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Sectoral brands are umbrella brands created to represent all companies’ products belonging to a country’s economic industry abroad to enhance their export performance. This study aims to explore the development of a sectoral brand model through the optic of the social constructionist perspective. Besides, this study also proposes to apply the model to a sectoral brand case in the business-to-business market.

The authors have developed a systematic qualitative literature review to provide a theoretical basis for the attributes chosen to compose the social constructionist sectoral brand management (SCSBM) model. To apply the model, the authors have conducted a series of 17 in-depth semi-structured interviews with the association’s managers that constitute the sectoral brand development, the director of the branding consultancy firm and specialists on place branding.

The authors present the SCSBM model, highlighting that sectoral branding should be seen as a dynamic and continuous process with the integrated participation of all industry stakeholders. Moreover, the authors have applied the model to the Brazil Fashion System brand.

The main contribution to theory is the link between sectoral brand management and the social constructionist approach, being the first study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to propose this connection. SCSBM model extends previous work on sectoral brands by adopting a social constructionist view.

The SCSBM model might contribute to marketing professionals willing to develop sectoral brands across multiple economic sectors and geographies.

The study’s originality lies in developing the first model, which adopts a social constructionist approach to sectoral brands.

Tiffany & Company was the leading U.S. luxury jewelry brand, generating more than $2.6 billion in revenue through 167 retail outlets globally and from catalogue and Internet sales. For nearly 170 years, Tiffany had managed its brand. In February 2007, a hedge fund, Trian Fund Management LP, announced that it had bought a 5.5% stake in Tiffany, and became its largest shareholder. Trian believed that Tiffany was undervalued and stated that it wanted to help the company “improve its earnings per share by addressing various operational and strategic issues.” In response, Tiffany began to consider different actions to increase shareholder value.

This empirical study aims to examine luxury fashion retailers' localised multiple channel distribution strategies in China.

Through case studies of 15 participating retailers, qualitative data were collected from 33 semi-structured interviews.

Strong impacts of internationalisation strategies, distribution strategies and channel length towards multiple channel retailing are revealed. Multi-channel retailing is widely employed by firms who have entered China and further developed their businesses through local partnerships and adopted a selective distribution strategy via relatively longer channels. Omni-channel retailing is only suitable for the few retailers using an exclusive distribution strategy through direct marketing and wholly owned customer relationship management. As a dynamic transformation from multi- to omni-channel retailing, cross-channel retailing is adopted by those who are withdrawing from local partnerships and shifting to wholly owned expansions and operations in host markets.

The results are potentially challenged by relatively small sample size.

Practitioners are suggested to adapt multiple channel retailing to their international expansion strategies, distribution strategies and channel length in the host markets.

This paper contributes to the literature in both multiple channel retailing and international retailing by offering insights into the motives, development patterns and suitability of multiple channel retailing in the international retail marketing context.

A visual sweetness scale with an arrow pointing to a specific sweetness level is now required on all labels of AOC Alsace. The sweetness scale makes it easier for consumers to understand what is in the bottle. What is less clear, however, is whether such labeling is always effective. To fill this gap, the current research paper aims to examine the positive and negative effects (double-edged effects) of a visual sweetness scale and identify the boundary condition.

Two studies were conducted using a 2 (cue type: scale vs text) by 2 (consumer type: novices vs experienced wine consumers) between-subjects, quasi-experimental design.

The double-edged effects are only significant among wine novices. Specifically, though wine novices are more likely to purchase wine with a sweetness scale (vs text) due to perceived diagnosticity (Study 1), they are unwilling to pay more due to low perceived quality (Study 2).

The study findings provide practical implications for wine producers, marketers and restaurants regarding when and how to use the sweetness scale on wine labels and wine service.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to reveal the impact of visualizing wine style on wine labels. More importantly, while most previous research demonstrates the positive effects of using visual cues, this research sheds light on its drawbacks and examines the underlying mechanisms.

Luxury consumption has evolved, and two important reasons behind the change include globalization and the COVID-19 crisis. These factors have led to the rise of new luxury consumption, which is different from traditional luxury consumption. This study examines how consumers’ identities shape their intentions to consume traditional luxury and new luxury brands.

The theoretical underpinnings of the schema congruity theory and heuristic systematic framework were applied to understand the role of identities in determining consumers’ regulatory focus, price luxuriousness inference and preference for traditional and new luxury brands.

Findings suggest that the global identity of consumers shapes their promotion focus and price luxuriousness inferences. However, their local identities induce a prevention goal. Consumers with such a goal are unlikely to make price luxuriousness inferences. Further, these inferences lead to the choice of traditional luxury over new luxury brands. The results also establish the moderating effects of consumer flexibility.

The extant literature is inconclusive on the role of globalization in luxury consumption and ignores new luxury brands. The current study shows the impact of identities and regulatory focus on traditional and new luxury consumption. The findings also indicate consumers’ regulatory focus and price luxuriousness inference as the reasons behind the influence. The paper also implies that consumers open to renting, sharing or buying second-hand goods will prefer new luxury over traditional luxury brands.

Do luxury consumers negatively evaluate digital interactions (website and social media) by international luxury brands? The topic has received much debate. The authors argue that luxury brand personality (modern vs. traditional), which encompasses a more stable form of brand identity in global markets, affects evaluations of digital interactions. They further investigate the role of self-brand connection in this process.

Three experiments on Prolific use a European sample and manipulate a single factor between subjects (modernity: less vs. more; traditionality: less vs. more) of French luxury brands and measure evaluations as the dependent variable. Two studies assesses self-brand connection (continuous) as a moderator (studies 2a, 2b). Study 2b rules out some alternative explanations, with culture (independent vs. collectivist) as an independent variable. A fourth study, using a North American sample on CloudResearch, assesses the effect of personality manipulation (more modernity vs. more traditionality) on consumer evaluations of an Italian brand, and assesses ubiquity perceptions as a mediator.

Consumers evaluate digital interactions of international luxury brands less favorably when luxury brand personality exhibits more (vs. less) modernity or less (vs. more) traditionality. Perceptions of ubiquity mediate these relationships. When self-brand connection is high, this effect is attenuated.

The research sheds light on the debate on whether luxury brands should create digital interactions in international markets, given that these global brands operate in multiple channels. Findings show that luxury brands can develop strategies based on aspects of their brand identity, a less malleable feature of brand identity within global markets. Additionally, the research contributes to the conversation about a global luxury market. In short, the findings offer evidence in favor of brand identity (personality) influencing the digital channel strategy a brand should undertake in international markets, first, followed by consumer needs.

The authors examine and compare accounting associations' identities in distinct segments of the accounting profession surrounding the 2014 merger of three Canadian accounting associations.

The authors conceive of accounting associations' magazine front covers as a setting for “identity performance” (i.e. a scenery through which identity dimensions are intentionally communicated to target audiences). The authors examine pre-merger and post-merger associations' identity performances that took place between January 2011 and December 2020 and identify 21 broad themes that the authors interpret in terms of identity logics (i.e. professionalism/commercialism) and audience focus (society/association members), underscoring (dis)similarities in identity performances pre- and post-merger.

The authors' analysis reveals distinct identity performances for the different segments of the pre-merger accounting profession and for the post-merger unified accounting association. Identity logics manifest differently: a commercial logic dominated for two of the associations and a professional logic dominated for the third. Identity fluidity was evident in the merged association's shift from commercial toward professional logic when the association ceased publishing one magazine and introduced a new one. Society rather than associations' members dominated as a target audience for all associations, but this focus manifested differently. Post-merger, identity performances continued to focus on society as the audience.

The authors highlight the Goffmanian identity performances (Goffman, 1959) taking place via accounting associations' magazines. The authors adopt a segment perspective (Bucher and Strauss, 1961) that demonstrates that commercialism does not trump professionalism in all segments of the profession. For the first time, the authors juxtapose identity logics (professionalism/commercialism) and targeted audiences to better understand how these facets of accountants' identities compare between segments.

This study aims to understand how retailscape of pop-up stores could influence young Chinese tourists’ emotional response and their subsequent shopping intention in the context of luxury retailing.

A quantitative approach was chosen. Building on the theoretical framework of the stimulus–organism–response (S–O–R) theory, a pop-up store retailscape behavior model was developed to explore the effect of retailscape on young Chinese tourists’ emotional response and patronage intention in a luxury retail setting. In total, 226 structured questionnaires were collected onsite.

The multiple regression analysis reveals that a luxury pop-up store’s retailscape has a positive influence on young Chinese tourists’ emotional response, but it only has a partial influence on their patronage intention. In addition, the result suggests that young Chinese tourists’ emotional response positively influences their patronage intention in luxury pop-up stores.

The study reveals how retailscape influences behavior among the younger generation, and the results provide important references for the luxury retailers in future design and management of pop-up stores so as to attract and retain the interest of the younger generation.

This study puts retailscape effect under scrutiny in the context of luxury pop-up stores which attract young Chinese tourists, who are regarded as one of the major patrons supporting exclusive retail brands in the world. The stimuli element in the S–O–R model is, thus, reexamined in the context of luxury pop-up stores.

This study examines the association between geopolitical risk (GPR) and corporate tax, which is a major source of revenue for the government and a significant explicit cost for firms. The authors use a comprehensive measure of GPR to study its effects on corporate taxes by using an international sample.

The authors adopt the geopolitical measure constructed by Caldara and Iacoviello (2022) as a proxy for GPR and cash-effective tax rate benchmarked with statutory tax rate to measure corporate tax avoidance. The authors employ panel regression with fixed effects (FEs) to investigate the impact of GPR on corporate tax avoidance. The authors also conduct a battery of robustness tests to ensure the strength of the study’s results.

This study’s empirical results indicate that sample firms increase their tax avoidance amid increasing GPR. Further analyses show that financial constraints incentivize firms to avoid taxes during rising geopolitical tensions. The authors also provide evidence on the role of firm-level and country-level governance in weakening the association between GPR and tax avoidance.

Policymakers and governments may strengthen the enforcement rule to limit aggressive tax practices of corporates during GPR to balance fiscal deficit. In addition, this study sheds light on the debate among administrators and politicians over the efficacy of current tax laws and governance structures in the presence of heightened GPR.

The authors extend the literature on GPR by analyzing its effect on corporate tax avoidance. Unlike existing single-country studies, the authors use a cross-country setup to investigate the impact of GPR on tax avoidance, making this study’s results more generalizable as the authors control for a host of country, industry, and time factors. Apart from political uncertainty, terrorism, and climatic issues, the authors document GPR as a strong macroeconomic driver of corporate tax avoidance. The authors make a new contribution to the literature on the moderating role of governance and institutional factors on the association between tax avoidance and GPR in an international context. The authors also contribute to the literature on macroeconomic determinants of tax avoidance.

This study aims at building a framework for the electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) response under the social media environment. The elaboration likelihood model was adopted to explain how message source credibility and message appeal jointly influence the eWOM response process, while source credibility provides a central route and message appeal plays a peripheral route for information processing.

This study used a scenario design to test the decision behavior in the Facebook environment through message content manipulation. A convenience sampling method was adopted in this study. We collected 203 valid questionnaires and tested this research model with LISREL 8.8. This study used a two-stage structural equation modeling data analysis method with LISREL 8.8, by which the measurement model was assessed through confirmatory factor analysis for the reliability and validity of the research model, and the causal relationship among factors was assessed through exploratory factor analysis .

The results showed that 53% variance of eWOM responses could be explained by message source credibility and emotional message appeal from the elaboration likelihood model perspective. Message source credibility plays a central role in the social media environment. The model was further tested with a demographic profile analysis for both gender and age. It is found that a female user is influenced by both source credibility and emotional appeal, but a male user is only influenced by message source credibility. The mature age group is more responsive to eWOM messages.

The sample might not represent all social networking sites (SNS) users. The participants represent a small segment of the Facebook population around the globe. Secondly, this research design could be improved by using more recreational messages to test the effects of message appeal and message source credibility. Thirdly, the mobile phone is a type of physical product rather than an experiential product. Future studies could try to identify the same eWOM determinants with different SNS functions, for example, the inbox message function. Similarly, Facebook users are allowed to use both text and pictures to disseminate promotional messages.

This study provides an insight for SNS administrators regarding the determinants of driving more customer responses toward a message. Message source credibility and message appeal are identified as the antecedents for eWOM responses in SNS. Companies could make use of this finding to improve their marketing communication strategy in SNS. The finding can inform administrators of the importance of focusing on both customers’ psychological state and message attributes during the dissemination of promotional messages to improve the efficiency of the promotional effort. Companies aimed at receiving different types of eWOM responses in SNS may need to consider other factors for creating their promotional messages.

Previous studies have mainly identified factors influencing eWOM responses from the people-centered variables such as personal traits and social relationships. This study proposes that the eWOM response is a dual information processing process that can be explained by the ELM. When a user processes information in SNS, he follows both the central route and the peripheral route (i.e. source credibility and message appeal) which can influence the eWOM response. It is the first time that the source credibility is investigated as the central route in ELM model.