Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of cognitive diversity on strategic issue interpretation among the boards of directors making sense of sustainability management. The study also investigated the centrality of the corporate sustainability issues to identify common interpretative patterns in the shared cognitive maps among the companies. In addition, the aim was to advance quantitative methods for the analysis of decision-makers’ cognition.

The research was an exploratory study analyzing 43 individual cognitive maps collected through surveys from the boards of nine cleantech companies. For the elicitation of the cognitive maps, the study used the hybrid cognitive mapping technique. The diversity of the shared cognitive maps was analyzed using the distance ratio formula and the graph analysis method with eigenvector to measure the centrality of the strategic issue interpretation in the maps.

This study provides evidence through the analysis of distance ratios on the existence of cognitive diversity among companies within the same industry. Surprisingly, despite the cognitive diversity, the study identified strong common patterns on strategic issue interpretations among the companies. In addition, the study shows that the sustainability management issues have gained minor attention from the boards of directors.

The initial industry sample provided relatively restricted perspectives on managerial cognition, and to confirm the findings regarding the effects of industry on the shared cognitive maps of top decision-makers, wider industry-level data are needed.

This study provides an approach to facilitate the process of strategic decision-making for top decision-makers by identifying the shared beliefs of the selected strategic theme and to concentrate on the most central strategic issues in the company and industry. It reveals asymmetry between the significance of sustainability issues in an open agenda and the real position of sustainability concepts in the shared cognitive maps in the green industry. Also, the study advances cognitive mapping techniques for application in the board’s decision-making.

This paper contributes to brightening the black box of corporate governance by shedding light on the interaction of the concepts of corporate sustainability and other key strategic issues within the shared cognitive maps of the boards. It also provides new empirical knowledge on top decision-making processes and the effects of cognitive diversity on the strategic issue interpretations within the corporate boards of the green industry, and it further develops the methodology for the quantification of cognitive diversity and the content of cognitive maps.

Virtual try-on (VTO) technology offers an opportunity for fashion and beauty brands to provide enriched self-explorative experiences. The increased popularity of VTOs makes it urgent to understand the drivers and consequences of the exploration of styles in VTO contexts (herein called self-explorative engagement). Notably, little is known about the antecedent and outcomes of the personalized self-explorative experience central to VTOs. This paper aims to fill this knowledge gap.

An online quasi-experiment (N = 500) was conducted in the context of fashion and beauty VTOs. Participants were asked to virtually try on sunglasses or lipsticks and subsequently answer a questionnaire measuring the key constructs: self-presence (i.e. physical similarity and identification), self-explorative engagement (i.e. exploration of styles in VTO context), brand cognitive processing and brand attitude. The authors analyze the data with structural equation modeling via maximum likelihood estimation in LISREL.

The experience of self-presence during consumers’ use of VTOs in augmented reality environments has a positive effect on self-explorative engagement. Furthermore, a mediation analysis reveals that self-explorative engagement improves brand attitude via brand cognitive processing. The results are confirmed for two popular fashion and beauty brands.

Grounded in extended self theory, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to show that a realistic VTO experience encourages self-extension via a process starting from the exploration of styles and results in increased brand cognitive processing and more positive brand attitudes. The exploration of styles is enabled by self-presence.

The purpose of this paper is to test the extension of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) in an organic food buying context.

The relationships between subjective norms and attitudes and intention to buy organic food were studied by applying structural equation modelling.

The proposed modified model of the TPB model fitted the data better than the original model, implying that in the organic food‐buying context the role of subjective norms differs from the original theory of planned behaviour. In buying organic food subjective norms affected buying intention indirectly through attitude formation. In addition, results showed that the modified TPB model predicts intention to buy organic food better than the original model. Based on the results, it can be said that consumers' intentions to buy organic food can be predicted with their attitudes (R²=0.558), which can further be predicted by subjective norms (R²=0.374), and that behavioural intentions reliably predict self‐reported behaviour (R²=0.824).

First, this study concerned only organic bread and flour products, and therefore the results cannot be expected to explain consumer behaviour for all organically produced products. Second, just one retail channel of organic foods, a hypermarket, was examined. Since the different store formats have also very different characteristics (e.g. price level and number of products), it is likely that also the consumers' buying behaviour differs between different stores.

In past studies on organic food‐buying behaviour, the role of subjective norms has often been neglected – either they are not included in the models or their explanatory power has been weak.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a model of the role managers and peers play in shaping salespeople's ethical behaviour. The model specifies that sales manager personal moral philosophies, whether sales managers themselves are rewarded according to the outcomes or behaviours of their salespeople, sales team job security, intra‐team cooperation, and sales team tactical performance all influence sales team ethical standards. In turn, ethical standards influence the probability that sales team members will behave (un)ethically when faced with ethical dilemmas.

The model is tested on a sample of 154 Finnish sales managers. Data were collected via mail survey. Analysis was undertaken using structural equation modelling.

Ethical standards appear to be shaped by several factors; behaviour‐based management controls increase ethical standards, relativist managers tend to manage less ethically‐minded sales teams, job insecurity impedes the development of ethical standards, and sales teams' cooperation activity increases ethical standards. Sales teams are less likely to engage in unethical behaviour when the teams have strong ethical standards.

Cross‐sectional data limits generalisability; single country data may limit the ability to generalise to different sales environments; additional measure development is needed; identification of additional antecedent factors would be beneficial.

Sales managers should consciously develop high ethical standards in sales teams if they wish to reduce unethical behaviour. Ethical standards can be improved if sales managers change their own outward behaviour (exhibit a less relativistic ethical philosophy), foster cooperation amongst salespeople, and develop perceptions of job security. How sales managers are rewarded may shape how they approach the management of ethical behaviour in their sales teams.

This paper appears to be the first to simultaneously examine both sales manager‐specific and sales team‐specific antecedents to sales team ethical standards and behaviours. As such, it provides an important base for research in this critical area.

The objective of this paper is to examine online brand relationships, and the linkage between satisfaction, trust, and loyalty on the web site level. The web site is considered to be an extension of the parent brand. It also seeks to explore the effects of offline experiences on web site‐level experiences.

Hierarchical regression analysis is applied in order to test the hypotheses. The data are based on an online survey (n=867) conducted on a Finnish consumer‐magazine web site.

The research findings support the results of earlier studies suggesting that satisfaction and trust on the web site level are determinants of web site loyalty. However, they also show that brand‐level experiences affect online satisfaction, trust, and loyalty differently, depending on the consumers' relationship with the brand. Interestingly, in this case the length of user history and registration on the web site had a negative effect on web site trust. Two of the reasons behind this type of result are believed to be the prevalent culture in web site discussion forums and the degree of fit between the parent brand and the brand extension.

The paper synthesises the literature on online and offline brand relationships and brand extension. The results of the study, which was based on a large‐scale survey, give researchers and practising managers alike valuable information on how parent‐brand experiences relate to the attitudes and commitment of customers to online brand extensions. The context of the study, i.e. the magazine publishing industry, has attracted less research attention, even though several publishers have extended their brands online.

The purpose of this paper is to increase understanding of the effects of web site extension on the parent‐magazine brand in the context of experiential goods, and to identify factors that are related to success.

The paper focuses on the relationship between consumers' experiences on magazine web sites and their loyalty towards the print magazine.

There are different ways in which the web site can complement the print version. The first mechanism is related to engaging in more frequent communication with the magazine's readers, and the second is related to consumer‐initiated interaction between other readers. In both cases something is offered that cannot be obtained from the print magazine, but is assumed to complement it.

The paper increases understanding of brand extensions with regard to experiential goods, but more research is needed on the factors that are related to extension success.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the case where – by design – one needs to impute cross-country cross-survey (CCCS) data (situation typical for example among multinational firms who are confronted with the need to carry out comparative marketing surveys with respondents located in several countries). Importantly, while some work demonstrates approaches for single-item direct measures, no prior research has examined the common situation in international marketing where the researcher needs to use multi-item scales of latent constructs. The paper presents problem areas related to the choices international marketers have to make when doing cross-country/cross-survey research and provides guidance for future research.

Multi-country sample of real data is used as an example of cross-sample imputation (292 New Zealand exporters and 302 Finnish ones) the international entrepreneurial orientation (IEO) data. Three variations of the input data are tested: first, imputation based on all the data available for the measurement model; second, imputation based on the set of items based on the invariance structure of the joint items shared across the two groups; and third, imputation based both on examination of the invariance structures of the joint items and the performance of the measurement model in the group where the full data was originally available.

Based on distribution comparisons imputation for New Zealand after completing the measurement model with Finnish data (Model C) gave the most promising results. Consequently, using knowledge on between country measurement qualities may improve the imputation results, but this benefit comes with a downside since it simultaneously reduces the amount of data used for imputation. None of the imputation models leads to the same statistical inferences about covariances between latent constructs than as the original full data, however.

Considering multiple imputation, the present exploratory study suggests that there are several concerns and issues that should be taken into account when planning CCCSs (or split questionnaire or sub-sampling designs). Even if there are several advantages available for well-implemented CCCS designs such as shorter questionnaires and improved response rates, these concerns lead us to question the appropriateness of the CCCS approach in general, due to the need to impute across the samples.

The combination of cross-country and cross-survey approaches is novel to international marketing, and it is not known how the different procedures utilized in imputation affect the results and their validity and reliability. The authors demonstrate the consequences of the various imputation strategy choices taken by using a real example of a two-country sample. The exploration may have significant implications to international marketing researchers and the paper offers stimulus for further research in the area.

The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the conceptual frameworks and concepts with which the research on internationalization patterns of small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) should be conducted.

A comprehensive overview of concepts and a conceptual framework to study internationalization patterns of SMEs is offered.

The complexities of existing definitions and methodologies for researching internationalization patterns are highlighted, and a synthesis of the issues is provided. An integrative model of internationalization pathways, and their antecedents and outcomes is presented.

It is recommended that future research focuses especially on the time dimension of internationalization patterns. Future research can contribute to the literature by adopting a longitudinal approach with larger samples and more detailed cases to capture the dynamics of internationalization.

Practitioners might map their positions, and look for challenges and opportunities with regard to their chosen internationalization pattern. They can also benchmark other firms’ pathways and fine‐tune their own approach to internationalization.

The paper integrates a large body of research in an important research area in international marketing. It also provides guidance on how to conduct future research in the area, and introduces the content of this special issue of the International Marketing Review.