The cultural and philosophical heritage of modernism underpinning general marketing management theory imparts profound implications for organisations operating in professional sport. This theoretical paper uses the context of China’s professional football industry to argue that marketing may benefit from a more postmodern approach to marketing management.

This paper considers the standardisation-localisation debate and analyses qualitative data from 22 luxury fashion retailers to reveal the decision-making process for marketing strategies that support entry into China, in terms of balancing the ‘global-local dilemma’ in an emerging marketplace alongside the need to maintain exclusivity of brand image across markets.

Customer loyalty programs have been widely adopted for customer relationship management all over the world. The proliferation of loyalty programs causes program competition which weakens the effectiveness of loyalty programs at the end of customers. In general, existed research suggests that the increasing competition among rival programs in a single industry may cancel out the expected roles of loyalty programs (Mägi, 2003). For example, program competition is a substantial threat to customer lifetime value and share of wallet (Leenheer, van Heerde, Bijmolt, & Smidts, 2007; Meyer-Waarden, 2007). Liu and Yang (2009) find the sales impact of a single loyalty program diminishes as program competition increases. Their study also shows this negative effect is weaker in a highly expandable product category. Although previous studies have examined the suppressive effect of program competition on financial outcomes of loyalty programs, little research has explored its role on attitudinal customer loyalty formation process. This study aims to explore the differential roles of program competition on two formation processes of customer loyalty. It intends to contribute to the loyalty programs literature in two aspects. First, this study examines two routines of customer loyalty formation in the context of loyalty programs. That is, a company can leverage program offerings to build customer loyalty through increased customer satisfaction or strengthened customer identification with the company. Second, this study examines the moderating roles of program competition on those two loyalty-generating routines. Specifically, it finds customer identification is more important for building customer loyalty at the presence of program loyalty.

Sales of luxury goods have increased drastically in the Asian marketplace over the past decade and therefore imply high potential for further future developments. While Japan has been an important market to luxury brands for a longer period of time, especially China and South Korea have gained in importance due to high sales volumes and increased desire to purchase luxury goods. Especially due to the economic crisis in Europe, luxury brands have to focus on the potential of these emrging Asian countries. In order to adapt and improve the marketing communication strategies successfully to the respective countries, an intensive analysis of the local luxury market, local competitors and the performance of leading luxury brands have to be examined. This is especially crucial to luxury brands since consumers are highly sensitive to the brand image and identitty which is why marketing strategies and brand positioning have to be considered carefully. The purpose of this study is 1) to examine the current luxury market in Japan, China and South Korea according to major fashion industries; 2) to analyze the critical success factors and marketing strategies of leading and aspiring local and global fashion luxury brands in the respective country 3) to give meaningful implications for existing and aspiring luxury brands. For that, after giving an overview of the luxury market in the respective country, case studies on leading and aspiring luxury brands in the major fashion cities (Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo) will be conducted to examine critical success factors. By that, we will give an overview on the market entry and marketing strategy, such as social media, the usage of IT, and general ads as well as retail trends and communication channels. The findings indicate the current trends of luxury fashion brands in China, South Kore and Japan. Through this data review, case studies and suggestions, both academia and industry will gain important insights of the current tendencies of brands and consumers. Global marketers will understand the Asian luxury market better; local brands may find implications of how to enter other Asian markets and aspiring brands can learn about the critical success factors in the market.

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).

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.

Foreign firms often bear additional costs when conducting business abroad (Hymer, 1976), which was later referred to the liability of foreignness (LOF), described as “all additional costs a firm operating in a market overseas incurs that a local firm would not incur” (Zaheer, 1995). This paper proposes a new construct, consumers’ perceived importance of supporting domestic retailers (PISD), which expresses consumers’ willingness or desire to support domestic firms. We first examine whether PISD represents a kind of LOF; if yes, we investigate what kind, if any, firm-specific advantages of foreign firms can overcome this discrimination by consumers. We found that PISD is a kind of LOF, which has a negative effect on consumers’ choice of foreign retailers. Value-for-money factors rather than doing CSR would moderate this effect. This study adds to the literature of LOF in three ways. First, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that attempts to examine LOF within an international retailing context. Second, we provide empirical evidence regarding the effect of PISD on consumers’ actual store patronage behavior. In comparison to many previous studies that adopted firm-level data, focusing on consumers’ behavior will provide a fine-grained perspective of the functioning of the LOF, and help open the ‘black box’ of it. Third, we propose a possible way of overcoming the discrimination hazard of LOF in Chinese market. A key proposition of the institutional theory is that within a given socially constructed value or belief system, a firm will seek ‘legitimacy’ in order to gain the support of social actors (Suchman, 1995). The process of legitimation is complex especially for foreign firms as they often face the challenge of establishing and maintaining legitimacy in the host environments Kostova & Zaheer, 1999). Social actors such as consumers in the host countries tend to perceive foreign firms lack of legitimacy due to their foreign identity, which result in consumers’ bias. In relation to this, Shimp & Sharma (1987) developed the concept of consumer ethnocentrism (CE), referring to “consumers’ beliefs about the appropriateness and morality of purchasing foreign products”. This consumer bias, measured by CETSCALE, is proved to have a negative effect on consumers’ behavior towards foreign products, and thus can be regarded as a kind of discrimination hazard that foreign firms have to face. In this study, we suggest an extension of Shimp & Sharma’s (1987) idea and an empirical test of the effect of a similar construct on consumer behavior. The construct is defined as the perceived importance of supporting domestic retailers (PISD). PISD is similar to Foreign firms often bear additional costs when conducting business abroad (Hymer, 1976), which was later referred to the liability of foreignness (LOF), described as “all additional costs a firm operating in a market overseas incurs that a local firm would not incur” (Zaheer, 1995). This paper proposes a new construct, consumers’ perceived importance of supporting domestic retailers (PISD), which expresses consumers’ willingness or desire to support domestic firms. We first examine whether PISD represents a kind of LOF; if yes, we investigate what kind, if any, firm-specific advantages of foreign firms can overcome this discrimination by consumers. We found that PISD is a kind of LOF, which has a negative effect on consumers’ choice of foreign retailers. Value-for-money factors rather than doing CSR would moderate this effect. This study adds to the literature of LOF in three ways. First, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that attempts to examine LOF within an international retailing context. Second, we provide empirical evidence regarding the effect of PISD on consumers’ actual store patronage behavior. In comparison to many previous studies that adopted firm-level data, focusing on consumers’ behavior will provide a fine-grained perspective of the functioning of the LOF, and help open the ‘black box’ of it. Third, we propose a possible way of overcoming the discrimination hazard of LOF in Chinese market. A key proposition of the institutional theory is that within a given socially constructed value or belief system, a firm will seek ‘legitimacy’ in order to gain the support of social actors (Suchman, 1995). The process of legitimation is complex especially for foreign firms as they often face the challenge of establishing and maintaining legitimacy in the host environments(Kostova & Zaheer, 1999). Social actors such as consumers in the host countries tend to perceive foreign firms lack of legitimacy due to their foreign identity, which result in consumers’ bias. In relation to this, Shimp & Sharma (1987) developed the concept of consumer ethnocentrism (CE), referring to “consumers’ beliefs about the appropriateness and morality of purchasing foreign products”. This consumer bias, measured by CETSCALE, is proved to have a negative effect on consumers’ behavior towards foreign products, and thus can be regarded as a kind of discrimination hazard that foreign firms have to face. In this study, we suggest an extension of Shimp & Sharma’s (1987) idea and an empirical test of the effect of a similar construct on consumer behavior. The construct is defined as the perceived importance of supporting domestic retailers (PISD). PISD is similar to the concept of “involvement”, which is defined as the individual’s perceived importance of the product or the act, just as PISD is defined in this study. The similarity of the PISD with the concept of involvement provides support for the necessity of examining the effect of PISD on consumers’ shopping behavior. The definition of PISD differs from CE in that CETSCALE has been weighted heavily toward consumers’ beliefs about buying foreign products for national people, whereas PISD is an individual-specific construct. For example, many items of the scale that measures CE (see Shimp & Sharma, 1987 for detail,) are designed as “American people should always…”; “We should purchase…” ; In contrast, PISD leans more heavily on individual desire or willingness to support domestic retailers. To put it simply, even if an individual strongly agrees that it is not right for locals to purchase foreign products or visit foreign retail stores, it may not influence his or her actual store choice behavior, when no desire or willingness to support domestic retailers exists. Therefore, PISD, indicative of a desire or willingness to support domestic retailers, is an individual-level construct that is believed to be a better predictor of those decisions. The theories of foreign direct investments (FDI) deal with the questions, why MNEs or FDI exist and why they invest abroad. One of the theories is the specific-advantage hypothesis, which argued that the existence of MNEs hinges on the nature of the specific advantage of the firm, which would compensate for the disadvantages faced by foreign firms (Dunning, 2000). In international retailing, the advantages of foreign retailers in transitional economy are usually related to retail mix such as the uniqueness of products, merchandise assortment, and competitive pricing. Furthermore, Luo, Shenkar, & Nyaw (2002) suggest that foreign firms might be able to improve their moral legitimacy by ‘doing good’ through CSR activities. In this study, we test about whether foreign retailers can overcome the LOF of PISD by retail mix advantages or doing CSR activities. Data in this study were collected by means of a self-administrated survey in Dalian city of China. The survey was conducted in four urban districts of Dalian during November 9–30, 2011. In the process of data collection, sub-district units (residential streets) in each district were identified, of which 5–10 streets were selected. From these, 3–5 communities were selected, and households were selected from each community by simple random sampling. The person responsible for most of the household shopping was asked to answer the questions. A total of 590 respondents participated in the survey, of which 90 samples were excluded due to incomplete responses, and so we were left with a final sample of 500. Respondents were between 20 and 65 years old; those between 20 and 29 accounted for 29.8% of the sample; 31.4% were between 30 and 39; respondents between 40 and 49 accounted for 17.0%; and 21.8% were over 50. Respondents earning a monthly income of 2,000–8,000 RMB (Chinese yuan), 8,000–10,000RMB, and more than 10,000RMB accounted for 62%, 15%, and 11.8% of the sample, respectively.Regarding the measures of retail mix, we included a list of store attributes based on the list provided in studies such as Lindquist (1974-75) and Pan & Zinkhan (2006). All the items were measured on a scale from 1 to 5, anchored by “not important at all” to “very important.” Factor analysis was first utilized to investigate the structure impact on foreign retailers will be weaker for consumers who attach more importance to quality and promotion. Therefore, we argue that it would be more effective for foreign retailers to emphasize value-for-money retail mix elements in order to mitigate or overcome the LOF of PISD. CSR was positively significant in both Model 1 and Model 2, implying that consumers who attach more importance to CSR are more likely to shop at foreign retail stores. However, the interaction effects between CSR and PISD were insignificant. This indicates that for consumers with higher level of PISD, the importance attached to CSR will not weaken the negative effect of PISD. These results imply that, in a general sense, foreign firms’ effort on CSR performance is rewarded by those consumers who attach more value on CSR. However, for those who have higher level of PISD, foreign firms do not seem to be able to gain their support just by doing ‘good deeds’ (CSR).

The branding concept has been burgeoning from product branding and extending to service, corporate, and further nation branding (Papadopoulous & Heslop, 2002). The concept found in the tourism literature has been mostly adapted to a tourism destination (e.g., Gartner & Konecnik Ruzzier, 2011; Im, Kim, Elliot & Han, 2012). However, unlike characteristics of a manufactured product, a tourism destination has difficulties in terms of definition, measurement, and conceptualization (Murphy, Moscardo & Benckendorff, 2007). As a consequence, there has been a shortage of empirical research relating to the application of the branding concept to tourism destination management organizations spanning from national to local tourism organizations (Blain, Levy & Ritchie, 2005; Pike, 2010). To understand tourism destination branding, recently, studies have been conducted in the context of destination branding as a part of destination marketing strategy (Morgan, Prichard & Pride, 2001), brand identity and personality (Morgan et al., 2001; Murphy, Moscardo & Benckendorff, 2007), and brand logos and slogans (Blain et al., 2005; Hem & Iversen, 2004). The concept of the destination brand equity will be applied to Hong Kong tourists who are traveling to Switzerland. Switzerland is becoming a hot spot for Chinese long-haul trips following European destinations like UK, France, or Italy. Since a decade the core countries of the European Alps Switzerland concentrates more specifically on the Chinese market and with a time lag of a few years the overnight stays have started growing (Schmid, 2012). Since 2008 the overnight stays of Chinese touristsindicated a double- digit jump over the last five years and resulted in an accumulated growth rate of 246.9 percent, that is, the overnight stays per year climbed from 214,000 (2008) to 744,000 (2012) (BFS, 2009 & 2013). The Swiss Tourism Board estimated 2 million overnight stays from China in 2020. In this case China would overturn the neighboring country Italy as one of the key source markets for Switzerland (Schmid, 2012). The high increase in Chinese tourists led to marketing efforts of Switzerland Tourism and the Swiss Hotel Association hotelleriesuisse with their initiative “Hallo China” (Switzerland Tourism, 2004). At first, the main purpose of this study is to conceptualize destination brand equity. Second, it is to propose a destination brand equity model. Third, it is to test the model using a sample of Hong Kong tourists who travel to Switzerland. Fourth, it is to investigate characteristics of tourism products preferred by Hong Kong tourists. Fifth, it is to explore how their preferences for tourism products are different according to their travel-related or demographic variables. This study expects those outcomes and benefits. Frist, components consisting of destination brand equity model and conceptual model will be generated. Second, brand equity of Switzerland as perceived by Hong Kong tourists will be tested. Third, better understanding of Hong Kong tourists regarding their perception of Swiss image, level of awareness, overall quality, loyalty, and overall brand equity will be facilitated. Fourth, most previous studies focused only on preference, behavior or attitudes of Hong Kong tourists who travel in a short-haul distance. On the contrary, this study attempts to understand Hong Kong tourists to a long-haul tourism destination, here Europe. Fifth, according to specialization theory, more specialized tourists tend to select more far-way and more risky destination because their knowledge is growing and a range of their selection is diverse. In an increasing future trend in demand of overseas Chinese tourists, this study attempts to identify long-haul Hong Kong tourists’ preference, attitude or behavior in Europe.

During the past 40 years a huge number of studies investigated destination positioning and images from the tourists’ perspective, but by far fewer studies have been conducted from the destination managers’ perspective. In addition, few articles benchmark image positions between multiple destinations and their projections on marketing material. In order to generalize the results to larger geo-scopes, it is important to include a substantial number of destinations for analysis and take the influences of geography into consideration. The current study focuses on exploring positions of intended (planned) destination images. The primary aim is to compare the intended tourism image that is originally developed by destination managers of the sub-provincial districts in China and identify patterns of similarity and uniqueness behind. The research findings are expected to: (1) inform local destination managers in China about the current status of their destination tourism image positions compared with other destinations; and (2) give suggestions to the tourism administrations of both sub-provincial level and higher levels on how to better understand and coordinate the districts under their authorities and how to develop effective image positioning and projection strategies. In China, substitutability among tourism destinations like cities is growing, which is more obvious among those having same regional contexts, source markets and similar tourism products (Han & Tao, 2005). One remedy against this tendency is the development of strong image positions that are distinctive from other competing destinations. However, Chinese destination managers are facing several problems regarding positioning and marketing their destination images. First, the existing image positions of many destinations are unclear (Chen, 2008). Han and Tao (2005) point out that tourism images of many city destinations − in particular the mid-sized and small cities − are still on the organic stage and lack of systematic planning. What is more important is that many destination managers have not recognized the importance of image positioning and the benefits of induced image (Chen, 2008; Han & Tao, 2005). Second, some destinations have unrealistic image positions because they neglected market research opportunities and carried out positioning in a blind way (Chen, 2008). For instance, many destination managers think that destination image is the same as creative initiatives or slogans rather than the rational result from a systematic positioning process (Han & Tao, 2005). In China, DMOs are government departments traditionally. In other words, China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) is the DMO for whole China; Provincial Tourism Administrations (PTAs) manage provincial-level destinations and Municipal or County Tourism Administrations (RTAs) are the DMOs for sub-provincial districts (Feng, Morrison & Ismail, 2003; Li & Wang, 2010). In this study, when talking about China, “DMO” is exchangeable with “tourism administration”; and “destination manager” refers to the “senior officer working in the tourism administration”. District, province and region are three spatial levels frequently and consistently used in this study. In terms of the size, region is the largest whereas district is the smallest. A region contains one or several provinces. A province has several districts under its authority. In this research, the unit of analysis is sub-provincial districts that belong to provinces. The provinces are sorted into different geographical regions that are characterized by different categories of endowed tourism resources. This study adopts the most recent scheme developed by Song (1994). He classifies the tourism destinations in China into 10 TRG Regions and 77 sub-TRG Regions. TRG Regions consist of complete provinces. While the sub-TRG Regions focusing on market appeal may contain districts across provinces. Table 1 summarizes the features of the 10 TRG Regions and their included provinces; the regions names are the abbreviations of their included provinces. This research investigates intended image positions from the destination managers’ perspectives for sub-provincial districts in China. There are 27 provinces1 and 365 sub-provincial districts (SP Districts) in China. The 365 SP Districts are classified into 9 groups according to the scheme of tourism resources geographical regions (TRG Regions) reviewed before. Due to the different administration systems, the 10th region including Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau is excluded from this research. 122 out of 365 SP Districts are selected. The sampling method combines multistage sampling, stratified sampling and simple random sampling. For only 83 districts (68%) relevant documents could be retrieved online. 48 documents represent the “Tourism Development Master Plans” and 35 documents the “12th Twelve-Five Year Tourism Development Plans”. Six districts did not mention any type of intended image positions in their development plans. The content about intended destination image position(s) – i.e. the most essential image position(s) for a district as a whole destination to differentiate itself from others – are identified from the tourism plans. The extracted content about image positions often appears in the formats of short sentences or phrases that contain more than one concept. Thus, the original extracted content is processed to identify all included image concepts that are distinct from each other. The content analysis yielded a spread of 164 different image items with only 189 occurrences for a total of 77 districts. So, on average, there are not more than about 2.5 image positions that can be identified in the tourism master plans or development plans of the sub-provincial districts. 20% of these plans use only one image concept; 38% two items, 26% three different items, 12% four and only 5% are using five items. To make this list more comprehensible the items were aggregated in two steps to 48 image factors. In almost each tourism master or development plan which discusses positioning of the district through promoting destination images cognitive or functional terms are used. About one third of these documents uses affective or psychological features. Yet, two thirds of the intended district images are completely lacking any affective element that could help identifying appealing spots on the touristic map among the functionally loaded clutter. Reviewing the coverage of intended image items through the conceptual lenses proposed by Tapachai and Waryszak (2000) it becomes evident that only functional, emotional and epistemic aspects can be found as targeted image elements. Travellers, though, are also using social and conditional criteria when it comes to destination choice (Zins, 2010; Zins & Prompitak, 2010). Despite the relatively scarce usage of intended image positions for each Chinese sub-provincial district it is worthwhile to condense the image profiles of these 77 districts further. The 2-way profile data of 48 image factors for 77 sub-provincial districts were subject to a non-hierarchical cluster procedure to identify similarities among the districts. Considering both, the homogeneity gain of additional clusters and the relative simplicity of interpretation (expressed by the wSSI) a solution with ten different groups of districts was accepted. A sketch of the main characteristics is depicted in Table 2. The largest image profile group pools 24 different districts (31%) from 7 different TRG regions. The other larger groups (number 10, 4, 5 and 2 in descending order of similarity to number 7) do not exhibit one single lead region which means that the TRG regions share a multitude of targeted image positions. The larger TRG regions with quite a number of districts (BTHS, GFH, SJZAJ and YGG; together 49 out of 77 districts) show some gravity into the profiles 7, 4 and 5 (cf. Table 2). However, the frequency is not large enough to claim that a particular region is uniquely represented by one of the identified condensed image profiles. The majority of districts within one TRG region shows targeted image positions that are more common with districts of other TRG regions. Overall, the geographic spread of relatively similar district images is larger across provinces than across regions, which appears plausible. Destination managers may perceive threats from their neighbouring districts that share similar context images and source markets. This drives them to develop differentiated positions in order to prevent direct competition. Officially, higher-level DMOs like provincial tourism administrations have to coordinate the tourism planning of the lower-level districts (Tourism Law 2013; GSTP, 2003).

This study develops a model of the market life cycle of package tours, explaining that such tours inherently have low tourist satisfaction which results in a decrease in market share. The model is based on the proposition that tourist satisfaction depends on the extent to which their preferences are fulfilled at the destination, which in turn is determined by their knowledge of its attributes. An analysis of data on China’s outbound tourism market from 1993 to 2010 shows that as tourist satisfaction at the destination increases, the market share of inclusive package tours declines. This suggests that tourist satisfaction can predict tourists’ subsequent choice of a package tour. As tourist satisfaction increases due to the improved information in the market, such package tours will be gradually substituted for independent travel or entirely new packages, or replaced by travel to a new destination.

Impacts of Relationship value on Loyalty of Online Group-Buying Customer in China With the development of e-commerce industry, online group-buying pattern has been one of the most popular online shopping patterns in China. Although the online group-buying platform has a large number of consumers, the consumer loyalty to specific online group-buying platform is low. For this phenomenon, scholars usually studied from the perspective of factors which influenced consumer behavior intentions. However, few studies focus on the component and measuring of relational benefits in the process of group-buying. Based on the perspective of consumers, this paper studied the relational benefits between consumers and online group-buying platform, and the perceived benefits of consumers who are in different relationship life cycle.This paper used SPSS to test the reliability and validity of data and carried some discussions about research model through factor analysis and regression analysis. The results indicated that relational benefits were significantly related to customer loyalty, that relationship quality and relationship life cycle was considered as mediator and moderator, respectively. Further, we made some management recommendations for operators in the online group-buying platform.

This paper analyses the importance of innovation for 680 EU multinationals subsidiaries involved in international marketing in China, the period of 1998-2009, using unbalanced panel data analysis. To date, the literature on EU subsidiaries has failed to consider product innovation in the strategy interplay in approaching new markets overseas. Building on the resource-based view of the firm, linked with host economic and political institutions, the authors empirically examine the inferential marketing strategy in an EU-China context, by applying econometric techniques to investigate innovation capabilities and to test the presence of agglomeration effect of past innovation activities. We find that EU innovation in China is influenced by both host country institutions and firm capabilities, rendering support to the theory. Our analysis indicates EU subsidiaries’ innovation is positively related to firm advertisement, labour training and host market size. R&D expenditure has a negative bearing on innovation. However, openness has a negative and significant effect on product innovation in China. The study findings have important implications for research on international marketing, new venture decision making, and overseas innovation expansion strategies.

This research investigated the relationship among Korean Wave Cultural Contents consumption of Korean food, Korean products, and Learning of the Korean language. The survey targeted non-Koreans who were either interested in or experienced Korean Wave Cultural Contents. Exactly 61.3% of subjects had traveled to Korea. The most common method of experiencing the Korean Wave was via the Internet (57.7%), followed by TV (21.1%) and Mobile (7.7%). The most popular Korean Wave Contents were K-pop (35.2%) and TV Dramas (31.0%). Movies were preferred in the Americas (3.63±0.83) and Asia (3.63±1.09), whereas K-pop was preferred in Asia (3.68±1.12) and games preferred in Europe (2.50±1.56). Regarding Korean food, most participants had tasted Kimchi (81.7%), followed by Bulgogi (74.6%), Bibimbap (66.9%), and Galbi (66.2%). According to the country-by-country survey, in the case of Galbi (p<0.05), Bibimbap (p<0.05), and Bulgogi (p<0.05), Asians had more experiences with Korean food compared to those from other regions. Meanwhile, in the case of satisfaction of Korean food, Bulgogi (4.22±1.05) was ranked highest, whereas Kimchi (3.85±1.15) was ranked lowest. According to the region-by-region survey, those from Oceania and other regions preferred Kimchi (4.25±0.71) and Bulgogi (4.50±4.50) while the Americas preferred Galbi (4.82±0.39) and Bibimbap (4.54±0.81). Bulgogi (2.76±0.06) was highly ranked as a representative Korean Food while Kimchi (2.44±0.71) was ranked the lowest. This research explained that among Korean Wave Cultural Contents, movies and music positively influenced on the ‘Image of Korea’, movies and K-pop effected ‘Purchasing intention of Korean products’, and TV Dramas, movies, and K-pop effected ‘Purchasing intention of Korean Food’.

In accordance with the nature, characteristics, uses, etc. of the information that are as distinguishing criteria, information classification is a means clustering things meeting the same standard. Classification is the basis of scientific research. The purpose of Information Classification on handed down Chinese Dictionary in Japan, South Korea and China is to provide a professional platform for philology researchers easily retrieve and inquiry. And providing a theoretical basis for the development and application of the depth of shared dictionary database of East Asian. This article analyzes and studies Information Organization, Information Retrieval and Information Classification of handed down Chinese Dictionary in Japan, South Korea and China, the Paper noted that standardized information classification principles is a prerequisite for East Asian countries to regulate the construction of database of handed dictionaries ,and to maximize sharing Chinese character resources.

꽃매미(Lycorma delicatula)의 천적인 벼룩좀벌 일종(Anastatus orientalis Yang et Gibson(Hymenoptera : Eupelmidae))의 자연 상태에서 기생율을 조사한 결과: (1) 산동성 Yantai 에서 가장 높은 69.0%의 꽃매미 난괴가 기생 당하였고; (2) 최고 기생율은 33.0%로 북경시 하이디엔(Haidian) 지역에서 관찰되었고; (3) 기생봉의 알은 산시성의 양링(Yangling)에서 가장 빨리 부화하였으며, 천진시의 옌타이(Yantai)와 광앙(Guangang) 지역, 하북성의 친황다오(Qinhuangdao), 하이디엔(Haidian)에서 약간의 차이를 보였으며; (4) 성비는 채집된 지역에 따라 1.3에서 1.9로 다양하였고; (5) 꽃매미 난괴에 대한 기생율은 기주식물인 Populus sp., Salix sp. Toona sinensis에서 유의할 만한 차이가 관찰되지 않았으며, 최고기생율은 T. sinensis에서 64.3%로 나타났고, Ailanthus altissima에서는 27.4%로 가장 낮았다. (6) 꽃매미 알에 대해서도 꽃매미 알이 발견된 기주식물별로 차이가 없었고, 평균 30.0%의 기생율을 나타냈다.

This paper tests the firm valuation model to Hongkong H stocks. The Ohlson model regards the firm value determined by the future excess profit, and the Option model regards determined by the future cash flow. This paper test which model is more appropriate to the firm valuation model, Ohlson model and Option model, to the Hongkong H stock. And we use 42 enterprise’s data from 2003 to 2011, use the panel regression method. We test five hypothesis. First, the hypothesis 1 testing This paper tests the firm valuation model to Hongkong H stocks. The Ohlson model regards the firm value determined by the future excess profit, and the Option model regards determined by the future cash flow. This paper test which model is more appropriate to the firm valuation model, Ohlson model and Option model, to the Hongkong H stock. And we use 42 enterprise’s data from 2003 to 2011, use the panel regression method. We test five hypothesis. First, the hypothesis 1 testing

본 연구는 사내 기업가적 활동, 사회적 네트워크, 환경의 불확실성 그리고 이들 상호간의 상호작용적 영향이 중국 중소기업의 성과에 미치는 영향에 대해 살펴보는 것이다. 연구의 목적을 달성하기 위해 연구자들은 사내 기업가적 활동 그리고 사회적 네트워크가 미치는 영향과 이들의 상호작용이 기업성과에 미치는 영향에 대해 분석하고자 한다. 또한 나아가 지각된 환경의 불확실성이 높을 때 이들의 상호작용이 기업성과에 미치는 영향이 어떻게 달라질 수 있는지를 파악하고자 한다. 실증적 연구는 중국 합비성 안휘시에 있는 첨단 산업의 중소기업을 대상으로 수행되었다. 무작위로 선정된 200개 업체에 설문지를 보내고 응답받은 기업들 중에서 불성실한 것을 제외한 164개의 중소기업체가 최종 표본으로 선정되었다. 가설의 검증은 이들 기업들을 대상으로 이루어졌으며 그 결과 본 연구는 다음과 같은 결론을 도출할 수 있었다. 첫째, 중국 중소기업의 사내 기업가적 활동들은 기업성과에 유의한 긍정적 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 둘째, 사회적 네트워크는 그 자체로는 기업성과에 유의한 영향을 미치지 않으나 사내 기업가적 활동들 중에서 특히 혁신 및 벤처링 중심의 활동과는 유의한 상호작용적 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 셋째, 혁신 및 벤처링 활동과 사회적 네트워크의 상호작용은 기업에서 지각하는 환경의 불확실성이 높을 때 기업성과에 더욱 유의한 긍정적 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 이러한 결과를 토대로 볼 때 기업가적 활동이 기업성과 개선을 위해 중요할 수 있으며, 사회적 네트워크는 기업가적 활동의 내용에 따라서 적절하게 활용되어야 하며, 특히 환경의 불확실성이 높을 때는 외부자원을 최대한 활용하면서 혁신과 벤처링 활동을 강조하는 것이 중국 중소기업에 있어서는 무엇보다 중요할 수 있음을 연구자들은 제시하고자 한다.

중국의 2012년도 가정용 음식물처리기 수입 시장 규모는 1억호 이상의 가정 중 1%에도 못 미치는 보급률에도 불구하고 약 2400만 달러로, 현재까지는 가정용음식물 쓰레기에 대해서는 특별한 규제가 없으며 정부의 수거 및 재활용 계획이 일부 시범지역에 국한되어 있었으나 점차 확대될 전망으로 향후 큰 시장잠재력을 가지고 있음. 선호 가격대와 타겟에 대한 분석 이후, 분리수거가 활성화된 지역 중심으로 중국 하수관거의 특징 등을 고려한 기술을 채택한 제품을 개발하여 진출하는 것이 바람직함

본 연구는 기존 연구와는 다른 새로운 관점에서 중국 민간기업들의 해외직접투자 입지의 결정요인에 대하여 분석하였다. 이를 위해 먼저 중국경제에서 큰 비중을 차지하고 있는 국영기업의 민영화 과정에 주목하여 현재의 민간기업들을 국영기업에서 완전한 민영기업으로 전환한 기업 (PSEs)과 설립 초기에서부터 민간기업인 기업 (POEs) 으로 분류하였다. 이어 이 두 가지 유형의 민간기업들의 속성을 분석한 후 이들이 해외직접투자를 실시함에 있어서 입지결정에 영향을 미치는 요인들, 즉 천연자원, 전략적 자산, 위험부담, 현지 중국인 네트워크 등의 변수들을 중심으로 두 유형의 기업 간 차이에 관한 가설을 설정하고 관련 2차 자료를 바탕으로 통계분석을 통하여 가설을 검증하였다. 실증분석 결과, PSEs는 POEs보다 천연자원과 전략적 자산이 풍부하고 중국인 네트워크가 덜 구축된 국가들에 더 활발히 투자하고 있는 것으로 나타났다. 이러한 연구 결과는 민간기업들을 동일한 속성을 가진 기업들로 간주하였던 기존의 연구들과는 달리 민간기업들도 유형에 따라 그 속성이 서로 다르며 해외직접투자에서도 서로 다른 입지선정 행태를 보인다는 점을 입증한 것으로 사료된다. 이 연구는 향후 갈수록 세계경제에 대한 영향이 커지고 있는 중국 민간기업의 해외직접투자에 대해 더욱 심도 있는 연구를 실시하는데 일조할 수 있을 것으로 기대된다.