The relationship of learning and memory with organizational performance: The moderating role of turbulence

Extensive research has documented how firms’ learning orientation and memory are related to organizational performance. The objective of this study is to examine the moderating role of turbulence on the relationships between firms’ learning orientation and memory and their organizational performance and innovativeness. The study also provides insight into the differential relationships of firms’ learning orientation and memory to their performance and innovativeness. Using survey data collected from 200 supply management professionals, the results suggest that the extent to which learning and memory are associated with organizational performance is contingent on the level of environmental turbulence. Specifically, under low environmental turbulence, learning orientation and organizational memory appear to be related to performance and innovativeness; however, under high environmental turbulence, only learning orientation is a useful predictor. Sangphet Hanvanich (hanvanich@xavier.edu) is an assistant professor of marketing at Xavier University. She received her PhD from Michigan State University. She has published in various journals including theJournal of Service Research andStrategic Management Journal. Her primary research interests are in the areas of marketing strategy, marketing alliances, international business, and international marketing. K. Sivakumar (k.sivakumar@lehigh.edu) (PhD, Syracuse University) is the Arthur Tauck Professor of International Marketing and Logistics, chairperson, and a professor of marketing in the Department of Marketing at Lehigh University. Before joining Lehigh in 2001, he spent 9 years as a faculty member with the University of Illinois at Chicago. His research interests include pricing, global marketing, and innovation management. His research has been published in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the Journal of Marketing, theJournal of International Business Studies, Decision Sciences Journal, Marketing Letters, the Journal of Business Research, the Journal of Interactive Marketing, theJournal of International Marketing, International Marketing Review, theJournal of Product Innovation Management, Pricing Strategy & Practice: An International Journal, Psychology & Marketing, Marketing Science Institute’s Working Paper Series, and other publications. He has won several awards for his research (including the Donald Lehmann Award) and is on the editorial review board of several scholarly journals. He has won outstanding reviewer awards from two journals. Home page: www.lehigh .edu/~kasg. G. Tomas M. Hult (nhult@msu.edu) is a professor of marketing and supply chain management and director of the Center for International Business Education and Research at Michigan State University. He serves as executive director of the Academy of International Business. He is associate editor of theJournal of International Business Studies, Decision Sciences, and theJournal of Operations Management. His research has been published in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal, theJournal of Marketing, Decision Sciences, theJournal of Operations Management, theJournal of Management, and theJournal of Retailing, among others.     

Consumer ethnocentrism offline and online: The mediating role of marketing efforts and personality traits in the United States, South Korea, and India

Consumer ethnocentrism is an important concept that is used to understand international marketing phenomena. In this article, the authors conduct two empirical studies. Using consumer data from the United States, South Korea, and India (three diverse cultural and economic environments), they explore six hypotheses. In Stage 1, the results suggest that across all three countries, consumer ethnocentrism provokes negative attitudes toward both foreign advertisements and foreign products. The authors identify a set of consumer variables (i.e., consumers’ global mind-set) that may mediate consumers’ unfavorable attitudes toward foreign advertisements and products derived by consumer ethnocentrism. In Stage 2, the authors find that consumer ethnocentrism dampens consumers’ online consumption activities on a foreign Web site. Finally, the authors find that marketers’ e-mail communications to foreign consumers mediate consumer ethnocentrism in online environments. Hyokjin Kwak (hkwak@drexel.edu) is an assistant professor of marketing at Drexel University. His research interests include advertising effects, consumer communications, and strategic marketing. He has publications in theJournal of Consumer Psychology, theJournal of Advertising Research, theJournal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising, theJournal of Consumer Marketing, and other marketing journals. Anupam Jaju (ajaju@gmu.edu) is an assistant professor of marketing in the School of Management at George Mason University. His main research interests are in marketing strategy, marketing-technology interface, and international marketing. His work has been published in theJournal of International Management, Marketing Theory, andMarketing Education Review. Trina Larsen Andras (published as Trina Larsen, larsent@ drexel.edu) is a professor and the head of the Marketing Department at Drexel University. Her research has been published in many of the major professional journals in her field, includingHarvard Business Review, theColumbia Journal of World Business, International Marketing Review, Industrial Marketing Management, Management International Review, theJournal of Global Marketing, and theJournal of International Marketing, among others. Her research is focused on international marketing, specifically, cross-cultural behavioral and relationship issues in international marketing management.     

Service quality, trust, specific asset investment, and expertise: Direct and indirect effects in a satisfaction-loyalty framework

This study proposes an integrated framework explaining loyalty responses in high-involvement, high-service luxury product markets. The model is rooted in the traditional (attribute satisfaction)-(overall satisfaction)-(loyalty) chain but explicitly incorporates facility versus interactive service quality, trust, specific asset investment (SAI), and product-market expertise. The authors focus on disentangling the direct versus indirect effects of model constructs on attitudinal versus behavioral loyalty responses. The results support the traditional chain but also show loyalty can be increased by building a trustworthy image and creating exchange-specific assets. The authors found that overall satisfaction is the precursor both to loyalty and to building SAI. Finally, consumers have different costs in reducing adverse selection problems with information, and thus the negative effect of product-market expertise on behavioral loyalty needs to be controlled if the direct versus indirect effects of model constructs on loyalty are to be disentangled. Jyh-Shen Chiou (jschiou@nccu.edu.tw) (PhD in marketing, Michigan State University) is a professor of marketing in the Department of International Business at National Chengchi University, Taipei. His research interests include satisfaction and loyalty, strategic marketing, and international marketing. His work has been published in theJournal of Service Research, Psychology & Marketing, theEuropean Journal of Marketing, theJournal of Interactive Marketing, Information & Management, theJournal of Social Psychology, theJournal of Business Logistics, Advances in Consumer Research, and other scholarly journals. He has taught courses in marketing research, strategic marketing, and global marketing. Cornelia Droge (droge@msu.edu) is a professor of marketing in the Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management, the Eli Broad Graduate School of Management, at Michigan State University. Her research interests focus on satisfaction/ loyalty and strategic marketing (especially areas related to the interface of marketing with logistics, supply chain, and operations). Her work has appeared inManagement Science, theStrategic Management Journal, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Business Logistics, theJournal of Operations Management, theJournal of Product Innovation Management, and other scholarly journals. She is also coauthor of three books.     

Driving organizational citizenship behaviors and salesperson in-role behavior performance: The role of management control and perceived organizational support

Interest in management control approaches and organizational factors associated with higher levels of salesperson performance is reflected in research streams concerned with behavior-based control strategies and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). This study makes two distinct additions to the literature relating to control, organizational citizenship behaviors and salesperson performance. First, the study distinguishes between salesperson in-role behavior performance and outcome performance to model in-role behavior performance as a mediator between OCB and outcome performance. Second, the work supports sales manager control as an antecedent to OCB. A second model introduces perceived organizational support (POS) as an additional antecedent to salesperson OCB, and more important, as a consequence of sales manager control. This construct has not been included in prior salesperson OCB studies. Results show sales manage control has a stronger impact on OCB through POS, than directly, and POS has a strong impact on salesperson OCB. Nigel F. Piercy (Nigel.Piercy@wbs.ac.uk) is a professor of marketing in the Warwick Business School at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wales and a higher doctorate (D.Litt) from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. His current research interests focus on strategic sales and account management. His work has been published in many journals including theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of International Marketing, and theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science. He is coauthor to David Cravens onStrategic Marketing (8th ed., Irwin/McGraw-Hill, 2006). David W. Cravens (D.Cravens@tcu.edu) holds the Eunice and James L. West Chair of American Enterprise Studies and is a professor of marketing in the M. J. Neeley School of Business at Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas. He has a doctorate in business administration from Indiana University. His areas of specialization include marketing strategy and planning, sales management, and new product planning. His research has been published in a wide range of journals including theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and theInternational Journal of Marketing. Nikala Lane (Nikala.Lane@wbs.ac.uk) is a senior lecturer in marketing in the Warwick Business School at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wales and was previously a senior research associate at Cardiff University. Her research interests are focused on gender and ethics issues in sales and marketing management. Her work has been published widely in the international literature and includes articles in theJournal of Management Studies, theBritish Journal of Management, the Journal of Business Ethics, and theJournal of Personal Selling & Sales Management. Douglas W. Vorhies (dvorhies@bus.olemiss.edu) is an assistant professor of marketing in the School of Business Administration at the University of Mississippi. His primary research interests are in the areas of marketing strategy, marketing resources and capabilities, the links between innovation, strategic market management and performance, and professional selling and sales management. His other work has been published in many journals including theJournal of Marketing, Decision Sciences, theJournal of Product Innovation Management, theEuropean Journal of Marketing, and theJournal of Personal Selling and Sales Management.     

Corporate citizenship: Cultural antecedents and business benefits

The article explores the nature of corporate citizenship and its relevance for marketing practitioners and academic researchers. Specifically, a conceptualization and operationalization of corporate citizenship are first proposed. Then, an empirical investigation conducted in two independent samples examines whether components of an organization’s culture affect the level of commitment to corporate citizenship and whether corporate citizenship is conducive to business benefits. Survey results suggest that market-oriented cultures as well as humanistic cultures lead to proactive corporate citizenship, which in turn is associated with improved levels of employee commitment, customer loyalty, and business performance. The results point to corporate citizenship as a potentially fruitful business practice both in terms of internal and external marketing. Isabelle Maignan is an assistant professor of marketing and international business at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. Her research interests focus on business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and international marketing. Her work has appeared in theJournal of Advertising, Journal of Business Research, and theJournal of Business Ethics, as well as other journals and conference proceedings. O. C. Ferrell is a professor of marketing at Colorado State University. He is the coauthor of 16 books and 60 articles. His work has appeared in theJournal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Business Research, and theJournal of Public Policy and Marketing, as well as other journals and proceedings. G. Tomas M. Hult is the director of international business and an associate professor of marketing and international business at Florida State University. His research interests focus on marketing strategy, international marketing, and methodological issues in marketing. Dr. Hult’s work has appeared in theJournal of Marketing, Decision Sciences, Journal of Business Research, Journal of International Marketing, andInternational Marketing Review, as well as other journals and proceedings.     

A dyadic study of interpersonal information search

Although interpersonal word-of-mouth communication, by definition, takes place between two people, rarely has the phenomenon of word of mouth been studied using both members of the dyad. Building on the literature, this article offers a model of active interpersonal information search that is tested by using a method in which information seeker and source perceptions were obtained. Source characteristics were important determinants of interpersonal influence, but seeker characteristics also played an important role. Interestingly, it proved useful to distinguish between demographic and attitudinal homophily of seeker and source as the former was inversely and the latter directly related to interpersonal influence. Mary C. Gilly is an associate professor in the Graduate School of Management and associate dean of Graduate Studies at the University of California, Irvine. Her Ph.D. is in marketing from the University of Houston. Her research interests include the unintended effects of marketing actions, such as the effects of advertising on employees. She also has interests in services marketing, such as customer service, including consumer complaint handling, and cross-cultural service encounters. Her work has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Consumer Research, theJournal of Business Research, and other academic journals. John L. Graham is a professor in the Graduate School of Management at the University of California, Irvine. His Ph.D. is in marketing from the University of California, Berkeley. His primary research interests regard international marketing, international business negotiations, and structural equations modeling. His work has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Consumer Research, Marketing Science, theJournal of International Business Studies, Management Science, and other academic journals. Mary Finley Wolfinbarger is an associate professor at California State University, Long Beach and is doing research on the topics of internal marketing and gift giving. She teaches Marketing Principles and Marketing Research. She received her Ph.D. in marketing from the University of California, Irvine. Her work has appeared in theJournal of Marketing and other academic journals. Laura J. Yale came to Fort Lewis College in 1991. She holds degrees in Hotel, Restaurant, and Travel Administration from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine. She teaches a variety of courses in Marketing and Travel and Tourism Administration, including Marketing Research, International Marketing and Services. Her industry experience and most of her research interest are in the services sector, particularly the tourism industry. She is on sabbatical leave this academic year, writing an introductory textbook on the tourism industry. She will return to teaching in September 1998.     

A measure of long-term orientation: Development and validation

Long-term orientation (LTO) is a salient aspect of national culture values and as such influences consumers’ decisionmaking processes. This article describes the development and validation of measures to assess LTO. Scale development procedures resulted in a two-factor, eight-item scale that reflects the tradition and planning aspects of LTO. A program of studies involving more than 2,000 respondents in four countries demonstrated the psychometric properties of the measures, their discriminant and convergent validities, and the relationship of the measures to other important theoretical concepts (e.g., consumer frugality, compulsive buying, and ethical values). The measures are applicable for investigating individual differences in LTO both within and across cultures. William O. Bearden (bbearden@moore.sc.edu) is the Bank of America Chaired Professor of Marketing in the Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. His articles have been published in journals such as theJournal of Consumer Research, theJournal of Marketing, the Journal of Marketing Research, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and theJournal of Retailing. His research interests include consumer perceptions of value and prices, the measurement of consumer and marketing constructs, and the effects of marketplace promotions. R. Bruce Money (moneyb@byu.edu) is the Donald Staheli Fellow and an associate professor of marketing and international business in the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University. His articles have been published in journals such as theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of International Business Studies, andSloan Management Review. His research interests include the international aspects of national culture’s measurement and effects, business-to-business marketing, word-of-mouth promotion, services marketing, and negotiation. Jennifer L. Nevins (nevinsjl@appstate.edu) is an assistant professor of marketing in the Walker College of Business at Appalachian State University. Her research interests include export marketing, distribution channels, and the influence of cultural values on international channel relationships.     

Foreign market entry mode choice of service firms: A contingency perspective

Research on how service firms choose their initial mode of operation in foreign markets appears to have led to two contradictory conclusions. Findings from one group of studies suggest that factors determining entry mode choice by manufacturing firms are generalizable to service firms. Findings from another group of studies contradict that view. The authors reconcile the two views by means of a classification scheme that allows some services to be grouped with manufactured goods in terms of entry mode choice. A conceptual model of factors affecting the entry mode choice of service firms is proposed, research propositions are developed, and managerial implications and future research directions are discussed. Ikechi Ekeledo is a doctoral candidate in marketing at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His research interests include international marketing, services marketing, and strategic market planning. K. Sivakumar (Ph.D., Syracuse University, 1992) is an associate professor of marketing at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His research interests include pricing, international marketing, and innovation management. His research has been published or is forthcoming inBarron’s, International Marketing Review, theJournal of Business Research, theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Theory & Practice, theJournal of Product Innovation Management, theJournal of Social Behavior & Personality, Marketing Letters, Marketing Science Institute’s Working Paper Series, and Pricing Strategy & Practice: An International Journal, and summarized as Editors’ Briefings inHarvard Business Review. He has won several awards for research and is on the editorial boards of four scholarly journals.     

Determinants of online channel use and overall satisfaction with a relational,multichannel service provider

This study examines what drives customers' use of an online channel in a relational, multichannel environment. The authors propose a conceptual model of the determinants of online channel use and overall satisfaction with the service provider. They then conduct two large-scale studies in different service contexts to test the model. The results show that Web site design characteristics affect customer evaluations of online channel service quality and risk, which in turn drive online channel use. Customers' overall satisfaction with the service provider is determined by the service quality provided through both the online channel and the traditional channel. The results offer insights into the trade-offs that multichannel service providers face as they attempt to influence online channel use while maintaining or enhancing overall customer satisfaction. Mitzi M. Montoya-Weiss (m_mw@ncsu.edu) (Ph.D., Michigan State University) is a professor of marketing in the Department of Business Management at North Carolina State University. Her research interests include new product development and adoption, virtual teams, and knowledge management. Her research has appeared inMarketing Science, Management Science, Decision Sciences, theAcademy of Management Journal, theJournal of Product Innovation Management, and other scholarly journals. She has taught courses in marketing management, product and brand management, and management of technology. Glenn B. Voss (gvoss@ncsu.edu) (Ph.D., Texas A&M University) is an associate professor of marketing in the Department of Business Management at North Carolina State University. His research interests include relationship and services marketing, creativity and entrepreneurship, and retail pricing strategies. His research has appeared in theJournal of Marketing, Organization Science, theJournal of Retailing, Marketing Letters, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and other scholarly journal. He currently serves on the editorial review board of theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science and has served as an ad hoc reviewer for theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Retailing, and theJournal of Business Research. He has taught courses in marketing strategy, electronic marketing, and nonprofit management in MBA programs in the United States and Europe. Dhruv Grewal (dgrewal@babson.edu) (Ph.D., Virginia Polytechnic Institute) is the Toyota Chair in E-Commerce and Electronic Business in Babson College. His research and teaching interests focus on e-business, global marketing, value-based marketing strategies, and understanding the voice of the customer (market research). He is also co-editor of theJournal of Retailing. He has published more than 50 articles in outlets such as theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Consumer Research, theJournal of Marketing Research, and theJournal of Retailing. He currently serves on the editorial review boards of theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Retailing, theJournal of Public Policy & Marketing, and theJournal of Product and Brand Management.     

Customer value,satisfaction, loyalty,and switching costs: An illustration from a business-to-business service context

Although researchers and managers pay increasing attention to customer value, satisfaction, loyalty, and switching costs, not much is known about their interrelationships. Prior research has examined the relationships within subsets of these constructs, mainly in the business-to-consumer (B2C) environment. The authors extend prior research by developing a conceptual framework linking all of these constructs in a business-to-business (B2B) service setting. On the basis of the cognition-affect-behavior model, the authors hypothesize that customer satisfaction mediates the relationship between customer value and customer loyalty, and that customer satisfaction and loyalty have significant reciprocal effects on each other. Furthermore, the potential interaction effect of satisfaction and switching costs, and the quadratic effect of satisfaction, on loyalty are explored. The authors test the hypotheses on data obtained from a courier service provider in a B2B context. The results support most of the hypotheses and, in particular, confirm the mediating role of customer satisfaction. Shun Yin Lam (asylam@ntu.edu.sg; fax: 65-6791-3697) is an assistant professor of marketing and international business in the Nanyang Business School at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Lam received his Ph.D. from the University of Western Ontario and has research interests in a number of areas including retail marketing, customer loyalty, and customers’ adoption and usage of technology. His work has appeared inMarketing Science, theJournal of Retailing, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, andAdvances in Consumer Research. Venkatesh (Venky) Shankar (vshankar@rhsmith.umd.edu) is Ralph J. Tyser Fellow and an associate professor of marketing in the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. His areas of research are e-business, competitive strategy, international marketing, pricing, new product management, and supply chain management. His research has been published or is forthcoming in theJournal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, theJournal of Marketing, theStrategic Management Journal, theJournal of Retailing, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theJournal of Public Policy and Marketing, andMarketing Letters. he is co-editor of theJournal of Interactive Marketing; associate editor ofManagement Science; and serves on the editorial boards ofMarketing Science, theJournal of Marketing, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theJournal of Retailing, and theJournal of Academy of Marketing Science. He is a three-time winner of the Krowe Award for Outstanding Teaching and teaches Marketing Management, Digital Business Strategy, Competitive Marketing Strategy, and International Marketing (http://www.venkyshankar.com). M. Krishna Erramilli (amkerramilli@ntu.edu.sg) is an associate professor of marketing and international business in the Nanyang Business School at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He has undertaken many studies on marketing strategy issues in service firms, particularly in an international context, and has published his work in journals like theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of International Business Studies, theColumbia Journal of World Business, and theJournal of Business Research. He has presented numerous papers at international conferences. His current research interests center on the international expansion of Asia-based service firms. Bvsan Murthy (abmurthy@ntu.edu.sg) is an associate professor of marketing and international business in the Nanyang Business School at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Prior to turning to the academe a decade ago, he had 20 years of international industry experience. He has published in journals likeThe Cornell H.R.A. Quarterly and theInternational Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management and has also written industry white papers/monographs and chapters in books. His current research interests center on strategic services marketing/management and customer value management.     

Corporate social responsibility and marketing: An integrative framework

This article introduces a conceptualization of corporate social responsibility (CSR) that emphasizes the role and potential contribution of the marketing discipline. The proposed framework first depicts CSR initiatives as the actions undertaken to display conformity to both organizational and stakeholder norms. Then, the article discusses the managerial processes needed to monitor, meet, and even exceed, stakeholder norms. Finally, the analysis explains how CSR initiatives can generate increased stakeholder support. Isabelle Maignan (imaignan@feweb.vu.nl) is an assistant professor of marketing at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Her research focuses on corporate social responsibility and its marketing dimensions in an international setting. Her work has appeared in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of International Business Studies, theJournal of Business Research, theJournal of Advertising, among other journals and conference proceedings. O. C. Ferrell (oc.ferrell@colostate.edu) is chair and a professor of marketing at Colorado State University. His research focuses on marketing ethics and corporate social responsibility. His work has appeared in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Public Policy and Marketing, as well as other leading journals. In addition, he is the coauthor ofMarketing: Concepts and Strategies, Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making and Cases, Business and Society: A Strategic Approach to Corporate Citizenship, Marketing Strategy, and other textbooks.     

Export marketing,interfunctional interactions,and performance consequences

Firms with export operations have internal environments that are often geared toward serving the home market. As a result, export marketing and other business functions compete for resources, which thus increases the likelihood of conflict between them. Using survey responses from more than 700 exporting firms, the authors test a model of the antecedents and consequences of two important interaction variables: exporting’s interfunctional connectedness and conflict. The model explains 52 percent and 49 percent of variance in exporting connectedness and conflict, respectively. The authors identify the key drivers of successful interactions as follows: management commitment, organizational training and reward systems, relative functional identification, centralization, and export employee job satisfaction and commitment. The authors also demonstrate that connectedness is most critical for export success when export markets are in a state of turbulence, whereas conflict is most detrimental when the firm’s export environment is stable. John W. Cadogan (j.w.cadogan@lboro.ac.uk), Ph.D., is a professor of marketing in the Business School at Loughborough University, United Kingdom. His primary areas of research interest are international marketing, marketing strategy, and sales management. He has published on these issues in theJournal of International Business Studies, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theJournal of Business Research, Industrial Marketing Management, theEuropean Journal of Marketing, theInternational Marketing Review, theJournal of Marketing Management, theJournal of Strategic Marketing, and other academic journals. He received his degree from the University of Wales (United Kingdom). Sanna Sundqvist (sanna.sundqvist@lut.fi), Ph.D., is a professor in international marketing in the Department of Business Administration at the Lappeenranta University of Technology (Finland). Her research interests deal with the international diffusion of innovations, market orientation (especially in an international context), and consumers’ adoption behavior. She has published in theJournal of Business Research, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theEuropean Journal of Marketing, theCanadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, and theAustralasian Marketing Journal. She received her degree from the Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland. Risto T. Saiminen (risto.salminen@lut.fi), Ph.D., is a professor of industrial engineering and management, especially marketing, in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management at Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland. His primary areas of research interest are customer relationships and networks in business marketing, pedagogy in industrial engineering and management, and international marketing. He has published on these issues in theJournal of Business and Industrial Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Management, theEuropean Journal of Engineering Education, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theEuropean Journal of Marketing, and theAustralasian Marketing Journal. He received his degree from Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland. Kaisu Puumalainen (kaisu.puumalainen@lut.fi), Ph.D., is a professor in technology research in the Department of Business Administration at Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland. Her primary areas of research interest are innovation, international marketing, and small businesses. She has published on these issues in theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theJournal of Business Research, theEuropean Journal of Marketing, R&D Management, theCanadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, theJournal of International Entrepreneurship, theAustralasian Marketing Journal, and theInternational Journal of Production Economics. She received her degree from the Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland.     

An analysis of e-business adoption and its impact on business performance

Across industries, firms have adopted e-business initiatives to better manage their internal business processes as well as their interfaces with the environment. In this study, a unified framework that captures the antecedents of e-business adoption, adoption intensity, and performance outcomes is proposed and empirically tested using data collected from senior managers in four technology-intensive industries. Applying a framework that captures the intensity of e-business adoption across four business process domains, the authors find that the antecedents and performance outcomes of e-business adoption are best studied in a process-specific context. They find, for example, that while the communication and internal administration aspects of e-business positively affect performance outcomes, the more high-profile activities related to online order taking and e-procurement do not. The authors' findings provide the foundation for a more rigorous study of e-business. Fang Wu (fangwu@msu.edu) (Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin) is an assistant professor of marketing at the Eli Broad College of Business, Michigan State University. Her current research interests include e-business adoption strategy, knowledge transfer in new product alliances, interfirm learning dynamics, and marketing knowledge management. Vijay Mahajan (vijay.mahajan@bus.utexas.edu) (Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin) is the John P. Harbin Centennial Chair in Business and a professor of marketing at the McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin, and dean of the Indian School of Business at Hyderabad, India. He has written extensively on product diffusion, marketing strategy, and marketing research methodologies. He has written and/or edited eight books. His research appears in journals such as theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Marketing, Marketing Science, Management Science, andHarvard Business Review. He has received the Best Research Paper Award from theJournal of Retailing (1982, 1985), theJournal of Marketing (Maynard Award, 1990), and theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing (Prentice Hall Award, 1995). He also received the American Marketing Association (AMA) Charles Coolidge Parlin Marketing Research Award (1997) and the AMA Marketing Research Special Interest Group Gilbert Churchill Award in 1999, recognizing lifetime achievement in marketing research. Sridhar Balasubramanian (balasubs@bschool.unc.edu) (Ph.D., Yale University) is an assistant professor of marketing at Kenan-Flagler, the University of North Carolina Business School. His research interests cover multiple areas including marketing strategy, channel portfolio management, e-commerce and m-commerce, direct marketing and customer relationship management, game theory and the management of competition, digitization, and strategic compensation. His research has been published or is forthcoming in journals such asMarketing Science, Management Science, Statistica Neerlandica, theInternational Journal of Electronic Commerce, Decision Support Systems, and theJournal of Retailing. He received the John D. C. Little Award for 1998 from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Science (INFORMS) for the best marketing paper inMarketing Science andManagement Science. He has worked as a marketing strategy adviser to start-up companies and served as guest coeditor of the Centennial Issue of theJournal of Retailing.     

Investigating industry context effects in consumer-firm relationships: Preliminary results from a dispositional approach

Few, if any, past studies have attempted to develop a model to capture and explain industry context variability and hypothesize its effects on consumer-firm relationships. Generally, industry effects are ignored, described, or explained post hoc. Using the notion of consumers' dispositions toward a market, a framework is proposed for understanding the influence of industry context on consumer satisfaction, trust, value, and loyalty in relational exchanges. The empirical results of a survey in two service industries show that industry contexts matter and yield significant direct and moderating effects on consumer-firm relationships. The study underscores the promise of a dispositional approach for providing insights for the theory and practice of relationship marketing, resolvin goutstanding questions, and proposing fruitful areas for further examination. Edwin Nijssen, Ph.D., is a professor of marketing at the Nijmegen School of Management at the University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands. His research interest focuses on strategic and international marketing issues, relationship marketing, brand management, and new-product development. He has published inLong Range Planning, theJournal of Product Innovation Management, Technology Forecasting and Social Change, R&D Management, Industrial Marketing Management, and theJournal of International Marketing and has written several books on marketing strategy. Jagdip Singh, Ph.D., is a professor of marketing at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. His primary areas of research include consumer dissatisfaction and trust, measurement issues—including relationships between theoretical concepts and empirical observations— and the effectiveness of boundary role personnel. He has published in theJournal of Marketing, theAcademy of Management Journal, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Behavioral Research in Accounting, andManagement Science, among others. Deepak Sirdeshmukh, Ph.D., is a visiting assistant professor of marketing at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. His primary areas of research include consumer trust and consumer processing of brand information. He has published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Consumer Research, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and theJournal of Consumer Psychology, among others. Hartmut H. Holzmüeller, Ph.D., is a professor of marketing at the School of Business at Dortmund University, Germany. His research interests include cross-national consumer research and customer relationship marketing. Most of his work has been published in German. His articles also appeared in theJournal of International Marketing, Management International Review, andInternational Business Review.     

An exploration of the moderating role of buyer corporate culture in industrial buyer-seller relationships

In this study, the authors examine industrial buyer-seller relationships, exploring the influence of buyer perceptions of their relationships on their repurchase intentions. In particular close relationships as opposed to pure transactions, are examined. Using data collected from buyers of industrial goods and services, the authors examine the association between buyers' perceptions of relationship quality and repurchase intentions and the moderating effect of the corporate culture of the buying firms. The results suggest a significant relationship between buyer perceptions of the relationship and their repurchase intentions, as well as a significant moderating effect of buyer firm corporate culture. The implications of these findings for the study of marketing relationships, as well as for marketing practice, are also offered. Kelly Hewett is an assistant professor of marketing at Winthrop University. Her research focuses on the management of relationships between buyers and sellers as well as between headquarters and foreign subsidiaries in managing the marketing function globally. Her research has been published in theJournal of Marketing, Journal of International Marketing, andPsychology and Marketing. R. Bruce Money is an associate professor of international business at the Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina. His research interests include international aspects of business-to-business marketing, word-of-mouth promotion, services marketing, and negotiation. His research has been published in theJournal of Marketing, Journal of International Business Studies, andSloan Management Review. Subhash Sharma is a professor of marketing and the Charles W. Coker Sr. Distinguished Foundation Fellow at the Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina. His research interests include research methods, pricing, CRM, and e-commerce. His research has been published in major marketing and related journals, and he serves on the editorial review board of theJournal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Reserch, andJournal of Retailing.     

The influence of complementarity, compatibility, and relationship capital on alliance performance

Value creation through alliances requires the simultaneous pursuit of partners with similar characteristics on certain dimensions and different characteristics on other dimensions. Partnering firms need to have different resource and capability profiles yet share similarities in their social institutions. In this article, the authors empirically examine the impact of partner characteristics on the performance of alliances. In particular, they test hypotheses related to both direct impact of partner characteristics on alliance performance and indirect effects through relational capital aspects of the alliance. Empirical results based on a sample of alliances in the global construction contracting industry suggest that complementarity in partner resources and compatibility in cultural and operational norms have different direct and indirect effects on alliance performance. Accordingly, organizational routines aimed at partner selection need to be complemented by relationship management routines to maximize the potential benefits from an alliance. MB Sarkar (Ph.D., Michigan State University) is an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Central Florida. His current research includes strategic alliances, innovation and entrepreneurship, knowledge management, and electronic markets. His research has been published in theStrategic Management Journal, theJournal of International Business Studies, and theJournal of Business Research, among others. Raj Echambadi (Ph.D., University of Houston) is an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Central Florida. His current research interests include investigation of territorial loyalty issues, management of innovations, and estimation issues pertaining to structural equation modeling and Partial Least Squares. His research has been published in theStrategic Management Journal, Multivariate Behavioral Research, and theJournal of Product Innovation Management. S. Tamer Cavusgil (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin) is University Distinguished Faculty and serves as the John William Byington Endowed Chair in global marketing at Michigan State University (MSU). He is also the executive director of MSU's Center for International Business Education and Research, a national resource center. His teaching, research, and administrative activities have focused on international business and marketing. His research has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, and theJournal of International Business Studies, among others. His specific interests include the internationalization of the firm, global marketing strategy, and internationalization of business education. He was the founding editor of theJournal of International Marketing, now published by the American Marketing Association. Preet S. Aulakh (Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin) is an associate professor of strategy and international business at the Fox School of Business and Management, Temple University. His research focuses on international technology licensing, cross-border joint ventures and strategic alliances and strategies of firms from developing economies. His research has been published in theAcademy of Management Journal, theJournal of Marketing, and theJournal of International Business Studies.     

National culture and industrial buyer-seller relationships in the United States and Latin America

This study examined whether national culture directly moderates the link between buyer-seller relationship strength and repurchase intentions in industrial markets, as well as indirectly moderates the same link through its influence on corporate culture. Hypotheses were tested using a mail survey among industrial buyers in the United States and Latin America. Results based on 126 responses from Latin American firms and 81 responses from U.S. firms showed that national culture and corporate culture moderate the relationship-repurchase link and that national culture is associated with corporate culture. Using national culture index scores computed from administering Hofstede’s Value Survey Module 94, the authors further show that uncertainty avoidance is the primary driver of national culture’s influence on this link and that power distance is most directly associated with corporate culture. Kelly Hewett (kelly_hewett@moore.sc.edu) is in the Department of Marketing at the Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina. Her research focuses on the management of relationships between buyers and sellers, as well as between headquarters and foreign subsidiaries in managing the marketing function globally. Her research has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and theJournal of International Business Studies, among others. R. Bruce Money (moneyb@byu.edu) is the Donald Staheli Fellow and an associate professor of marketing and international business in the Marriott School of Management, Brigham Young University. His articles have been published in journals such as theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of International Business Studies, andSloan Management Review. His research interests include the international aspects of national culture’s measurement and effects, business-to-business marketing, word-of-mouth promo-tion, services marketing, and negotiation. Subhash Sharma (sharma@moore.sc.edu) is the James F. Kane Professor of Business in the Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina. Professor Sharma’s research interests include marketing strategy, structural equation modeling, data mining, customer relationship management, e-commerce, the marketing-operations interface, and global marketing strategies. He has published numerous articles in these areas in leading academic journals such as theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Marketing, Marketing Science, theJournal of Retailing, theJournal of Operations Management, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, and Management Science. Professor Sharma has also authored two textbooks:Applied Multivariate Techniques (John Wiley, 1996) andScaling Procedures: Issues and Applications (with Richard G. Netemeyer and William O. Bearden, Sage, 2003). Professor Sharma was a member of the editorial boards of theJournal of Marketing Research and theJournal of Marketing and currently serves on the editorial review board of theJournal of Retailing.     

Conflict management and innovation performance: An integrated contingency perspective

In recent years, many of the basic assumptions underlying organizational conflict research have changed, drawing into question the validity of some previous research findings. Operating from the perspective that conflict is complex, multidimensional, and context specific, this research takes a fresh look at key conflict antecedents, mediators, and consequences in the context of the innovation process. The study investigates the relationships among five behavioral conflict-handling strategies, destructive and constructive conflict, and innovation performance as perceived by 290 R & D and marketing department managers. Empirical results both support and question some of the previous findings in conflict research. The results indicate that integrating, accommodating, compromising, forcing, and avoiding conflict-handling strategies can have different impacts on constructive and destructive conflict in an innovation context. Kelly Hewett (kelly_hewett@moore.sc.edu) is in the Department of Marketing at the Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina. Her research focuses on the management of relationships between buyers and sellers, as well as between headquarters and foreign subsidiaries in managing the marketing function globally. Her research has been published in theJournal of Marketing, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and theJournal of International Business Studies, among others. R. Bruce Money (moneyb@byu.edu) is the Donald Staheli Fellow and an associate professor of marketing and international business in the Marriott School of Management, Brigham Young University. His articles have been published in journals such as theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of International Business Studies, andSloan Management Review. His research interests include the international aspects of national culture’s measurement and effects, business-to-business marketing, word-of-mouth promo-tion, services marketing, and negotiation. Subhash Sharma (sharma@moore.sc.edu) is the James F. Kane Professor of Business in the Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina. Professor Sharma’s research interests include marketing strategy, structural equation modeling, data mining, customer relationship management, e-commerce, the marketing-operations interface, and global marketing strategies. He has published numerous articles in these areas in leading academic journals such as theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Marketing, Marketing Science, theJournal of Retailing, theJournal of Operations Management, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, andManagement Science. Professor Sharma has also authored two textbooks:Applied Multivariate Techniques (John Wiley, 1996) andScaling Procedures: Issues and Applications (with Richard G. Netemeyer and William O. Bearden, Sage, 2003). Professor Sharma was a member of the editorial boards of theJournal of Marketing Research and theJournal of Marketing and currently serves on the editorial review board of theJournal of Retailing.     

The role of affect in attitude formation: A classical conditioning approach

This study investigates the role of affect in attitude formation. Two experiments, using established conditioning procedures, assessed the impact of affect on attitude formation. The results of Experiment 1 indicate that affect can influence attitudes even in the absence of product beliefs. The results of Experiment 2 suggest that affect plays as important or more important a role than the belief mechanism in attitude formation, depending on the number of repetitions. Implications of the results for understanding the role of affect in advertising are discussed. John Kim is an associate professor of marketing in the School of Business Administration at Oakland University. He earned his Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Cincinnati. His research interests include consumer decision making, advertising effectiveness, and brand equity. His work has appeared in theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Consumer Research, and theJournal of Business Research. Jeen-Su Lim is Interim Chair and a professor of marketing at the University of Toledo. He received his Ph.D. in marketing from Indiana University. His work has appeared in many journals, including theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Consumer Research, theJournal of Business Research, Industrial Marketing Management, International Marketing Review, Management International Review, Psychology and Marketing, and theJournal of Health Care Marketing, among others. His research interests include consumer inference processes, new product development and competitive strategy, and export marketing. Mukesh Bhargava is an assistant professor in the Department of Marketing and Management at Oakland University. He has a Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Texas, Austin, and several years of practical experience in advertising and marketing research. His research includes areas such as advertising effectiveness and evaluation of marketing strategy in business and nonprofit organizations. His work has appeared in theJournal of Advertising Research, Marketing Letters, theJournal of Business Research, and theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, among others.