The role of actual,ideal, and ought self‐congruence in the consumption of hedonic versus utilitarian brands

To emotionally attach consumers to a brand and inspire brand loyalty, marketers often target the brand personality towards the consumer's actual or ideal self. The self is not limited to its actual and ideal dimension, however, and motivation to approach a desired self may vary depending on the consumer's personality. Thus, the current research is the first to link self‐congruence to self‐discrepancy theory by incorporating the ought self into the self‐congruence framework and taking into account self‐discrepancies as potential moderators of the self‐congruence effect. Additionally, hedonic brand nature is discussed as important condition for self‐congruence and self‐discrepancies exhibiting their fullest effect. The conducted study focuses on how actual, ideal, and ought self‐congruence influence emotional brand attachment and consequently brand loyalty. For brands of primary hedonic nature, findings confirm actual and ideal self‐congruence as drivers of emotional brand attachment, which in turn increases brand loyalty, while ought self‐congruence influences brand loyalty directly. Moreover, self‐discrepancies moderate the described relations, albeit their effect is contrary to theory‐based expectations. From these findings, the authors derive important implications for business practice and future research.     

African Women in the Entrepreneurial Landscape: Reconsidering the Formal and Informal Sectors

Informal and formal sectors can be seen as “dual economies” of African countries. This article discusses the entrepreneurial landscape in Africa considering both sectors, as well as the continuum from small to large within each. It queries whether there can be mobility within and between sectors and whether upward movement, as seen elsewhere, is possible for most African entrepreneurs. The landscape displays the range of women entrepreneurs from traditional microenterprises to large informal-sector traders, from small- to large-scale formal-sector companies, as well as emerging globalists (the “new generation of African entrepreneurs”). Paradigms compare and contrast these entrepreneurs in terms of demographic variables, types of typical enterprises and companies, product sources and markets, start-up capital, networks and associations, and mobility within and between the sectors. Findings show the informal?formal distinction is useful to disentangle the landscape, but that movement between informal sector categories is not substantial because of the entry requirements of education, capital, business networks, etc. Similarly, within the formal sector of small to large businesses, limited access to capital, networks, market niches, and product innovation hinders upward mobility for most. The new generation of African entrepreneurs form an endpoint of the continuum because their global business methods, networks, financial transparency, and business ethics propel them to success. Hence, while most African women entrepreneurs are lower on the scale, there is a growing cadre of women at the top who provide role models of achievement within their countries.     

What happens to international new ventures beyond start-up: An exploratory study

Since its inception, research in international entrepreneurship has focused mainly on how and why international new ventures internationalize early on. To date, there has been hardly any research regarding the issue of continuing corporate growth in such ventures beyond their start-up phase or initial internationalization. Theoretically, we ground our study within the dynamic capabilities view of the firm and through an inductive theory building research explore how and whether international new ventures made-it beyond the start-up phase, aiming to generate early theoretical constructs to guide international entrepreneurship research in this substantive area. Grounded in data, we develop the following constructs related to made-it points: strategic experimentation, tensions in organizational gestalt, and legitimacy lies. To get to a made-it point, entrepreneurs experiment with their venture at several levels: organizational, business model, and operational. These experimentation efforts are fueled by tensions that exist in the organizational gestalt, such as ownership structure, business proposition to the market, and product development process. To legitimate themselves and their venture in the stakeholders’ eyes, entrepreneurs may tell legitimacy lies. We maintain that international new ventures do not reach a made-it point if they only manage to develop substantive capabilities to produce desired outputs at various levels within the venture but fail to create dynamic capabilities to change and reconfigure existing substantive capabilities.     

The role of frequent short exams in improving student performance in hybrid global business classes

The authors investigate whether frequent in class exams can improve the performance of students in hybrid global business courses. An experiment was conducted in three hybrid sections of a global business course exposing students to short in class exams. The expectation of a short exam forces students to watch the online lectures and study the course material. By having more prepared students, the professor can devote class time to discussing international business issues. This results in significantly higher student performance. The performance of 182 students was examined and the results show significant improvements for all groups.     

Alternative Positioning Strategies for Services in Ghana

In spite of its acknowledged importance for the success of the organization, there is little evidence of studies into positioning in sub‐Saharan Africa. This research presents the results of an empirically based study that employed a mixed method of qualitative in‐depth interviews of managers, and quantitative method of exploratory factor analysis to the data from consumers of services in Ghana. The resultant typology has three positioning strategies: service reliability, social responsibility, and branding. Organizations that adopt these positioning strategies are likely to benefit from the increasingly competitive Ghanaian service market. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

生活态度、生理健康与老年人社区服务需求

本文基于2012年中国老年社会追踪调查(CLASS)数据,应用因子分析方法实证分析了生活态度、生理健康与老年人社区服务需求的关系。研究结果表明:生活态度对老年人社区服务需求有显著的负向影响,其中老年人对自己生活满意度的主观评价以及与他人生活的对比评价对其社区服务需求的影响较大;生理健康对老年人社区服务需求有显著的负向影响,这种负向影响更多地表现在老年人现在的身体状况能否做家务上;生理健康负向调节生活态度与老年人社区服务需求的作用关系;生理健康比生活态度对老年人社区服务需求的影响程度大;生活态度、生理健康对不同个体特征群体的老年人社区服务需求的影响程度存在差异,但均有显著影响。     

中企海外并购成功法则

尽管这些年中国企业海外并购越来越多,但是成功较少,失败案例却较多。     

The causes and consequences of a poor-performing emerging stock market in sub-Saharan Africa: The case of the Ghana Stock Exchange

The Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) is one of the premier stock exchanges in Africa and has demonstrated sound performance since trading commenced in 1990. This study shows, however, that many Ghanaians are ignorant about the location and functions of the GSE. Several firms are discouraged from operating on the GSE due to the high rate of inflation, slow services and perceived high risk. Respondents agree that GSE provides adequate information on stock indexes and the price of foreign stocks but inadequate information on new securities issues and the number of rises and falls. TV, radio and newspapers are the most effective media that inform Ghanaians about the activities of the GSE but there is no structured method of disseminating information about GSE activities.