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To show that Chinese consumers are constantly redefining and revaluing goods along the axes of the real and the false, with little regard for legal definitions of brand authenticity or “fakeness.”

The data was collected through interviews, focus groups, observations, and casual conversations over 16 months of ethnographic research in Beijing, China.

In their everyday consumption practices and navigation of a complex and often dangerous marketplace, Chinese consumers categorize products based on their perceived “truth.” The paper introduces a typology that describes these local categories and explains their utility for consumers.

The data was primarily conducted in an urban capital with a highly educated and high-average-income populace, thus it does not represent all Chinese consumers or a statistical sample.

This paper explains how the same globalizing processes that helped brands establish themselves in the Chinese market now threaten the capability of all brands to gain and retain the trust of consumers

By explaining how new calculations of value are being produced under glocalized regimes of manufacture and distribution, this research makes an important contribution to our understandings of brands and their limits.

The luxury brands sales in emerging markets will see rapid growth. When entering the emerging markets, luxury fashion brands always find it challenging to balance adaption with local consumer culture and standardization to maintain their global brand image. The present study attempts to examine this intriguing issue of adaptation and standardization and many other challenges for luxury brands in the emerging market by focusing on China’s luxury market. A case study on China is conducted, which consisted of reviewing academic literature and consulting trade reports, examining over 50 luxury brands’ Chinese websites, reading newspaper articles, conducting field trips to luxury retail outlets, and studying luxury brands’ advertisements in major Chinese fashion magazines. We identified five intriguing market characteristics that must be taken into account in order to succeed in this market. Specifically, we found that to perform well in China’s luxury market, luxury brands should have a good understanding of the conflicting Chinese social cultural sentiments toward luxury consumption. Luxury brands should seek a balance between standardization and adaptation and appeal to both consumers’ converging needs and their desire for products that embrace local elements. Further, given the unique consumer characteristics, luxury brands should better serve the young and economically diverse consumer base in China.

In “the century of culture,” a current drift is toward utilizing cultural heritage branding. Cultural heritage brand referred to in this study means a brand with value proposition based on cultural heritage. As Asian cultures are gathering global focus amid ongoing trend of exoticism and the growth of Asian economies, there is more opportunity especially for Asian brands to benefit from cultural heritage branding. Also, the advantages of cultural heritage branding can benefit fashion brands, considering that designs of great importance in fashion brand's competitiveness can earn creativity and originality from cultural heritage.

Therefore, this study (1) profiles cultural heritage fashion brands based on Asia: Japan, China, and Korea, (2) identifies components of cultural heritage fashion branding by comparative analysis, and (3) identifies characteristics in brand management strategy from the brands, and offer managerial implications for upcoming cultural heritage fashion brands.

This study adopts a case study approach that focuses on Asian fashion brands; Issey Miyake (Japan), Shanghai Tang (China), and Damyeon designed by Lee Hye Soon (Korea). The analytical contents of this research include general profiles (i.e., brand history, brand philosophy and concept, and BI and visual representation), cultural heritage perspectives and brand management perspective (i.e., product, price, place, promotion, and brand extension). Most of the information was retrieved from multiple sources including books, academic papers, brand's annual report, brand official website, news articles, etc.

Overall, this study shows cultural heritage fashion branding can be useful in distinctiveness in positioning and delivering brand value in depth, authenticity, and credibility for customers (Urde, 2007). The findings suggest some managerial as well as cultural heritage-related indications for upcoming cultural heritage fashion brands.

Although common components of cultural heritage fashion branding (i.e., utilization of traditional prototype, emphasis on traditional fabric, and preservation of traditional craftsmanship) were drawn out, achieving optimal balance between tradition and modernity was found critical as well. Managerial guidelines include foreign brand naming, premium pricing, art-related promotions, and extension for a total lifestyle brand. In further research, the type of industry and different country-of-origins can be applied in order to extensively study about the issue of cultural heritage branding.

There is a rising number of Asian brands expanding to Western nations. However, one of the biggest challenges is their reputation of inferior quality. The objectives of this research are to examine the U.S. consumers’ quality perception of Asian brands and what steps can be taken to improve their perceived quality to ultimately influence patronage intentions. This study also considers how age influences U.S. consumers’ perceived quality and patronage intentions.

An online experiment using 328 U.S. female subjects was conducted to examine how quality cues (brand origin and product design) influence their perceived quality of Asian brands. The study also examines how age (due to different levels of exposure of Asian brands) moderates the relationship between product cues and perceived quality.

The findings showed that there was a difference between the younger (Generation X and Y) and older (Baby boomers and Swing) group’s perceived quality of these Asian brand origins, namely Japan and China. Product design had an impact on perceived quality, but age was not a moderating factor.

Chinese and Japanese brands can use these differences in perception of brand origins to market accordingly. Product design cues can also be used effectively to both age groups by Asian brands to improve the perceived quality of U.S. consumers.

This research provides novel insight on U.S. consumers’ perceived quality and patronage intentions from different Asian brand cues. The study also contributes to the body of literature on how the relationship between specific Asian brand cues and perceived quality may differ as a function of age.

Generation Z makes up 20% of China’s population, and accounts for the highest share of household spend at 13% (vs. 3% for the United Kingdom and 4% for the United States). To advance marketers’ understanding about this group of consumers and capitalise on China’s booming market, this chapter uses rich statistics and information to show that China’s Generation Z has distinct behaviour patterns, which can be attributed to the unique background in which they grew up: (1) rigidity of social stratification, (2) abundance of materialism, (3) digital era, (4) limited (vs. extended) family, and (5) heavy schoolwork. Growing up in such a background, Generation Z’s lifestyle and consumption-related attitudes and behaviour are distinct from their predecessors. The chapter presents specific actions that marketers can take when targeting this distinct group of consumers in China, along with useful guidelines to HR managers for hiring them.

The number and breadth of research articles, diversity of topics, and improved quality in international marketing research have all grown rapidly over the past 30 years. Our sample of 26 research journals shows that the number of articles increased by almost 400% between 1970 and 2001, rising from fewer than 50 in 1970 to nearly 200 in 2001, and more than doubled between 1980 and 2001. More important, the quality improved even faster, while the range and diversity of topics expanded at least tenfold. Indiana University was a principal actor in this revolution.

The fragmentation of the production process is a major theme of research in international business. Trade benefits arise from the “slicing up” of the aggregate value chain, as well as the entry of new countries bearing low labor costs. If, initially, multinational corporations (MNCs) relocated only standardized, low-value manufacturing activities in new emerging economies (exploitative offshoring), now they are also offshoring their knowledge-intensive activities (explorative offshoring). In the past, the literature on internationalization was mainly focused on the characterization of the MNC as a specific monolithic organization active in the international production. In the present, numerous analyses have discussed the international location of R&D activities, mainly in advanced countries. The foreign R&D subsidiaries are still tightly linked to the headquarters, maintaining a controlled position. Future research must address two orders of issues. The first is the progressive autonomy of the foreign subsidiaries, which are more and more developing new and independent lines of research. This process leads MNCs to mobilize and leverage untapped pools of knowledge scattered around the world. The second is the R&D offshoring toward emerging economies. This complex process can be characterized as a move from the smile model discussed extensively by Ram Mudambi (where emerging economies were considered as pools of low-cost labor tout court) to a new model, called here the λ (lambda) model (where emerging economies are also pools of skilled labor). This paper will explore these new trends using some illustrative cases: L'Oréal (FR), Pfizer (US), ST Microelectronics (CH), and Geox (I). The cases reveal the double orientation of MNCs toward emerging economies, where both explorative and exploitative offshoring takes place.

Data has become one of the most significant instruments in e-commerce innovation. Benefits to the entire society can be summarized as following: from the government’s perspective - to assess the impact of e-commerce to the economy; for merchants - to understand consumers’ needs; and for consumers - to be offered with the right product he/she is looking for. The digital revolution in the past five years has shown the need to offer more differentiated services than the physical stores, when consumers are not able to try and touch products. It is for this reason that e-commerce has continuously developed and transformed Research Online, Purchase Offline into a true experience. Considering the future of e-commerce is to enhance economic development and growth, this research will discuss the disruption of Research and Development through big data. The core objective of this research is to propose a predictive model to deeply understand consumer behavior by analyzing new regulations and transaction records.

China represents around 20% of the world's population, and her economy is still performing well under economic crisis. Historical events have shaped different parts of China with different economic developments and cultural encounters. The most prominent difference is between Hong Kong and the Mainland. This chapter would like to examine the development and issues of fashion retailing in China. For better understanding, this chapter starts with a brief discussion on apparel industry development and fashion culture in Hong Kong and the Mainland, follows by historical development and then presents systems of fashion retailing in both Hong Kong and the Mainland. Desktop research and exploratory research techniques were employed. Stores of international fashion luxury brands in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing were visited. Comparison of branding issues, particularly for luxury market in Hong Kong and the Mainland are discussed, so are future directions of fashion retailing in these places.