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Purpose – This paper focuses on a unique historical case study of industry evolution in order to develop a road map where historical and strategic research could develop a common ground for trans-disciplinary inquiry.

Design/methodology/approach – The industry I explore is the Universal Credit Card Industry since its inception with the Diners Club in 1949 until its maturity in late 1990s. My empirical objective here is to develop a historically detailed and theoretically rich case study in which evolutionary processes are discovered as a result of the historical narrative.

Findings – The historical account of the industry demonstrates how the evolution of alternative business models as organizing forms has led to the establishment of interorganizational platforms with unique ecosystems. These alternative business models, through various experimentations, have ultimately produced two critical interorganizational organizations, one based on an open-loop system represented by Visa and MasterCard, and the other based on a closed-loop system represented by Diners Club and the American Express. The historical account also shows that in a given industry competition is not only among specific firms in the industry but also among the business models and the platforms created by these models.

Originality/value – I conclude that historical analyses reveal the nature of competition not only among firms but also among alternative business models where traditional strategy research rarely covers.

Anyone who has followed the general developments in the financial services industry over the past few years, and at American Express in particular, knows that extensive changes have occurred—in the marketplace, in the development of new business opportunities, and in the structuring of the industry. If it isn't a bona fide revolution, it has certainly been a fast‐paced evolution.

Customer service is on many people's minds these days. There is more than just a growing sense that service in America leaves much to be desired and, in fact, has gotten worse over the past several years.

An interesting issue little explored in the celebrity endorsement literature is whether or not the activities of a celebrity endorser affect company performance. We examine the impact of Tiger Woods’s tournament performance on the endorsing firm’s value subsequent to the contract signing. We do not find a relationship between Tiger’ss tournament placement and the excess returns of Fortune Brands (parent of Titleist). This is likely due to Titleist being a very small contributor to the total market value of Fortune Brands. We also fail to find a significant relationship for American Express suggesting the market does not view a golfer endorsing financial services as credible. We do, however, find a positive and significant impact of Tiger’s performance on Nike’s excess returns suggesting that the market values the additional publicity that Nike receives when Tiger is in contention to win.

Applying Sekhar’s system of values that governs ethical choices in business, this study examines two sets of data. The first is Regulation S‐P, recently instituted by the Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate the use of confidential client information by providers of financial services in the USA. The second set consists of the resulting corporate communications that were issued by ten organizations in compliance with the regulation. Findings indicate that dominant values expressed explicitly in the regulation itself differ from those that dominate corporate communications. In Regulation S‐P itself, the right to privacy and the right of individual choice dominate, while the tests of universalisability and the greatest good for the greatest number, as well as the values of truth, transparency and honesty, trust and cooperation, and respect for law are implied. In corporate communications, consumer protection, trust and confidence, value, respect, and satisfaction are dominant themes and values.

The business-travel department of American Express is facing rapid growth in demand but is plagued with overstaffing in some offices because of the broad distribution of client demand. Management's challenge is to reduce costs in local offices while maintaining a high level of service. One alternative under consideration is a centralized regional business-travel center to handle reservation functions for up to 20 other Amexco offices. This case gives students the opportunity to apply queuing theory to a practical situation. Normally, in order to facilitate the numerous calculations required, it is used with the UVA “QUEUE” program.

Attempts to verify anecdotal and field evidence of an unfounded expatriate assignment selection bias against American females. Surveyed the perceptions of US, German and Mexican managers across six areas for assessing the business success viability of female American expatriates. Shows that American managers were less positive than their counterparts who knew the foreign marketplace better. States that the gender of the manager played a significant role in the US sample, where female managers gave amore favourable assessment.

The purpose of this paper is to examine differences in students' perceptions of quality and satisfaction with their educational experience among four types of higher educational models, American, French, Egyptian and Lebanese, in Lebanon.

A sample of over 200 students from each of the seven universities included in the research study were surveyed. Their perceptions were sought on a range of demonstrable performance outcomes. These outcomes include the observance of democratic practices, the effectiveness of the teaching/learning experiences, the quality of academic and non‐academic services, and relationships and destination upon graduation.

The findings indicate that universities adopting the American and French academic model, including the Lebanese university, tend to more readily involve students in institutional decision making at both the academic and non‐academic levels in comparison to the university following the Egyptian academic model encouraging democratic practice among youth. Despite the considerable differences among the various institutional types in the philosophy of education, the perceptions of the purposes of higher education and the pedagogical approaches they adopt, students generally expressed satisfaction in the quality of their university education.

With the continuous establishment of universities in Lebanon and the region following different academic models, the research findings may serve to inform policy makers and academic leaders of students' perceptions of quality and satisfaction.

No such comparative study has been conducted to determine the satisfaction of students with their overall higher education experience in Lebanon and the region.

The purpose of this paper is to propose cultural equity as a construct to better understand the characteristics that define a culturally symbolic brand and the downstream consequences for consumer behavior and nation branding in the era of globalization.

This paper is an empirical investigation of the knowledge and outcome aspects of cultural equity with a total of 1,771 consumers located in three different countries/continents, 77 different brands as stimuli, and using a variety of measures, surveys, lab experiments, procedures and consumer contexts.

Cultural equity is the facet of brand equity attributed to the brand's cultural symbolism or the favorable responses by consumers to the cultural symbolism of a brand. A brand has cultural equity if it has a distinctive cultural symbolism in consumers' minds (brand knowledge aspect of cultural equity: association with the central concept that defines the culture, embodiment of culturally relevant values and embeddedness in a cultural knowledge network), and such symbolism elicits a favorable consumer response to the marketing of the brand (outcome aspect of cultural equity: favorable evaluations and strong self-brand connections).

This paper offers a framework that allows marketers to develop cultural positioning strategies in hyper-competitive and globalized markets and identify ways for building and protecting their brands' cultural equity.

This paper advances our understanding of brands as cultural symbols by introducing cultural equity and integrates prior research on brand equity, cross-cultural differences in consumer behavior, country-of-origin effects and nation branding.

Common and unique themes representing the social, economic, political, and legislative environment affecting the practice of human resources management in Europe in the next five years were compared and contrasted to those affecting the U.S. Members of the professional associations of industrial and organizational psychologists in the U.S. and in Europe were asked to scan their environment. Although trends such as the incorporation of e‐tools into human resource management and an increasingly diverse work‐force were expected by both European and American respondents, the specific impact of these and other factors was markedly different in these two areas. A primary factor accounting for these differences between the U.S. and Europe was the drastic change provoked by the integration of the current and future members of the European Community.