Marketing education to international students: A systematic literature review and future research agenda

Even though numerous studies provide information on marketing education to international students, research that reviews the accrued knowledge holistically remains elusive. Accordingly, the main purpose of this study is to (1) systematically synthesize, compile and understand the existing line of empirical research on the topic of marketing education to international students and (2) outline a comprehensive future research agenda to help further advance this field. This study adopts the theory-context-characteristics-methodology (TCCM) framework proposed by Paul and Rosado-Serrano to systematically review 52 articles published in A*, A and B category journals from the ABDC Journal Quality List. This systematic review reveals that the existing studies mostly focus on consumer-specific theories and detects a need for more macro-market, and industry-related theoretical perspectives (theory); it also identifies research gaps related to international student host and home country settings (context), and the application of competition-related variables for the main relationships in this field (characteristics). Finally, the author proposes several methodological best practices (methodology) to advance findings in this field.     

The role of context in SME internationalization – A review

This article reviews how context has been considered in studies on SME internationalization. It examines 333 articles published during the period 2010–2020 in leading international business, entrepreneurship, strategy and international marketing journals. It identifies their key findings, discusses the theoretical perspectives informing this literature, analyzes conceptual and methodological challenges, and suggests paths for theory development and future research. The review also provides a platform from which to address some of the limitations in international business [IB] theories when applied to SMEs, including organizational size as a boundary condition.     

Determinants of international retail operation mode choice: Towards a conceptual framework based on evidence from French specialised retail chains

Abstract

More and more retailers have expanded internationally. Because of its impact on the success of a retailer's international operations, a critical aspect of an internationalisation strategy consists of choosing the appropriate entry and expansion modes. The phenomenon remains misunderstood as little research in international retailing has focused on this question and findings from international management literature find limited application to services.

This paper draws upon a literature review and six case-studies from French specialised retailers to provide an exploratory framework for examining key determinants of operation mode choice. It is found that retailers consider four underlying dimensions of operation modes. These dimensions are affected by situational, individual and marketing factors whose explanatory impacts are moderated by the motives for internationalisation and relationship networks.     

Hierarchical Linear Modeling in International Marketing Research: A Review with an Application on Innovation and Export in China

While much of international marketing research involves two or more levels, limited work in the international marketing literature uses hierarchical linear modeling to examine different level effects. This study conducts a thorough literature review on hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) in 28 international marketing papers that employed HLM from 2005-2014 and evaluates the use of HLM in these papers on the objects, operating levels, and other issues. We call for more applications of HLM in international marketing research, particularly for research on emerging markets with significant sub-national and institutional variations. The paper provides an illustrative empirical study that employs HLM to test the moderating role of industry-level government subsidies in the relationship between firm innovation and exporter performance in China.     

Credit lender–borrower relationship in the credit card market – Implications for credit risk management strategy and relationship marketing

Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in 2008, precipitating the international financial crisis. Many questioned the banks’ risk-taking credit system. Understanding credit risk and how the credit system functions may provide knowledge on managing credit, to avoid another such international crisis. We study the credit card field and present a pricing decision model for managing credit risk. Recent credit lenders’ portfolio re-pricing practices call for immediate attention to the credit lender–borrower relationship and relationship marketing. A literature review and recent phenomena in the credit card industry reveal that the lenders’ re-pricing strategy negatively affects the credit lender–borrower relationship and relationship marketing. Thus, we introduce a pricing decision model incorporating the lenders’ re-pricing strategy and the credit lender–borrower relationship. Further, we discuss the implications of, and the role of marketing in, credit risk management and the implications of relationship marketing for credit lenders in foreign markets, including the US market.     

Cross-cultural advertising communication: Visual imagery, brand familiarity, and brand recall

The focus of this paper is to address the issue of visual imagery in cross-cultural consumer research. The authors investigate the relationship between visual imagery, brand familiarity, and brand claim recall in two distinct cultural environments — the U.S. and Russia. The paper consists of two studies that explored imagery potency from the point of view of memory-evoking effects. The results suggest that image-intensive tools generate different returns depending on the level of brand familiarity and cultural media. The research findings may be of interest to marketing scholars studying cross-cultural consumer behavior as well as to practitioners operating in international advertising and global brand building.     

International entrepreneurial marketing strategies of MNCs: Bricolage as practiced by marketing managers

The extant research lacks information on entrepreneurial marketing in large international firms. This study explores the international entrepreneurial marketing strategies of multinational corporations (MNCs), and its results reveal that MNC marketing managers use bricolage to develop international entrepreneurial marketing. A novel finding of the study is that the international entrepreneurial marketing strategies of MNCs include co-innovation, accelerating customer value, and international expansion based on regional market leadership. Marketing managers use both parallel and selective bricolage in their international entrepreneurial marketing. Environmental uncertainty and entrepreneurship culture are important drivers of the implementation of bricolage to develop international entrepreneurial marketing. The research findings can inform MNC management of the options available to utilize corporate venturing to facilitate bricolage and in turn to realize international entrepreneurial marketing strategies.     

International new venture performance: Role of international entrepreneurial culture,ambidextrous innovation,and dynamic marketing capabilities

International new ventures (INVs) contend with environmental dynamism in global markets, compelling firms to enhance their innovation and marketing capabilities. While the INV literature is growing, it is not informative as to how INVs develop and utilize dynamic capabilities to overcome resource-constraints to enhance performance. We utilize the concept of international entrepreneurship culture (IEC) to better understand how INVs advance innovation and dynamic marketing capabilities to succeed in their internationalization activities. Building on the dynamic capabilities view (DCV), we empirically examine the relationships among IEC, ambidextrous innovation, dynamic marketing capabilities, and INV performance under varying levels environmental dynamism. The findings highlight that IEC influences both ambidextrous innovation and dynamic marketing capabilities; and, together, these link to INV performance gains. Furthermore, this research finds support for the mediating effects of ambidextrous innovation and dynamic marketing capabilities in the IEC – INV performance relationship. Additionally, the results indicate an international entrepreneurial culture is of greater significance in developing ambidextrous innovation when environmental dynamism is present. The study context is a sample of 286 high-technology INVs from India, a large and dynamic emerging market.     

专业市场本地网络效应、全球网络效应与中小企业国际营销能力——基于浙江义乌和绍兴的实证研究

本文基于专业市场网络与中小企业国际化存在紧密联系这一经济现实,试图研究专业市场网络对中小企业国际营销能力的影响。本文在对企业营销能力及其构成维度,专业市场网络等相关概念进行界定的基础上,对专业市场本地网络和全球网络中存在的各种效应对中小企业国际营销能力的影响进行了理论分析。在此基础上,运用浙江省义乌市和绍兴市实地调查所获得的数据对专业市场网络与中小企业国际营销能力之间的关系进行了实证检验。我们发现：（1）相比于专业市场本地网络,全球网络效应对中小企业国际营销能力有更显著的影响。（2）专业市场本地网络在提升中小企业的信息利用能力方面有着突出的表现,但对中小企业的产品开发能力和快速反应能力的影响并不十分显著。     

The Global and Regional Dispersion of Publishing in the Field of International Marketing

ABSTRACT

This paper empirically examines the research productivity of academic institutions in the leading international marketing journals, leading generalist marketing journals, and leading international business journals between the years 1999 and 2003 from a regional and country-specific perspective. The research found that across the three groups of journals, the majority of works were authored by academics at institutions located in North America, although North Americans contribute significantly less in the international marketing and international business journals than leading generalist marketing journals. The findings suggest that there is a broadening of non-U.S. influence within the international marketing and international business journals, which should lead to a broadening of international marketing theory.     

Psychic distance,marketing strategy and performance in export ventures of Brazilian firms

Compared to other issues examined in the exporting literature, less attention has been paid to the performance implications of following a standardisation or adaptation strategy. In addition, despite the interest in the psychic distance construct in the international marketing literature, there has been also little empirical research on the effect of managers' psychic distance on the international marketing strategies of the firm. To address these issues the present study offers an empirical investigation of the relationship among psychic distance, international marketing strategies, and export performance of Brazilian firms. A sample of senior managers of industrial firms in Brazil is used to test the hypotheses. The results reported here indicate that the degree of international marketing strategy adaptation is affected by the manager's psychic distance towards the foreign markets. Product and promotion adaptation were found to have a positive effect on export performance while surprisingly, distribution and price adaptation were found to influence export performance negatively. Contrary to expectations, the results also confirm that psychic distance has a positive effect on the export performance of the firm. Implications of these findings along with the limitations of the study are discussed.     

Determinants and Effects of Cultural Context: A Review,Conceptual Model,and Propositions

Edward Hall's pioneering work on “Silent Languages” of time, space, material possessions, friendship patterns, and agreements and his conceptualization of cultures as low-context and high-context have inspired numerous research studies on international and cross-cultural marketing. Despite these widespread applications, there is no research to date that integrates the theoretical foundations and applications of Hall's work in a single study. In this context, the current research delivers on the following three goals: (a) an extensive literature review of Hall's work on cultural context is done; (b) a conceptual model is developed that depicts the determinants and effects of cultural context; and (c) 12 propositions are developed, contrasting the effect of low- versus high-context cultures on a variety of cultural themes, such as Hofstede's five cultural dimensions, mono-chronic or M-time versus polychronic or P-time orientation, and relationship building etc. International marketing implications of this research and directions for future research are discussed.     

The Effect of Flexibility on Export Venture Performance

Abstract

Although both international marketing theorists and practitioners have been expounding the importance of flexibility little or no research has been done to examine the effect of flexibility on export venture performance. Most of the research to date was directed towards examining the effect of flexibility on performance in the domestic context. Moreover, the studies in the literature also gave exclusive attention to the performance-enhancing effect of flexibility and ignored the moderating effects of organisational and environmental contingencies on the flexibility-performance relationship. This paper will present the results of a study that assessed the effect of flexibility on export performance.

The findings support the proposition that flexibility is significantly related to export performance but that environmental dynamism, legal forms of business ownership, international experience, control mechanism, and exporter-distributor cooperation have a moderating effect on the relationships between flexibility and export venture performance. The study also found that firms that were challenged by intense competitive rivalries, spent a lot of time and effort on monitoring foreign marketing activities, and had substantial cooperation with overseas distributors were more flexible in their manufacturing, marketing, financial, and organizational activities.     

Elaboration of marketing communication through visual media: An empirical analysis

Visual media plays a significant role in the marketing and promotion of several international tourism services in today's connected marketplace, in particular here, international tertiary education. This study was developed to examine how visual media influence potential audiences' perception towards a specific educational tourism destination through the theoretical framework of Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty and Cacioppo, 1986). Researchers compare central and peripheral routes of individual persuasion via visual media and this aids marketers' understanding of how visual media impact consumers' purchase decisions. This study confirms a positive relationship between argument quality, audience engagement, source credibility, audience involvement and international students as tourists' perceived destination image. The findings suggest that peripheral routes of persuasion have stronger effects on individual adoption of information than central routes of persuasion. The study provides useful insight for tertiary education agents who promote international studies, destination marketers, and other users of visual media communicators.     

Global marketing strategy modeling of high tech products

This study considers the role of global marketing strategy and its relation to market orientation, international experience, and performance in the high tech products context. Knowledge of this important domain of global marketing strategy and performance remains limited. In this respect, the study raises a number of important questions concerning how market orientation, international experience and global marketing strategy impact performance. The study empirically tests predictions of relationships by using mail survey data from 172 business units of high tech firms. Findings from the research sample support the argument that market orientation, international experience, and global marketing strategy are the key antecedents of organizational performance. Market orientation and international experience influence global marketing. The article concludes with theoretical and managerial implications of the research findings.     

The Language Backfire Effect: How Frontline Employees Decrease Customer Satisfaction through Language Use

Extant marketing research holds that customers prefer frontline personnel to speak the customers’ first language. Furthermore, current managerial practices instruct frontline employees to either use the customers’ first language or, in international settings, to use English. Through five studies in different retail and service contexts, we identify situations where the opposite is true. The results of the first two studies suggest that if customers initiate contact in a second language, the frontline employee’s switch to the customer’s first language constitutes an identity threat leading customers to feel less satisfied; an effect we term the language backfire effect. Our third study extends these results to a domestic context to test for the impact of linguistic acculturation on how immigrant customers perceive frontline employees’ language switch. The fourth study replicates the findings in a real-life retail context. These results present a paradox for marketing research: although frontline employees switch to customers’ first language to accommodate them, these actions might not have the desired consequences. Having identified and described the problem of the language backfire effect, our final study introduces and verifies a managerially actionable solution: combining the language switch with a language proficiency compliment offsets the language backfire effect.     

The effect of internationalization on firm capital structure: A meta-analysis and exploration of institutional contingencies

Despite extensive research on the relationship between internationalization and firm capital structure, findings in this research area remain inconclusive. In this paper, we review the literature on the internationalization–capital structure relationship and investigate its direction, effect size, and multiple contingencies through a meta-analysis of 31 studies with a grand total of 223,658 firm observations and at least two separate samples each. Our cumulative evidence indicates lower debt ratios of multinational corporations compared to domestic corporations, in line with arguments of increased risk and agency costs in international operations. We extend our analysis to institutional characteristics in firms’ home countries and find that much of the existing variation in study findings can be explained using theory arguments on firm risk in internationalization. We contribute to an integration of international business and finance literature and point to directions for future research on determinants of the internationalization–capital structure relationship and its multiple contingencies.     

Coordinating manufacturing and marketing in international firms

In this article, the authors argue that manufacturing experiences much of the turbulence and conflict imposed by the dynamic global marketplace through its relationship with marketing, because marketing is usually responsible for introducing changing competitive priorities and demand patterns to the organization. Through a survey of manufacturing and marketing managers within international firms, the authors develop a profile of manufacturing-marketing conflicts experienced in each of four international strategy environments: export, multidomestic, global, and transnational. As international strategies became more complex, firms made use of more techniques for coordinating between marketing and manufacturing, with more use of decentralized and informal approaches. Coordinating techniques included individual MBO-reward systems, joint task forces for problem-solving, and direct involvement of manufacturing and marketing in establishing the competitive priorities of the firm.     

CONTRIBUTIONS TO INTERNATIONAL ADVERTISING RESEARCH: An Assessment of the Literature Between 1990 and 2002

Research in the field of international advertising has produced a large volume of literature. Although some attempts have been made in the past to review this stream of research, there has been no attempt to assess the contributions to this literature by individuals and institutions. This study assesses the contributions of individual researchers and institutions from 1990 to 2002, based on their publications in major advertising, marketing, and international business journals, and the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI). The findings of this study offer researchers a unique view of this field and some directions for future research.