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Despite the increasing volume of scholarly work in international advertising, media selection has received very little attention. This study seeks to address three fundamental issues in media selection for non‐domestic markets: the relative importance of cultural factors, the relationships between organization structure, and the relative weight that executives place on cultural and non‐cultural factors in their media selection, and the relationships between cultural orientations of advertising executives and their perceptions of specific non‐domestic factors of media selection.

A mail survey of executives for US consumer durable manufacturers operating internationally was conducted. The sample involved managers responsible for media selection in 106 firms listed in the Fortune directory of the 500 largest industrial multinational corporations (MNCs). Three waves of the same questionnaire were sent. Of the selected executives, 84 returned the questionnaire, making the response rate 79.25 percent.

The findings reveal that advertising executives of US MNCs place more importance on general environmental factors (type of product, target market, budget size, cost efficiency, reach and frequency, and competition) than on specific non‐ domestic factors (media availability, language diversity, legal constraints, level of economy, literacy and cultural considerations). Furthermore, managers in centralized decision firms and managers in decentralized decision firms do not differ significantly in their assessment of the relative importance of general and specific non‐domestic factors. However, non‐culturally oriented managers in contrast to their culturally oriented counterparts place greater importance on media availability when determining and executing media‐selection decisions. The surveyed executives also tend to be more involved in establishing objectives and setting budgets than in designing creative strategies and selecting specific media for international advertising campaigns.

Although localized and globalized marketing campaigns have steadily increased in the last 20 years, very few studies have examined MNC advertising managers' views about media selection. The research adds new insights to the understanding of this critical‐decision process.

This study aims to explore advertising strategies by US corporations selling consumer services overseas. Attention is extended to determining the type of standardized advertising (pattern vs prototype) that US headquarters tend to use in international campaigns, identifying major obstacles that impede advertising standardization and examining linkages between the use of creative approaches (standardized vs localized) and firms ' length of business and sales volume.

Using a descriptive approach and rigorous sample, the authors surveyed international advertising managers of US firms selling consumer services. A 57 per cent response rate provided the basis for testing two research questions and two hypotheses.

US firm headquarters tend to lean more toward the use of prototype standardization than pattern standardization. The major impediments of standardized campaigns are perceived to be cultural differences, alternatives in consumer lifestyles, language diversity, variations in worldwide market infrastructure and government regulations.

While demonstrating correlations in some areas, the authors offer some suggestions for future investigation of this important topic. By focusing on services marketing, the study does contribute to the extant discussion concerning advertising standardization/localization from the context of US-based services businesses marketing internationally.

The outcomes indicate that established business firms and firms with large sales volumes, compared to younger business firms and firms with small sales volumes, are more likely to use the standardized advertising approach than the localized approach.

The paper offers new insights into the standardized/localized debate where advertising researchers have tended to overlook the significance of service businesses in the international context.

This study provides practical guidelines for public relations campaigns targeted at Arab and American audiences. The authors examine various cultural frameworks for conceptualizing differences and similarities in the Arab and American cultures. They conclude that both cultures suffer considerably from biases and stereotypes.

This research examines factors that affect media selection decisions for foreign markets as perceived by advertising executives of U.S. multinational corporations. The main objective is to determine whether cultural factors play a significant role in the selection process. The study investigates the opinions of 84 advertising executives of U.S. consumer durable product manufacturers. Findings reveal that managers place more importance on general factors (type of product, target audience, budget size, cost efficiency, reach and frequency, and competition) than they place on specific non‐domestic factors (media availability, language diversity, legal constraints, level of economy, literacy, and cultural considerations). Findings also suggest that executives tend to be more involved in establishing objectives and budgets than in creative strategy and media selection.

This paper investigates international advertising approaches of USA‐based corporations that offer consumer services in overseas markets. Based on the empirical findings, the data reveal that the majority of the respondent executives tend to follow a localized rather than a standardized advertising approach in marketing such services. Respondents also indicate that companies using such a localized advertising approach take cultural variables more seriously than do companies following a standardized approach. Here, however, respondents on either side of the standardized/localized debate concur. For example, there is virtual unanimity from respondents in terms of their perception that government regulations make it difficult to create and use universal campaigns, and that language diversity necessitates the use of local communication expertise in each market. Furthermore, and perhaps important in terms of the constant stress placed these days upon globalization, both groups seem unconvinced that advertisements can be universally understood, and that an advertising theme can be the same for all markets. Thus, this paper supports the notion that perceived differences in consumers' lifestyles do act as major obstacles to universal advertising campaigns.

Online feminist activism has opened a different path for ordinary Iranians who are not necessarily versed in post-revolutionary discourses on feminism and political activism, nor are familiar with the names and past achievements of Iranian women’s activist pioneers since the birth of the Islamic Republic in 1979. Social media has helped to tease apart government statecraft that continually touts and reemphasizes Islamic values, at the same time providing a platform for a feminist consciousness that more recently has passionately supported individual rights, especially the right to privacy. This chapter delves into this move toward a more individualized form of dissent, surveying the generational, ideological, and technological divides that have emerged among Iranian women’s activists following popular uprisings that have been happening domestically since 2009.

With the growth of worldwide e‐commerce, companies are increasingly targeting foreign online consumers. However, there is a dearth of evidence as to whether global consumers prefer to browse and buy from standardized global web sites or web sites adapted to their local cultures. This study provides evidence from five different countries as to whether global consumers prefer local web content or standardized web content. The study also measures how the degree of cultural adaptation on the web affects consumer perception of site effectiveness.

This research aims to ascertain the various operational maturity challenges faced by the online food ordering and delivery enterprises (OFODE), their nature and their interactive relationships. In particular, this paper aims to (a) identify the most relevant operational maturity challenges faced by the OFODE during the COVID-19 lockdown in Oman, (b) explore and establish any likely structural relationship among these challenges and (c) put them into logical clusters.

Experts helped to reduce the 18 initially identified maturity challenges to 13 most pressing ones. Mutual relationships, dominance of interactions and their classifications were explored using fuzzy interpretive structural modeling (FISM) and fuzzy MICMAC analysis.

The study of situation-specific operational maturity challenges convinced the authors to propose a distinct FISM model that depicts the relationship among these challenges. Keeping commissions and fees reasonable emerges as the challenge which all other challenges seemingly culminate into. One of the most important situation-specific challenges (i.e. customer confidence about infection free delivery) emerges as a linkage challenge which aggravates as well as is aggravated by certain challenges.

Besides enriching literature, the proposed model has implications for practitioners particularly when the similar lethal waves are experienced anywhere. The number of respondents, subjective approach, specific context as well as the geographical area coverage are the key limitations.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first known scientific effort which attempts to model the operational maturity challenges faced by the OFODE during COVID-19 lockdown period. The authors used the FISM modeling approach to forge these interrelated challenges into a structural model.

The spread of fake news on social networking sites (SNS) poses a threat to the marketing landscape, yet little is known about how fake news affect consumers’ perceptions, attitudes and behaviors. This study aims to explore when consumers believe fake news, whom they blame for it (e.g. negative attitudes toward brands or SNS) and when they choose to share it.

Data obtained from 80 open-ended, semistructured interviews, conducted with SNS consumers and experts, is analyzed following the principles of grounded theory and the Gioia methodology.

Factors affecting consumers’ perceptions of fake news include skepticism, awareness, previous experience, appeal and message cues. Consumers’ brand- and SNS-related attitudes are affected by consumers’ blame, which is determined by consumers’ perceptions of the vetting efforts, role and ethical obligation of SNS. Consumers’ motives for sharing fake news include duty, retaliation, authentication and status-seeking. Theoretical and practical implications derived from the study’s novel conceptual framework are discussed.

This study identifies communication strategies that marketing professionals can use to mitigate and counter the negative effects of fake news.

By simultaneously considering consumers’ perceptions of the source, information and medium (i.e. SNS), this study presents a novel conceptual framework providing a marketing-centered, dynamic view on consumers’ fake news experience and connecting consumers’ perceptions, attitudes and behaviors in the context of fake news.

The formation of alliances between organisations is increasingly common, allowing firms to discover and ensure competitive advantages. This research paper aims to make a critical analysis of studies to understand the role of communication between partners in the process of strategic alliances.

A systematic literature review was carried out, using the Web of Science database to obtain data, associating the terms “communication” and “strategic alliances”, which resulted in 240 scientific articles (published between 1993 and March 2021). After data treatment using VOSviewer software and reading of the contents, the final sample consisted of 179 articles on the subject in question.

The conceptual limits, exploratory descriptive analysis of the data and content analysis of research methods are presented, with five clusters being identified. The results show growing academic interest in studying communication associated with strategic alliances, and authors’ main interest lies in understanding the critical success factors and the relation between communication and knowledge.

This study corroborates understanding of the future of alliances, assuming that learning is the main objective; trust is the factor determining success or failure; technology is the aggregating tool; culture affects the relation; and communication is not an end but a means to construct consolidated, long-lasting and high-performing strategic alliances.

This study is innovative in strategic alliances area. The research confirms that the main factor in forming alliances, in both emerging and international markets, is the learning intention. This fact reinforces the relevance of the learning made possible by this transfer of know-how through communication. In addition, this study gives critical understanding of how the process of communication between partners in an alliance must be distinct; i.e. it must be flexible enough to adjust to the stage in the alliance’s life cycle.