This research explore the complementarity effect of export-market orientation and entrepreneurial orientation on export performance of SMEs from a CEE developing economy. We found that the likelihood of this effect on export profitability is higher in dynamic export market environments if high level of resources are committed to export operations.

Country image is a construct with far-reaching commercial implications (Kotler and Gertner, 2002). It is often held up as an antecedent condition of attitude formation towards products (Verlegh and Steenkamp, 1999; Laroche et al., 2005; Zeugner-Roth and Diamantopolous, 2009), as a determinant of visiting intentions for tourist destinations (Nadeau et al., 2008; Martínez and Alvarez, 2010) or even as a source of political power (van Ham, 2001; Nye, 2004; Wang, 2008). However, the way in which country image is approached in the literatures dealing with it various venues of relevance almost exclusively threat the construct as a source of some exerted effect and rarely venture into the issue of how country image is formed and how it various venues of its commercial relevance interact. Some exceptions to this general rule can be found in White (2012) who explored how product image exerts a formative effect on country image, a country-of-origin effect in the inverse. Also, Nadeau et al. (2008) observed that country image as it pertains to destination image as well as to exports intersect in an interesting way and that the two areas of commercial relevance indeed are not completely separate. In the present study we postulate that the meaning attributed to a particular country’s image is the result of an oscillation of meaning between that attributed to objects (such as for instance products, destinations or people) associated to the country and the country image itself. I.e. a product perceived as being associated to a country would derive its meaning from the country image but also exert a feedback of meaning towards the country image. Any association is not only a determinant of meaning towards one of the objects in an association dyad (cf. Keller, 1993) but this meaning also, through association, transfer in the inverse direction as well. This suggests that any venue of meaning attribution to a country could potentially exert an effect on any situation in which the country in turn exerts a formative influence. For example, a product image of a product associated to a country could potentially exert an influence on the countries attractiveness as a tourist destination through a mediated influence through country image. In order to put this mechanism to the test 500 respondents from the USA (311 female, x age 46.5, respondents of Korean origin excluded) were recruited through an online panel and subjected to a psychometric test-series featuring items pertaining to the image of South Korea, the image of South Korean products and various factors pertaining to the respondent’s attitude towards South Korea as a tourist destination. The resulting data was subjected to statistical analysis using a covariance-based structural equation model approach. The results of the data analysis suggest that attitudes and notions directed to products from South Korea exert a statistically significant effect on the image of the country as a whole. This image in turn exerts an effect on the whether consumers express interest in visiting the country in their capacity as potential tourists. These results are in support of White (2012) in that they demonstrate that attitudes towards products from a particular country contribute to the attitude towards a country as a whole. The results also support Nadeau et al. (2008) in their finding that country image as it pertains to inferring the degree of quality of exports and the attractiveness of a place as a tourist destination should not be compartmentalized, but rather treated as a facets of the same construct. In the present study the case of South Korea was used with a particular goal in mind. The rather unusual historical particularities of the transition of South Koreas economy makes it highly interesting as an example for several reasons. Not only did South Koreas transition take place in a highly compressed timeframe, but it also took a route which runs counter to the notion that tourism often serves as the starting point of economic transition (Dieke, 2003; Dritsakis, 2004; Oh, 2005; Mishra et al., 2006; Kaplan and Celik, 2008) as the rise of South Korea can be said to have been driven by industrial development and exports, prior to the country becoming a popular tourist destination. The particularities of this path to a greater degree of economic development arguably shed new light on the issue of how country image can form and how it pertains to highly variable commercial contexts and how the effect the country image construct exert transect across these various venues of commercial activity.

Brazilian Government faced international crises by implementing fiscal stimulus to raise internal consumption while sustained a high interest rate with flexible exchange rate system and low capital flow control. The mix of economic policies has increased the internal expenditure level, lowered income differences and has sustained inflation controls. The composition of internal expenditure has changed and external firms captured the higher demand. Therefore, an imbalance in transactions account is an increasing macroeconomic problem. This paper analyses the relation between recent shifts in macroeconomic policies in Brazil, the growing importation of final goods and a different insertion and external sharing of Brazilian exportation. Fiscal policies, instead of increasing sales and firms revenues, has increased imbalances in transaction account and has feed the discussion about Dutch Disease and Deindustrialization in Brazil. We can define deindustrialization as a lower share in industrial jobs in the total employment in the country (Rowthorn & Ramaswany 1999). The broad concept is a decrease in the industrial value added share to gross domestic product in addition to a lower industrial employment share (Tregenna 2009). In the first part, we discuss three different interpretations of causes of deindustrialization. Follows an analysis of consumption in Brazil and transaction account data. For some economists Brazil faces a historical and structural trend to currency valuation, related to commodities exports. These phenomena must be corrected through export taxation in order to sustain product diversification and national firms in manufacturing sector (Bresser-Pereira 2011). Others consider that the mix of economic policies combined with low capital controls and pre-salt announcement, led to deindustrialization and devaluated currency. In addition, we can find in the literature that deindustrialization is a recent phenomenon closely linked to 2008 crisis (Bacha 2013). Finally, some economists think that deindustrialization is a natural phenomenon and as economy growth, we can observe a pattern where service sector grows more than manufacture sector. This is related to the income increases and family demand (services has higher income elasticity of demand than manufacture goods). In the second part of this paper, we show how a wage-led strategy to growth has increased imports and decrease exports instead of increasing national firms’ sales and revenues. Recent data shows an imbalance in external accounts and a huge change in imports and exports composition. In the third part, we show the consumption contribution to growth, aggregate demand since 2008, the increase in importation and the consumption pattern for durable, no durable goods. We also analyze the growing indebtedness of households and shifts in income sharing. Finally, a shift in composition of exports and imports ends the third part showing a different insertion of Brazilian economy. The conclusion shows that firms in national territory fails in benefiting from increases in demand and in competing for exports. We raise questions about when one country should adopt fiscal stimulus to fight against crises and poverty. When fiscal policy is combined with monetary contraction and currency appreciation, the results are that firms cannot benefit from a growing demand and we call that Access Theory: exchange rate is strongly related to consumption level for national goods.

This study analyzes the use of the personality metaphor in the official tourism websites developed by South American countries. The Big-Five human personality dimensions are used as a proxy to explore the intended personality projected by the countries. A multistage methodology using a combination of content analysis and correspondence analysis was used. Results reveal the existence of four main clusters based on the use of different personality traits to communicate the peculiarities of each country. However, an overall view of the results indicates that South American countries are not using in a substantial way the personality metaphor to create a strong positioning for the international tourists, and therefore the use of this new marketing tool is in its nascent stages.

Consumer ethnocentrism (CET) has been widely research in various marketing contexts since the construct was identified by Shimp and Sharma (1987) in their seminal paper. The central tenet of consumer ethnocentrism theory is that consumer ethnocentrism will have a negative effect on foreign product purchase intention and a positive effect on willingness to purchase home country products. So far, the role of satisfaction has not been integrated into the CET model. The satisfaction-repurchase relationship has also received considerable attention in the marketing literature whereby satisfaction is found to have a direct positive effect on repeat purchase. Anecdotal evidence suggests that both satisfaction and consumer ethnocentrism will have a joint effect on willingness to repurchase a home country product, especially when foreign competitor products are seen as a threat in the domestic markets. However, it remains unclear how satisfaction and consumer ethnocentrism jointly affect purchase intentions. In this research we examine the dynamics of the two constructs. This study considers South Korean consumers’ willingness to repurchase the Samsung Galaxy smartphone and examine the interrelationship among the above variables. The findings of the study suggest that consumer ethnocentrism moderates the satisfaction-repurchase intention relationship or vice versa and satisfaction and consumer ethnocentrism are mutual cooperative suppressors for repurchase intention. This study highlights that the effect of consumer ethnocentrism on repurchase intention will be stronger when consumers are satisfied with the product.

The purpose of this study is to explore the effects of social media in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) based on a theoretical foundation. Social media was firstly used as a new communication tool by internet users, and is being commercialized as a powerful tool to build and maintain long-term relationships between customers and businesses. This study focuses on service sectors and aims to clarify how social media helps companies innovate traditional CRM. Social CRM is seen as one of these service innovations and is highlighted in this paper.

Co-production is defined as customer participation in production activities that generate a result to be consumed (Etgar, 2008). Previous research has shown the positive effects of co-production, such as satisfaction, perceived control, and perceived quality (Chan, Yim, & Lam, 2010; Golder, Mitra, & Moorman, 2012; Hunt, Oneto, & Varca, 2012). However, knowledge about the potential negative consequences from co-production is scarce. Despite the importance of the role of causal locus in the generation of unsatisfactory results, to date, this subject has not been properly studied. Considering that co-production is increasingly common in contemporary consumption contexts, this paper aims to broaden knowledge about unsatisfactory results from co-production. Based on two experimental studies, we analyze the role of the causal locus of failures on customer regret and disappointment, taking into consideration the self-serving bias. The results show that a consumption situation with an unsatisfactory regret tends to be higher when the consumer takes the blame than when the causal locus is attributed to the company. When the causal locus is uncertain, regret is higher than disappointment and higher than the regret experienced when the company or the service employee is blamed. Because regret is associated with internal causal attribution, these results contradict the self-serving bias literature, which affirms that people are more likely to make external than internal attributions for failures (Mezulis, Abramson, Hyde, & Hankin, 2004; Weiner, 2010). The internal failure attribution converges with the idea that consumer participation in production implies more responsibility over the result (Bitner, Faranda, Hubbert, & Zeithaml, 1997; Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004).When the causal locus is attributed to the company or to the service employee, disappointment towards the company tends to be higher than in the other conditions and higher than regret. Study 2 tested whether consumers who co-produce would take responsibility for a failure and blame themselves in situations where the causal locus was undetermined. The results once again contradicted the self-serving bias literature in a scenario with co-production. Consumers who co-produced experienced more regret and less disappointment towards the company, and they blamed themselves more intensely than the consumers who did not co-produce. Therefore, the consumers who co-produce take more responsibility for dissatisfying results and, consequently, regret their actions to a higher degree than those consumers who do not co-produce. These results show that even when co-production fails to generate a satisfying result for the consumer, it may be positive for the company because it provides a context in which both the consumer and the company may be responsible for the failure. When the company is blamed, consumers experience less regret and more disappointment towards the company than when the consumer is the one to blame. But when the consumer is blamed or the causal locus is uncertain, situations that are both possible in a co-production context, then consumers experience more regret and less disappointment towards the company.

Empirical studies provide evidence that many consumers prefer a flat-rate, even though their billing rate would be lower on a pay-per-use tariff. When it comes to tariff choices, some consumers thus seem to be subject to a cognitive error, a so-called “flat-rate bias”. Based on survey data, we analyse causes and strategies to enhance the occurrence and intensity of flat-rate biases within 2 studies. The results of study 1 (n=104) point out to five important drivers of flat-rate biases, namely the taximeter, insurance, overestimation, convenience and smart-shopping effect. Within study 2 (n=416), we subsequently evaluate the effectiveness of advertisements using the identified causes for a flat-rate bias as setting levers to increase consumers' tariff-specific willingness-to-pay. Our findings show that the most effective way to enhance the return on flat-rate bias would be to enhance communication of the fact that consumers can protect themselves from fluctuations in the billing amount through a flat rate (insurance effect) and that consumers must not worry about costs when using a flat rate (taximeter effect).

Commercial fitness industry is booming in Malaysia and is becoming more difficult to entice new members with the built up competition. This research investigates the needs of these commercial fitness members and the role of engagement in determining overall satisfaction with service. Scale of Service Quality for Recreational Sport (SSQRS) was used for data collection reveals that fitness members are more drawn to interaction, outcome, physical environment quality and the engagement they receive from a gym membership and not much from the programs that are offered. This study’s finding will contribute to the development of marketing strategies for the sustainable growth of the fitness industry.

In the past few decades, much attention has been focused on corporate social responsibility (CSR) (Dahlrud, 2008; McWilliams & Siegel, 2001; Maignan & Ralston, 2002; Montiel, 2008), consumer responses to CSR initiatives (Brown & Dacin, 1997; Sen & Bhattacharya, 2001) and more recently, employee attitudes towards CSR (Kim et al., 2010; Michailides & Lipsett, 2012; Rupp et al., 2006; Zhu et al., 2012). Although awareness of environmental sustainability has increased over the past few decades, the current market share of sustainable products remains low. Because of their market position, large-scale and high- volume customer interactions (Vella et al., 2009), supermarkets appear to be appropriate venues for investigating perceived sustainability initiatives (Hampl & Loock, 2013). Our study examined the extent to which supermarkets are perceived to have embedded sustainability initiatives in their marketing strategies and to have taken sustainable tactical measures on the store floor. In addition, the study considered the roles played by social identification (as an indicator for intrinsic motives) and by perceived external prestige (as an indicator for extrinsic motives). Based on a literature review and semi-structured qualitative interviews with the chief executive officers (CEOs) of Dutch supermarkets (n = 8), we conducted an online panel survey among the managers of these supermarkets (n = 99). The results of the qualitative study show that although CEOs’ opinions differed regarding the relevance of sustainability, the majority of CEOs indicated that the implementation of a sustainability strategy is strongly dependent on the intrinsic motivation of board members, the family business in general or local entrepreneurs (supermarket managers). Specifically, the role of the supermarket manager was recognized as important concerning sustainability initiatives on the shop floor. The results of the quantitative study show the positive impacts of managers’ social identification with a sustainable consumer group and managers’ perceived external prestige on the perceived environmental sustainability initiatives of Dutch supermarkets. The study finds that managers’ social identifications are powerful ways to engender employee loyalty. Moreover, organizations that are perceived to have more external prestige are perceived as being more capable of developing sustainability policies.

Marketers might find the task of gauging the public’s perceptions of a landfill-to-park transformation as one of the more challenging products to market. A current project is Freshkills Park in New York City. The theoretical approach was to test proximity and experience history with familiarity, attitude toward, and intent to visit the site.

This article addresses the potential of reputable brands to overcome the lack of tangibility that characterizes the process of e-commerce. In a sequential argument, the authors propose that (1) the brand becomes more important in online than in offline channels, as a consequence of the intangibility or lack of physical contact in online purchasing processes; (2) the limitations associated with the need for touch and the lack of access to the physical product during the buying process does not have equal importance across all product categories; and (3) the role of the brand in online channels thus is more relevant if the product category is associated with a higher need for touch. To provide empirical evidence regarding the hypotheses, we performed an experiment that combined three treatments: (1) leader versus non-leader brand, (2) online versus offline channel, and (3) product category with higher versus lower need for touch. We show that the most recognized brands exert a positive effect on product evaluations, regardless of the technical characteristics and other objective product attributes. This advantage may be greater in online channels, though only for product categories for which the lack of physical contact with the product during the purchase process is an important limitation. In such cases, brand associations can compensate for intangibility during purchase.We also confirm that the product categories differ in their level of need for touch and the extent to which consumers desire physical contact with the product during the buying process. These results demonstrate that building strong brands is a key competitive advantage for manufacturers. Brand reputation becomes even more crucial when selling products in electronic channels, at least if the product itself entails a greater need for touch prior to purchase. For such products, strong brands can make up for the intangibility of e-commerce, so this effort represents a key competitive strategy in such channels. Moreover, leading brands can leverage their competitive advantage to enhance their performance in the increasingly prominent realm of e-commerce. E-retailers need to make careful decisions regarding the configuration of the assortment, taking into account the nature of the product category. They should strengthen their focus on developing highly recognizable brands, because the lack of physical contact is an important purchase inhibitor in this shopping channel. However, the brand criterion may be less important if the choice between online and offline shopping is not particularly affected by the opportunity to touch or feel the products.

This is an initial work on a research project which will ultimately test a battery of hypotheses relating to the drivers of consumers’ willingness to buy of Vitamin C OTC. This initial work outlines the product category, the market, and presents the initial theoretical framework to be investigated. Dietary Supplement constitutes a very significant business market in Thailand. Consumers in Thailand consume dietary supplements on a daily, continual basis to supplement their daily dietary intake. More importantly, they consume them as a preventive measure to off-set an environment of ever growing pollution, pressure to perform and stress. The market for dietary supplements is growing, and firms operating in this market are interested to understand the factors and variables related to consumers’ willingness to buy on these dietary supplements. Consumers can also benefit from research insights as the consumption of dietary supplement is not without criticism (e.g. Braun et al., 2009; Timbo et al., 2006). Food supplements or Dietary supplements (EU1) is the official designated term for this product category in the United Stated of America (U.S. FDA 1994). Thailand (ACCSQ-TMHS, 2006), are classified as food products containing micronutrients and its intention is to supplement the normal diet (Greger, 2001). According to Kearney (2010), consumers have increasing levels of focus on the importance of health, which the increased focus on health coincides with an increased availability of health information, which in turn is fueled by the underlying demands of an aging population and an increase in lifestyle diseases. In the EU, the use of supplements is widely practiced in the general population. Statistics reveal that 47% of German women and 41% of German men regularly take supplements consisting of vitamins, and minerals (Reinnert, Rohrmann, Beckers & Linseisen, 2007). The sales ratio in the Thai market between general nutrients and vitamins is approximately 55 to 45 percent. According to the latest IMS Health Thailand report as of end September 2013 (see Table), it is noted that in Thailand alone, the domestic consumption of general nutrients and vitamins as food supplements has increased by more than four folds from 2004 to 2013 (Thai Baht 1.27 billion in 2004 to 5.46 billion in 2013). The majority of this increase occurred from 2011 to 2013. Most of these products are imported from the US. Other major producers and exporters of these products are Ireland, France, Switzerland, Japan, Netherlands, Germany and Australia; whereas Japan, Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam are major exporters of raw materials into Thailand for further refinement (Arunanondchai 2007). In Thailand, exercise used to be the main way to achieve a healthy life. There is, however, a growing belief that healthy food and food supplement consumption is important to be healthy. The present project studies the use of Vitamin C as an example of a dietary supplement, which is widely consumed in Thailand. Vitamin C (L-ascorbic acid or Ascorbate) is the generic descriptor for compounds having antiscorbutic activity. Most animals can synthesize Vitamin C from D-glucose but humans and other primates, together with guinea pigs, fruit bats, some Passeriformes birds, some fish and some insects, are exceptions. Vitamin C is a reducing agent (antioxidant) and it is likely that all of its biochemical and molecular functions relate to this property. In humans, Vitamin C acts as an electron donor for eight enzymes, of which three are involved in collagen hydroxylation (including aspects of norepinephrine, peptide hormone and tyrosine metabolism) and two are involved in carnitine biosynthesis (Dunn et al (1984), Eipper et al (1993, 1992), Kaufmann (1974), Kirirkko & Myllyla (1985), Levine et. al, (1991), Procop & Kiviikko (1995), Peterkovsky (1991), Rebouche (1991)). Vitamin C is sold through various distribution channels, including the over-the-counter (OTC) market in Thailand with limited restriction from the Thai FDA. OTC drugs are medicines that may be sold directly to a consumer without a prescription from a healthcare professional, as compared to prescription drugs, which may be sold only to consumers possessing a valid prescription. The term OTC may be somewhat counterintuitive, since, in many countries, these drugs are often located on the shelves of stores like any other packaged product. In contrast, prescription drugs are almost always passed over a counter from the pharmacist to the customer. Some drugs may be legally classified as over-the-counter (i.e., no prescription is required), but may only be dispensed by a pharmacist after an assessment of the patient's needs and/or the provision of patient education. In many countries, a number of OTC drugs are available in establishments without a pharmacy, such as general stores, supermarkets, gas stations, etc. Regulations detailing the establishments where drugs may be sold, who is authorized to dispense them, and whether a prescription is required vary considerably from country to country. To simplify, any medicine that can be sold over the counter for symptomatic relief of minor or self-limiting ailments without the prescription of a registered medical practitioner is an OTC Medicine. OTC Medicines differ from Prescription Medicines in terms of Margin of Safety, Advertising and Distribution. The project will address a combination of both intrinsic and extrinsic driving factors in pharmaceutical products, including vitamins that can potentially lead to a better and clearer understanding on how consumers perceive the product quality, get influenced by expert opinion, and manage perceived risk when deciding whether or not to buy. Three potential drivers will be investigated in this project for their impact on willingness to buy: Country of Origin image, brand image, and expert opinion. Further, the framework suggests that the relationship between these three drivers and consumers’ willingness to buy is mediated by their perceived risk. Basing on the requirement of developing a theoretical framework to answering these questions, it is foreseen that both practical and implicative results derived from the OTC pharmaceutical market can complete the answer from an experienced consumers’ perspective, therefore this study is adopting the questionnaire set methodology to survey among Vitamin C consumer who are experienced with this dietary supplement. Aligning the survey in respect to prior authority research, the measurement items in this survey were adapted from pre-existing scales of operationalization. A questionnaire will be constructed to assess 5 main constructs. They are: 1) Product Country Image 2) Brand Image 3) Expert Opinion 4) Perceived Risk 5) Willingness to buy. These 5 constructs constitute the main proposed conceptual model. All constructs in this questionnaire use a seven-point Likert scale. The research will draw on existing definitions and measures adapted from the consumer behavior and marketing literatures. The theoretical framework and related hypotheses will be tested using primary survey data by using a statistical analysis software package for interpretation and conclusion of findings. Questions for Product Country Image were operationalized and adapted from Roth and Romeo (1992), consisting of four items. Questions such as “How would you rate innovativeness of Cosmeceuticals products from Country of Origin” were specially designed to capture consumers’ perception of products based on their imaginative association of a product to a country. Brand Image, comprising of five items, is borrowed from Robert (2004) and Cho (2011) which are semantically designed to capture meaningfulness of brand perception to the end user. An example of a question is: “The brand adds value to my life”. Four items are asked in the Expert Opinion segment in order to analyze the pedagogical impact of experts’ persuasiveness, operationalized from Aquevegue (2006), such as “The opinion of the experts about the product is (very good to very bad)”. Perceived risk, being measured by 5 statements such as “You want to enjoy better health” in the degree of respondents’ view is heavily adapted and modified from Chang (2007). This segment is directly engineered to identify and understand expectations associated with products from a consumers’ viewpoint resulting in final purchase action. Such expectations can be understood as benefits or the avoidance of threats that are realized through consumption. Applying the hierarchy of needs model (Maslow 1954) could help to reveal and orchestrate consumers’ purchase motivations resulting in valuable marketing insights. Finally, the construct of Willingness to buy, consisting of five items such as “The likelihood of purchasing Cosmeceuticals is (very low to very high)”, is adapted from Dodds and Monroe (1991). Overall, we expect the results of this project to illuminate our understanding of how perceived risk influences consumer decisions in the dietary supplements market. Specifically the results should shed light on the effect of three key drivers of perceived risk, as well as of a key outcome of perceived risk.

In the context of M&A, how to redeploy two corporate assets is one of important organizational tasks. Among tasks, the management of intangible assets – in particular of corporate brand name is a critical element reflects consumers’ response. There has been increasing interest in the role of corporate names in academic fields. However, little attention has been paid to the different name and symbol options on M&A types. No empirical research has yet addressed branding strategies between in-market and cross-market M&A from the individual customers’ perspectives of acquired company. This paper seeks to address the research gap, by exploring acquired company customer on brand identity options in the context of post merger. Specifically, it considers the degree to which name and symbol influence acquired consumer responses. Thus, 5(brand strategy: target-dominant brand name A, acquirer-dominant brand name B, acquirer-dominant synergistic brand name BA, target-dominant synergistic brand name AB or create new brand name C) × 2(M & A types: in market or cross-market) between subject experiment design was conducted. 494 undergraduate or graduate students are the subjects from a college. Questionnaires were collected by convenience sampling. The results show that: (1). Brand name redeployment strategy has significant effect on customers’ sovereignty deprivation and brand switching intention. (2). In in-market M&A type situation, target-dominant brand tend to outperform acquirer-dominant brand strategy in decreasing the degree of acquired company customers’ perceived sovereignty deprivation and brand switching intention when compared with cross-market M&A type. (3). In in-market M&A type situation, new brand tend to outperform acquirer-dominant brand strategy in decreasing the degree of acquired company customers’ perceived sovereignty deprivation and brand switching intention when compared with cross-market M&A type. (4). In in-market M&A type situation, acquirer-dominant synergistic brand strategy tend to outperform new brand strategy in decreasing the degree of acquired company customers’ perceived sovereignty deprivation when compared with cross-market M&A type. In summary, in in-market M&A type situation, acquirer-dominant synergistic brand is the best strategy and new brand name is the second best option in decreasing the degree of acquired company customers’ perceived sovereignty deprivation when compared with cross-market type situation. The results should guide managers regarding post-M&A branding strategies.

The concept of customer orientation (CO) has been studied for quite a long time at first as a major part of market orientation and then as a separate construct. For emerging market the role of CO became paramount with the shift from the planned to the market economy. However, after more than two decades of transition Russian companies are still demonstrating rather a claim of being customer orientation, instead of implementing a long-term orientation towards customer. This paper focuses on reconsidering applying the Narver and Slater (1990) approach to conceptualizing and measuring customer orientation, and its empirical test and validation in the context of Russian economy. This study is based on data from two empirical studies on Russian companies, conducted during the pre-crisis (2008) and post-crisis (2010) period. Our results reveal that existing theory on customer orientation is not fully confirmed by the evidence from Russian companies.

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.

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.

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.

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.