and others who did or did not engage in environmentally responsible behaviors. The influence of regulatory fit (i.e., promotion focus & recycle message; prevention focus & reduce message) on these same variables was also investigated. Results showed that participants’ general environmental concern, attitudes toward and intentions to act on specific conservation messaging, and positive emotions toward themselves and others that do respond favorably to the messages intensified as their chronic promotion focus rose. A positive relationship between chronic promotion focus and negative emotions directed at others that do not make an effort to do what the conservation message advocates was also evident. In addition, general environmental concern fully mediated the effect of chronic promotion focus on positive emotions as a result of others’ environmentally responsible actions. Partial mediation via environmental concern also takes place on intentions to follow the message advice and positive emotions directed toward oneself on doing so. Chronic prevention focus was not significantly related with general environmental concern, attitudes toward or intentions to engage in the recommended conservation behavior. As participants’ chronic prevention focus rose however, their negative emotions as a result of they themselves as well as others not following this advice increased. Study 2 also revealed that priming a promotion focus strengthened environmentally responsible attitudes and intentions, and positive emotions toward others that behaved responsibly. Results also showed that a promotion prime also triggered greater negative emotions directed at others that did not behave responsibly. Conversely, a prevention focus prime did not significantly alter attitudes or intentions to do as the conservation message advocated. Further testing revealed greater positive affect toward others’ environmental responsibility as a result of prevention priming. No fit effects between chronic or primed regulatory (promotion or prevention) focus and conservation messages (framed as recycle, reduce, or recycle and reduce) were found in this study however. This lack of effects may have been due to the majority of participants inferring that the conservation messages contained both recycle and reduce components regardless of the type of message they viewed. This work has extended our understanding of Regulatory Focus Theory by demonstrating the relationship of promotion focus to environmental concern and its influence on environmental attitudes and intentions. Our results suggest that environmentally responsible attitudes and intentions may be encouraged by fostering the adoption of a promotion focus. Our results further suggest that fostering a promotion focus may yield both positive affect for self and others who do behave in an environmentally responsible manner and negative affect for self and others who do not behave in an environmentally responsible manner.

Although vast research has been done to better understand brand knowledge, few studies explore the conscious and the unconscious mental processes that increase brand equity when a brand is linked with value adding entities like persons, events or symbols. In our paper we introduce an integrated approach that includes both the explicit and implicit facets of customers’ brand knowledge and the leveraging effects when a brand is framed by another entity. In order to analyze brand knowledge enhancement effects in sufficient detail, we fall back on the multifaceted model of brand leverage by combining a brand with an external label. Our study results show that the combination of measuring implicit and explicit facets of brand knowledge is a better indicator to predict brand knowledge enhancement, and also that the analysis of subconscious processes help to better position the linked object in customers’ perception in order to foster the brand leveraging success.Although vast research has been done to better understand brand knowledge, few studies explore the conscious and the unconscious mental processes that increase brand equity when a brand is linked with value adding entities like persons, events or symbols. In our paper we introduce an integrated approach that includes both the explicit and implicit facets of customers’ brand knowledge and the leveraging effects when a brand is framed by another entity. In order to analyze brand knowledge enhancement effects in sufficient detail, we fall back on the multifaceted model of brand leverage by combining a brand with an external label. Our study results show that the combination of measuring implicit and explicit facets of brand knowledge is a better indicator to predict brand knowledge enhancement, and also that the analysis of subconscious processes help to better position the linked object in customers’ perception in order to foster the brand leveraging success.

The world has changed dramatically, and the concern with regard to environmental and social impacts of economic activity have become hot issues that have been extensively discussed. Many marketers are applying sustainability as the part of their CSR and consumers are becoming more involved in ethical value of sustainable issues. However, yet, most people still perceive sustainable products as “alternatives” due to various reasons like price, design or simply unfamiliarity with the brand (Niinimaki, 2010). In a current situation where more and more brands are coming to the market offering the variety of choice of sustainable product, brand popularity can be a signal, or cue that help consumers to decide those of unfamiliar sustainable brand because brand popularity can influence the evaluation and decision in the sense that consumers perceive popular brand not only as trustworthy, but also superior to others (Dean, 1999).In terms of brand popularity, “popular” brands tend to acquire more favorable evaluations and larger user shares with, rather than without the popularity component. However, with such characteristics, brand popularity concept can be used within a cue utilization theory, which suggests that products consist of an array of cues (extrinsic and intrinsic) that serves as indicators of quality for consumers when they make decisions related to the product (Olsen, 1972), delivering brand popularity by extrinsic cue through advertising. In addition, the signaling theory suggests that when brand is ranked as popular, consumers assume there are trust and confidence behind the brand, which reduce their level of uncertainty (Dean, 1999). As such, while it has been argued that this cue could be useful as it provides a certain value to consumers and influence their opinion about the brand and, consequently, purchase decision, up to now, there are little studies that use the brand popularity concept as extrinsic cue.Along with the issue of brand popularity, although different consumers around the world make their decisions based on their own mental or physiological orientation, and the difference among consumer behavior has been widely studied and reported, yet, most of sustainable marketing campaigns are made in the similar fashion, without adapting them to specific traits of consumers in different countries. However, in order for sustainable The world has changed dramatically, and the concern with regard to environmental and social impacts of economic activity have become hot issues that have been extensively discussed. Many marketers are applying sustainability as the part of their CSR and consumers are becoming more involved in ethical value of sustainable issues. However, yet, most people still perceive sustainable products as “alternatives” due to various reasons like price, design or simply unfamiliarity with the brand (Niinimaki, 2010). In a current situation where more and more brands are coming to the market offering the variety of choice of sustainable product, brand popularity can be a signal, or cue that help consumers to decide those of unfamiliar sustainable brand because brand popularity can influence the evaluation and decision in the sense that consumers perceive popular brand not only as trustworthy, but also superior to others (Dean, 1999). In terms of brand popularity, “popular” brands tend to acquire more favorable evaluations and larger user shares with, rather than without the popularity component. However, with such characteristics, brand popularity concept can be used within a cue utilization theory, which suggests that products consist of an array of cues (extrinsic and intrinsic) that serves as indicators of quality for consumers when they make decisions related to the product (Olsen, 1972), delivering brand popularity by extrinsic cue through advertising. In addition, the signaling theory suggests that when brand is ranked as popular, consumers assume there are trust and confidence behind the brand, which reduce their level of uncertainty (Dean, 1999). As such, while it has been argued that this cue could be useful as it provides a certain value to consumers and influence their opinion about the brand and, consequently, purchase decision, up to now, there are little studies that use the brand popularity concept as extrinsic cue. Along with the issue of brand popularity, although different consumers around the world make their decisions based on their own mental or physiological orientation, and the difference among consumer behavior has been widely studied and reported, yet, most of sustainable marketing campaigns are made in the similar fashion, without adapting them to specific traits of consumers in different countries. However, in order for sustainable brand to become main stream it is important to understand how the traits of consumers from other countries differ. Thus, it is important to understand the cultural difference in terms of marketing.Therefore, this study adapts brand popularity concept as an extrinsic cue that serves as a certain indicator for consumers (Dean, 1999) and consumer decision making styles as mental characteristics for shopping orientation (Sproles & Kendall, 1986) in order to see cross-cultural difference in consumers’ perception of sustainability brand among 3 countries: Korea, China and Russia. Choice of countries is not only resulting from the difference in behavior and attitudes towards sustainable consumption of Greendex (National Geographic & Globescan, 2013), but also, the difference among countries even when belonging as a part of Asia. Thus this study investigates overall consumers’ decision making style among three countries of South Korea, China, and Russia to find the effect of brand popularity on brand evaluation. Additionally, the moderating effect of fashion leadership and sustainability involvement was preceded. From this, it aims to provide implication for positioning and marketing sustainable brand in accordance to the difference consumer segmentation. A study was designed to determine which dimensions of consumer style inventory of country are most frequently associated in accordance to countries and whether brand popularity had affect on purchase intention of sustainable brand. The hypotheses were tested with a data set developed form field survey. The study was conducted cross-nationally in Korea, China, and Russia using online and offline survey. The survey questionnaire reflected a quasi-experimental design. The between-subjects design employed consisted of two between-subject factors of brand popularity and consumer decision-making style. The factor brand popularity had two levels: one provided with a brand popularity ranking as an extrinsic cue and one without. The resultant questionnaire was pretest by natives before distributing. No discrepancies among the surveys were reported. The consumer decision making style had three levels of Korea, China, and Russia. The questionnaire was pretest by 30 fashion marketing researchers before distributing. Of the 376 samples collected, 6 were returned incomplete. An additional 18 samples were deleted for further analysis as the answers were unusable. In total 352 samples – 113, 121 and 118 samples from Korea, China and Russia respectively – were subjected for final analysis.A one-way MANOVA revealed a significant multivariate main effect for consumer decision making style of the nation (Pillai’s trace = .23, F (10, 676) = 9, p <. 000). Given the significance of the overall test, the univariate main effects were examined. Significant univariate main effects for consumer decision making style of nation were obtained for quality (F = 6.95, p <.01), for uniqueness (F =7.54 , p <.01), for favorability (F =6.94 , p <.01), and for purchase intension (F =4.33 , p <.05). Significant nation pairwise differences were obtained in popularity among Korea, China, and Russia. In case of Korea, the effect of brand popularity yielded significantly higher mean score when it was presented. However, for China, the effect of brand popularity was significant as well (Pillai’s trace = .10, F (5, 114) = 2.45, p <. 05). Meanwhile, the outcome of Russia had different aspect to the prior two countries with no significant difference at all. The t-test provides evidence to support the claim that the effect of brand popularity differs according to the consumer decision making style of nations. Participants were placed into "high" or "low" fashion leader groups on the basis of previously obtained attitude. The group was divided according to the mean value (X = 2.98). Significant nation pairwise differences were obtained in fashion leadership among Korea, China, and Russia. In case of Korea, the effect of fashion leadership was not shown significant. However for China, the effect of fashion leadership was significant (Pillai’s trace = .31, F (5, 114) = 10.27, p <. 001). Russia also had dramatic effect of fashion leadership (Pillai’s trace = .12, F (5, 110) = 3.03). Significant nation pairwise differences were obtained in sustainability involvement among Korea, China, and Russia. The significant dependent variables appear differed by nations. In case of Korea, the effect of sustainability involvement was significant (Pillai’s trace = .17, F (5, 105) = 4.33, p <. 01). Similarly, the effect of sustainability involvement in China was significant (Pillai’s trace = .20, F (5, 114) = 5.82, p <. 001). The result of Russian was not significant. This study examines the overall effect of brand popularity and consumer decision making styles among three countries: South Korea, China, and Russia on customer evaluation of sustainable brand with the moderate role of fashion leadership and sustainability involvement. This study found that the effect of brand popularity differs according to the consumer decision making style of nations, fashion leadership, and sustainability involvement. Thus, consumer culture should be considered when applying such communication strategy. The result revealed that first hypothesis that brand popularity will affect consumer evaluation on the sustainable brand was denied. This can be explained due to the experimental condition of this study where it applied a virtual brand and the virtual institutions for evaluation. However, in more specific, this can be described as due to the cross national method of this study. The previous studies only focus on proceeding study in one country (Kim & Chung,1997; Rao & Monroe, 1988). It was found that Koreans tend to be more recreational, impulsive, confused by overchoice, brand conscious, and habitual whereas China brand conscious, impulsive, and less confused by overchoice. Russia was scored significantly low on all above mentioned criteria. The moderating effect of consumer decision making style of nation was investigated. The result indicated significant difference of consumer decision making style of nation. Whereas Korean had positive effect of brand popularity on brand evaluation when presented, China showed negative influence, and Russia had no significant impact. This can be due to the Korean consumers’ tendency to value trust and reputation. Individual Korean consumers tend to buy products of large we The third hypothesis of fashion leadership negatively affecting the effect of brand popularity was also partially supported. The significant dependent variables appear differed by nations. In case of Korea, the effect of fashion leadership did not shown significant, yet China and Russia did. However, while China had positive effect of brand popularity, especially to those with high fashion leadership, Russia had negative effect of brand popularity. The difference on consumer decision making style in between high and low fashion leadership groups was investigated. For Korea, involved subjects were significantly more novelty conscious, hedonic shopper, habitual. In case of China, involved subjects were significantly more perfectionism, brand conscious, novelty conscious, impulsive, confused by overchoice, and habitual Lastly, for Russia, involved subjects were significantly less brand conscious novelty conscious, hedonic, impulsive, and habitual. The result of Korea can be inferred as the high trend sensitivity of Koreans. With less difference in consumer decision making style in between high fashion leaders and low fashion leaders, compared to the other two countries, the effect may have not been clearly shown. The result of China and Russia can be interpreted as that the Chinese fashion leaders being more brand conscious caused higher result when the brand popularity was provided. Yet, in Russian fashion leaders who are less brand conscious and less impulsive may have affected the rigid attitude towards the well-known sustainable brand. Lastly, the effect of sustainability involvement was examined. In case of Korea, the effect of sustainability involvement was significant. Similarly, the effect of sustainability involvement in China was significant. The result of Russian was not significant. "high" and "low" fashion leadership groups differed in their decision making style by nation. For Korea, involved subjects were significantly more novelty conscious, hedonic shopper, and more habitual. In case of China, involved subjects were significantly more perfectionist, brand conscious, novelty conscious, hedonic, impulsive, confused by overchoice, and habitual. Lastly, for Russia, involved subjects were significantly more perfectionist. The difference of the result can be explained through the distinctive culture of each country along with the result of the consumer decision making style of the highly involved groups from each country. Koreans, as mentioned above, the effect popularity cue works stronger than other countries. The tendency of preferring products with powerful brand name would have affected the result as expected. However in case of China, along with that Chinese having suspicious perception on institutional documents, significantly being brand apathy may also explain the result. In addition, Russia overall had a high score of sustainability, which can relate to the fact that although slight decrease in its Greendex recently, it has been ranked for several years now, the sustainability value itself may have worked as a intrinsic value of the brand rather than brand popularity cue.ll-known companies rather than small and unfamiliar ones (Kim & Zhang, 2009). The result of China can be explained with Chinese consumers’ characteristics of having suspicious perception on transparency of the enterprise information (Brandvista, 2013). Especially distrust on official data or the governmental exists. With Russians result, this finding are supported by several previous research that suggests that new brands coming to Russian market at the very high speed and disappears quickly due to complexity of the market, thus consumers don’t have time to strongly attach to one brand (Peskova, 2007).

This study explores the concept of religiosity and determines how it affects a consumer's preference of socialization agents. It is shown that higher degrees of religiosity cause an individual to utilize personal socialization agents for final purchase decisions. The authors then show and discuss how the socialization agents chosen by a consumer influence how a consumer favors moral advertising or tolerates offensive advertising. Results gleaned from the analysis show that higher use of personal socialization agents will cause an individual to have lower tolerance of offensive advertising and higher favoritism toward moral advertising. Religious affiliation is also found to play a moderating role for religious individuals when determining the use of socialization agents. Two countries were chosen, Korea and America, to conduct a find common ground on the types of advertising that is considered favorable or offensive by both of the two very different cultures and peoples.

Questionnaires are an important source of data in marketing research. Unfortunately, survey data is often confounded by response styles such as acquiescence response style, disacquiescence response style, extreme response style and midpoint response style. Researchers can use different rating scale formats, which basically differ on two major dimensions, namely Polarity (unipolar versus bipolar) and Anchoring (only positive numbers or negative and positive numbers). To investigate which scale format performs best in terms of minimizing different response styles, we set up an experiment in which we manipulate Polarity and Anchoring. An online survey (N=337) shows strong effects of Polarity and Anchoring on response distributions and provides evidence for the superiority of the unipolar scale format with positive anchors.

Entrepreneurship and marketing are two disciplines whose paths have intersected frequently, because the underlying orientation of each relates to markets and customer needs (Hills and LaForge, 1992). The most common argument surrounding this relationship has been that entrepreneurs do not follow the mainstream approach taken by large corporations when performing marketing functions. Consequently, many researchers have attempted to better understand how marketing is performed differently by entrepreneurs. Interestingly, however, extant research has tended to overlook the sui generis relationship between the entrepreneur and his firm, and the impact that such relationship potentially has on both the entrepreneur and his firm/brand.The missing link in entrepreneurial branding, we believe, lies in further understanding the dynamic that exists between the entrepreneur’s roles and his firm’s growth. Our thesis is that the entrepreneur assumes different roles in order to develop and grow his firm/brand and a newly created social structure, and eventually matures into a sense of belonging and commitment to his firm/brand that potentially attracts and retains all the other stakeholders associated with the firm/brand. This may be regarded as an identity construction process which is triggered by the entrepreneur and permeates into his firm/brand. In their cross-disciplinary exploration of entrepreneurship research, Ireland and Webb (2007) identified identity construction as one of the three broad concepts around which multilevel entrepreneurship theory can develop.Qualitative data were collected through a total of 25 in-depth semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs from the U.K., Guatemala and Colombia. Informed Grounded Theory by Thornberg (2012) was used as a data analysis approach, permitting an empirical understanding of entrepreneurial branding illuminated by extant literature on branding, entrepreneurship and identity. Data analysis revealed that entrepreneurs whose businesses are growing are involved in a variety of actions that compel them to embrace three different roles. The first role, identified as the Entrepreneur Strategist, encompasses the triggering elements through which the entrepreneur creates the foundations and key purposes of his firm. The second role, identified as the Entrepreneur Sense-giver, captures the actions that the entrepreneur undertakes to embed his central beliefs, values and personal assumptions through his daily experiences with his employees in the firm. The third role, identified as the Entrepreneur Developer, captures the various actions that the entrepreneur embraces to permeate his firm’s and brand’s essence to the outside world, including the customers. Our study also supports the notion that the identity of an entrepreneur is a co-creation of an individual identity and a social identity. Our argument implicitly bridges the two traditionally disconnected perspectives of Identity Theory and Social Identity Theory through the entrepreneurship process. More specifically, the three roles that entrepreneurs potentially need to embrace in order to grow their firm/brand in the market are embedded within a dynamic process in which the entrepreneur’s personal identity is co-created alongside his firm’s and brand’s social identity. A successful entrepreneur of each entrepreneurial firm should eventually permeate the entrepreneurial brand essence, a distinct blend of his personal identity and his firm’s and brand’s social identity, into the world.