I,me, and my everything: Self conceptual traits and compulsive buying behavior

Compulsive buying behavior is detrimental to the well-being of the consumers, brands, and the economy. Therefore, the current study aims to understand how the self-conceptual traits and values underline the corridors to the compulsive buying behavior of fashion apparel products. We collected self-administered data from systematically selected 744 young shopping mall consumers and employed structural equation modeling (SEM) via maximum likelihood method for analysis. Self-conceptual traits (physical and achievement vanity), materialism, and brand consciousness play a pivotal role in the development of compulsive buying behavior in young consumers of Pakistan. Furthermore, the presence of materialistic attitude and brand consciousness in consumers firmly explains vanity-driven consumer's excessive, chronic, and unneeded purchasing of fashion appeal products. Policymakers and fashion apparel marketers should limit the excessive use of self-oriented and self-defining appeals in their marketing campaigns and focus on strategies that build consumer relationships with brands based on mutual benefits and welfare.     

Strategy and structure of service multinationals and their impact on linkages with local firms

Drawing on case studies of two leading UK service firms in five host countries (Argentina, Brazil, China, Korea and Malaysia), we examine how the strategy and organization of service multinationals shape the development of linkages with local firms in host economies. We find that there is reduced autonomy of subsidiaries to engage with local firms as a result of relatively centralized strategies of multinationals. Because of global policies ensuring consistency of services or global sourcing policies to reduce costs, service multinationals tend to prefer global suppliers. Backward linkages occur in a few cases when the relationship can be a vehicle for market expansion for the multinational in a particular host market. Local governments play an important role in the cases where backward linkages are developed.     

中国企业国际采购发展阶段特征的案例分析

随着中国企业国际化的发展,国际采购必将为中国企业国际竞争力的提高与可持续发展作出越来越重要的贡献。国际采购不仅是企业的运作职能,更是企业的战略职能。运作层次国际采购向战略层次国际采购的发展可以划分为不同阶段。本文采用案例研究方法对不同阶段中国企业国际采购的特征进行实证分析。研究结果表明,中国企业国际采购发展的初级阶段主要是追求海外供应的高质量和高技术,随着国际采购阶段的深入,中国企业国际采购能力建设将更为完善,将追求更为多样化的战略利益。中国企业国际采购所面临的硬性成本与外部障碍的重要性下降,软性成本和内部障碍越来越重要。对于国际采购发展程度较高的企业,内部障碍对企业国际采购能力建设提出了更高的要求。但软性成本的阶段性特征表现得不明显,文化与商业习惯差异是比较普遍的软性成本,其他软性成本类型主要与企业特征或行业类型有关。     

Parental style and consumer socialization among adolescents: A cross-cultural investigation

The paper examines how parental style affects consumer socialization in a cross-national context, focusing on family communication orientation, adolescents' use of influence strategies, susceptibility to peer influence, and impulse buying tendency. Multiple-informant data from each family (i.e., father, mother, and adolescent) are used in the analysis. The findings suggest that Chinese adolescents, compared with their Canadian counterparts, use less bilateral influence strategies (reasoning, bargaining), but more unilateral influence strategies (playing on emotions, stubborn persuasion); they are also less susceptible to peer influence, and have less impulse buying tendency. Across both cultures, authoritarian parents are more socio-oriented than authoritative, permissive, and neglectful parents, whereas authoritative and permissive parents are more concept-oriented than authoritarian and neglectful parents. Furthermore, adolescents with authoritative and permissive parents more likely use bilateral influence strategies than those with authoritarian parents, while adolescents with neglectful parents use more unilateral influence strategies than those with other parental styles. These findings provide novel insights on market segmentation and international marketing practices.     

A case study on the internationalization process of a ‘born-global’ fashion retailer

This case study on Zara elucidates the expansion strategies used by both born-global and gradual global fast-fashion retailers based on theories of internationalization. Aspects related to knowledge sharing, resource-based theory, and psychic distance are overlaid with Zara's internationalization strategies to advance understanding of the role fashion plays in dynamic internationalization. Zara employs a high-risk, high-reward model of internationalization to defend its unique merchandise and retail position by remaining completely vertical. Zara's born-global expansion strategy engendered a psychic distance paradox in that it was very successful in distant markets early on. It is proposed that fashion retailers may take note of Zara's success through the proposed ‘dynamic strategic planning process’ for expansion in international markets. Researchers can test the proposed framework empirically to investigate the theoretical constructs for both gradual- and born-global firms.     

DEBIASING STRATEGIES IN SUPPLY MANAGEMENT DECISION‐MAKING

Human judgment and decision making under uncertainty are vulnerable to decision biases leading to deviations from the standard assumptions of the rational paradigm in economics. This fact is currently not widely reflected by research on decision making in sourcing contexts. However, supply managers are aware of the judgment and decision challenges that result from existing and increasing levels of uncertainty in the external, upstream supply chain, and deploy decision supporting strategies for debiasing their judgments. The analysis of supply management decisions using 441 data units from 133 embedded cases from 15 buying organizations revealed high levels of such debiasing strategies. However, the seemingly most effective mitigation strategy recommended in the general debiasing literature ‐ creating awareness of the underlying mechanics causing decision biases ‐ was only employed by one buying organization, indicating a need to further investigate debiasing strategies specifically in supply management contexts.     

The Importance of Fashion: The Chinese and U.S. Gen Y Perspective

ABSTRACT

A cross-cultural study is conducted to examine the perceptions, needs, preferences, influences and fashion buying habits of Generation Y consumers in both China and the United States. Chinese consumers appear to be more fashion-conscious in that the majority of their luxury purchases are fashion products. In this increasingly globalized world, it is important for a fashion marketer to determine if one strategy can be used to reach all Generation Y consumers or if separate strategies are necessary. Specifically, this study examines fashion leadership, need for uniqueness, and attention to social comparison information to determine if there are differences between these two cohorts and how best to reach them.     

The role of purchasing in a partnering relationship

The paper aims to explore the nature of partnership sourcing or partnering and the implications for the changing role of the purchasing function in the new situation. Partnering has evolved as a solution to changing market requirements. The change to collaboration as the operating paradigm changes the required operational job roles within the purchasing function. The paper concludes that purchasing becomes central to the whole cost-reducing, innovation-enhancing, market-competitive positionining of an organization. Purchasing's role may then evolve to business relationship management within a high-visibility, strategic context. The need is a business need, not a functional one.     

International Buying Center Analysis – The Status Quo of Research

In industrial markets purchasing decisions are made by buying centers. Sellers thus have to analyze buying centers in order to generate effective strategies and measures. If we consider progressive economic globalization in this context, it becomes clear that a success promising analysis of buying centers cannot take place from a purely national perspective. On the contrary, the current ongoing globalization process emphasizes the importance of international investigation perspectives and the need to obtain international findings regarding market powers, processes and decision-making elements. There are numerous differences between buying centers in different countries. However, the international buying center analysis is only at an early stage of development. Most studies only analyze one aspect of the complex multipersonal decision process and mostly only for few countries. Thus we identify a lack of comprehensiveness in international buying center research and reveal some interesting starting points for further research.     

Foreign ownership strategies of UK and US international franchisors: An exploratory application of Dunning's envelope paradigm

In industries dominated by franchising as the dominant mode of entry there is a tendency that franchisors pursue different ownership strategies. We test ownership strategies of international franchisors using Dunning's ‘envelope’ Ownership, Location and Internalization (OLI) paradigm. The ownership choices of international franchisors’ foreign market entry based on the strategic intent of exploitation and exploration are well explained by Dunning's ‘envelope’ OLI paradigm. Our results show that the dynamic L advantages (perceiving foreign locations as a source of learning), the static O advantages (nationality of the firm) and static L advantages (the role of foreign applicants) have a significant influence on the selection of foreign entry strategy by international franchisors.     

Staying in or stepping out? Growth strategies of second-generation immigrant entrepreneurs

Second generation immigrant entrepreneurs (SGIEs) in developed economies have contributed to the emergence of new areas of business activity, especially in information technology, business services, and creative industries. An understanding of their growth strategies can shed light on the role of individual immigrants in the founding of potentially global firms competing with large multinational enterprises. Based on eleven case studies of SGIEs of Indian origin in the UK, our findings reveal that SGIEs are heterogeneous in their growth strategies contingent on their a) founding or succession context, and b) use of social ties. Founder SGIEs combining non-co-ethnic ties with non-family co-ethnic ties geographically expand outward to other foreign countries, including their country of origin. In contrast, successor SGIEs combining non-co-ethnic ties with family ties expand their product/ service scope within the UK; they exploit foreign market links, including their country of origin, to source supplies or customers through inward internationalization. These findings contribute to the immigrant entrepreneurship, international business and international entrepreneurship literatures.     

Market-Entry Strategies in Poland -

This paper reports findings of a study undertaken on market-entry strategies of UK firms in Poland. It presents a cross sectional profile of UK firms investing in Poland, their motives for entering the Polish market, and their entry strategies and assesses their performance in terms of their entry strategies and experiences with regard to financial, technological, marketing and strategic aspects. The paper compares the findings with international market-entry theory and concludes by examining managerial implications of the study.     

International purchasing offices in China: A dynamic evolution model

The salience of the international purchasing office (IPO) in the management of international sourcing activities of multinational corporations (MNCs) has steadily increased, in developed and emerging economies, since the first adoption of this supply chain strategy in the 1980s. The aim of this paper is to develop an activity/role-based evolution model for IPOs, employing multiple case studies: 14 MNCs’ IPOs in China, studied by British, Italian, and Chinese scholars. Applying role theory in a global purchasing context, we identify eight routine roles and four strategic roles played by IPOs and propose that IPOs could lead an MNC's global sourcing in a geographical region. We challenge the unilinear and sequential nature of existing global sourcing process models and propose a dynamic evolution model, consisting of five stages differentiated by number, depth, and breadth of roles, in which IPOs could leapfrog some stages, re-trench (move back to lower stages) and be potentially withdrawn. Finally, we conclude that the stage of an IPO is determined by the strategic importance of China to its parent company.     

Accessing and affording sustainability: the experience of fashion consumption within young families

Despite the ever increasing levels of fashion consumption, neither retailers nor consumers have as yet implemented sustainability principles to a significant degree. This is despite the fact that sustainability principles are increasingly understood and will be applied by consumers, as long as affordable alternatives in mainstream fashions are available. In a highly competitive fashion retail sector, there exists an opportunity for UK high street fashion retailers to differentiate their brand image through aligning products with consumers' moral frameworks. Using phenomenological interviews, this research explores the fashion consumption experiences of professional women with young children and living in or near Edinburgh, with particular focus on their expression of their own sustainability concerns in their day‐to‐day practices. The findings reveal that in the absence of suitable products, information and labelling, consumers apply heuristics to their choices, especially price. They refer to the more familiar ethical food market which serves as a metaphor for fashion‐related practices. They talk about trustworthy retailers and about how they deal with and rationalize their own practices where they reveal an obvious attitude‐behaviour gap. The women's role of providing for the family adds further complexity in a sector which provides affordable alternative options.     

The Role of Idealism and Relativism as Dispositional Characteristics in the Socially Responsible Decision-Making Process

This study investigated how decision-makers differ in processing their organizational environment (peers and organizational control systems), depending on the levels of their idealism and relativism. Focusing on socially responsible buying/sourcing issues, responses from buying/sourcing professionals from U.S. apparel and shoe companies were analyzed, using a series of regression analyses. The results generally supported the proposition that the degrees of idealism and relativism determine involvement levels that, in turn, result in varying levels of reactions to the organizational environment and corresponding amounts of information processing. Highly idealistic (relativistic) individuals were influenced by only idealistic (relativistic) signals of organizational environment. Further analysis showed highly idealistic and relativistic individuals were more likely to evaluate the organizational environment in terms of its business merit. The results suggest that organizations need to carefully plan how to communicate underlying meanings of organizational initiatives with their employees, knowing that individuals who have strong ethical opinions will only react to what they believe and elaborate its value for business. Further theoretical and practical implications and suggestions are discussed.Haesun Park is Assistant Professor in the School of Human Ecology at Louisiana State University. She received her Ph.D. from the Dept. of Consumer and Textile Sciences, the Ohio State University in 2001. Her research interests include fair labor management and international sourcing in the textiles and apparel industries.     

Banking on global success: Internationalization strategy and its limitations (the case of Allied Irish Banks)

This article explores the choices and challenges facing Ireland's leading financial services corporation, Allied Irish Banks (AIB), in its strategy for international market growth. It begins with an examination of the company's internationalization strategies within the global banking context. It then considers the limitations of international market expansion and transnational management control for a company with low brand recognition outside of its home market and limited experience of international operations. Finally, it elaborates on the strategic challenges that face the organization and reflects on the lessons for other midsized international companies competing in consolidating, globalized industries.© 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

International strategy and subsidiary performance in China

This study examines the underlying relationship between type of international strategy (global, multidomestic, and transnational) and subsidiary performance in the context of the People's Republic of China. After controlling for cultural, size, and equity effects, it is found that strategy type is important for the overall performance of international expansion. Different strategies affect multinational enterprise (MNE) subunits' performance differently. While global strategy is systematically related to low risk but suffers from loss of growth opportunities in an emerging market, multidomestic strategy is positively associated with local market expansion but comes at the expense of high uncertainty. Overall, transnational strategy outperforms other postures in aligning with a dynamic emerging market and attaining benefits from both ownership-specific and country-specific advantages. Transnational strategy increases operating flexibility which in turn spurs managerial discretion to respond profitably to the business potential of the global marketplace. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Judgmental heuristics in overseas vendor search and evaluation: A proposed model of importer buying behavior

This article identifies the implicit importer buying behavior model that is suggested by import decision studies and reviews contextual factors that distinguish international sourcing from its domestic counterpart. We then discuss the major shortcomings of the implicit model, namely, the failure to take into account the cognitive processes that influence vendor search and evaluation patterns. Drawing on the cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence literatures, this paper proposes an alternative model of importer buying behavior that explicitly accounts for the use of cognitive heuristics and presents a series of testable research propositions. Theoretical and managerial implications are also discussed.     

Implementing Marketing Strategy Through a Market Orientation

The adoption of specific marketing strategies is related to several factors in an organization including the organization's mission, objectives, resources, and market orientation. We report an exploratory study in which we define relationships between market orientation and marketing strategy in a high technology environment - the telecommunications industry in the United States. Market orientation is defined as a culture that influences how employees think and act. Our results indicate that a market orientation provides a context for the implementation of specific marketing strategies by serving as a moderator of operational marketing strategy. For example, those organizations who possess a strong market-oriented culture (high-spirited cultures) engage in value creation strategies such as market segmentation, developing new products/services for new markets, and product or service customisation. Those organizations possessing low market orientations (ineffectual cultures) generally practice less aggressive and internally focused strategies such as charging lower prices, providing limited customer service, product/service standardization, and undertake limited market research.     

A theoretical and empirical investigation into investment activities of technologically-intensive Chinese state-owned enterprises in the UK

This paper examines the determinants of direct investment in the UK by technology-intensive Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs). It also investigates the ways in which investment strategies are being employed for entry to the UK and to achieve access to technology. Drawing on an inductive case study strategy it is found that Chinese SOEs are motivated by their ambitions to close the technology gap by tapping into UK knowledge networks. In terms of entry strategies, the findings indicate that the initial focus on existing technology subsequently shifts to the creation of added R&D capacity and new technology. This is achieved from a permanent UK R&D base which is integrated into the parent companies’ wider R&D networks. Technology creation is enabled by adoption of divergent management practices, especially at operational level, reflecting the parent companies’ surprisingly adaptable mindsets.