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The purpose of this paper is to address the challenge in evaluating China's overseas management training and development (MTD) in cross‐cultural settings. It examines the evaluation practice of China's overseas MTD interventions and explores a comprehensive approach to the MTD evaluation.

This study collected both quantitative and qualitative data from 526 major stakeholders involved in China's overseas MTD. A mix method approach is used to explore the perspectives of different stakeholders.

The respondents from different stakeholder groups perceived purposes of evaluation and problems conducting evaluation differently. The perceived evaluation criteria and approaches by individual group were also focused differently. The current evaluation system was based on segmented information collection and little joint effort was found in the MTD evaluation. The judgement on the value of China's overseas MTD is culturally sensitive due to the diversity of stakeholders from different cultural backgrounds. A new framework is proposed to address the evaluation challenge.

This study is limited to evaluating China's MTD between China and the UK. The evaluation framework is based on complex involvement of multiple stakeholders in an international setting. It may not be applicable to situations where only two parties are involved in training.

The proposed stakeholder‐based evaluation framework may be used for other skill‐based training and development programs involving multiple stakeholders in the international arena.

This paper contributes to the HRM evaluation literature by focusing on a unique evaluation setting and proposes a framework to evaluate a complex international MTD initiative by the Chinese Government.

Outlines building evaluation methodology and instruments, which will facilitate comparative, cross‐cultural evaluation of the performance of a building type which is common worldwide; i.e. intelligent office buildings. States that failure to obtain feedback on building performance can have serious consequences. Focuses on post‐occupancy evaluation (POE) an evaluation methodology. Concludes that there is a need for an evaluative stance throughout the building delivery process and cycle and POE appears to be of critical importance in the area of inter‐cultural differences in order to achieve better quality intelligent buildings.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the significance of cross‐cultural training and career attitudes for expatriation career move in the context of China, whether cross‐cultural training is perceived necessary, and the consequence of providing such cross‐cultural training.

Data were collected from 82 expatriates from a Chinese firm, some of whom were expatriated to a foreign country and others who were expatriated from foreign countries to China.

Expatriates adjusted well, and having a protean career attitude was a decisive factor. While the impact of cross‐cultural training prior to departure was not statistically significant, it was well received and considered important.

A limitation is the limited sample size. Implications are presented for conducting cross‐cultural training.

Developing cross‐cultural training programs could add value to the firm and its people.

Using a particular Chinese firm the paper highlights the value and necessity of cross‐cultural training for successful expatriation.

Whilst performance management (PM) is one human resource practice that is of importance for the company, research in international setting is still in its infancy. This paper focuses on global PM (GPM) in multinational enterprises. The aim is to present advances in the PM research framework, give managerial suggestions and find out future needs and trends for research.

The approach is to analyze the literature in the research field. Will the transfer of PM be localized or standardized? Diffusion deals with how social institutions are spread from one society to another through certain channels over time and among members of a social system. In this paper, the framework is drawn on institutional theory, the institutional impact of the degree of success or barriers to GPM.

In the findings of GPM research, the following perspectives were found: tool and process perspective, expatriates (a specific target group perspective), cultural perspective, standardization perspective and comparative perspective.

GPM enables the evaluation and development of the individual as well as organizational effectiveness for multinational companies. Balance between local responsiveness and global integration in subsidiaries is needed.

There is a need to study GPM further. The PM process is similar for domestic and international market, but the difference is in the implementation because it is far more complex in global companies with more issues to consider.

Cross-cultural research constitutes a pivotal topic for marketing; however, the literature indicates that there are a few studies analyzing social media reviews from a cross-cultural perspective using cultural proximity (supra-national level) as a proxy of culture. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify cross-cultural differences in service evaluations and specifically, in hotel appraisals among tourists from Central, Eastern (including Post-Soviet States), Northern and Southern Europe.

A quantitative approach has been taken by studying online user-generated ratings of hotels on Trip Advisor. In total, 1,055 reviews of five hotels in Greece were used for the study.

Multivariate analysis of variance and analysis of variances results confirm cultural differences in overall service evaluations and attributes (value, location, sleeping quality, rooms, cleanliness and service) of tourists from various European regions. Specifically, Eastern Europeans uploaded more reviews than any other European group, whereas Northern Europeans were more generous in their appraisals than Eastern, Southern and Central Europeans.

The results of the study could be used for segmentation purposes of the European tourism market and for recognizing, which aspects of their services need to be improved based on the segments they serve. Moreover, managers should encourage Northern and Eastern Europeans to upload their reviews as both groups are more generous in their evaluations. Moreover, the findings are useful to marketers of other services.

To the author’s knowledge, this is the first study that examines cross-cultural differences in hotel appraisals from a supra-national perspective including developed (Northern and Western Europe), developing (Southern Europe) and emerging tourism markets (Eastern Europe).

This paper aims to investigate the relationship of information-seeking anxiety (ISA) with socio-academic variables of business students in the digital environment.

A cross-sectional survey using a questionnaire was conducted. The questionnaire, composed of 47 items of Information Seeking Anxiety Scale along with certain socio-academic variables, was administered personally among business students by visiting their classrooms at the Lahore School of Economics, Pakistan. The received 283 responses were analyzed by applying descriptive and inferential statistics such as mean, standard deviation, t-test and one-way analysis of variance.

The results revealed that a large majority of business students were less comfortable in information seeking and experienced anxiety from mild to moderate levels. There were only a few respondents who faced either low or severe levels of ISA. In relationship testing, the students’ socio-academic variables such as program type, gender, school background, geographical background, information communication technology skills and English language competence did not appear to be the predictors of their ISA.

The results of this study should carefully be used while making generalizations for all the business students in Pakistan and abroad as this research collected data from the business students of a single university in Pakistan.

These results have greater implications for the future directions of information literacy as creating awareness and building capacity for skills about the information search process will help in reducing ISA. These findings provided a pragmatic insight that can be used as a guide by information professionals, especially those engaged in information services, to develop a need-based curriculum of information literacy which would ultimately help in the alleviation of anxiety and combating its effects on students’ academic performance.

This study address specifically ISA of business students that would make a worthy contribution to the existing research on ISA as, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no such study has appeared so far.

Confirms the empirical test of Hunt and Vitell’s general theory of marketing ethics by Mayo and Marks across four cultures. Uses path analysis to show the core relationships of the general theory of marketing ethics were successfully replicated using over 1,500 students from seven universities in the USA, Canada, the Netherlands, and Australia. States that tomorrow’s managers appeared to use a more deontological approach to making ethical judgements about personal selling. Extends its original research by confirming the positive relationship between the probability and the desirability of consequences. Concludes that, although the model was originally intended to explain management ethical decision making, the study shows that it may be possible to generalize as to how individuals make ethical life decisions.

This paper aims to explore multiple reference effects with regard to customers’ post-consumption evaluations in a cross-cultural context. The authors propose to test an integrative model of three types of reference effects (disconfirmation, attractiveness of alternatives and self-image congruity) and their relationship to customers’ evaluations associated with satisfaction and loyalty. Additional insight into the link between reference points and customer satisfaction is provided by examining the moderating influence of the cultural orientation of customers: South Korean (an Eastern, collectivist and high uncertainty avoidance culture) versus American (a Western, individualistic and low uncertainty avoidance culture).

The data for this study were collected through a Web-based survey. Based on a sample of 723 Korean and American consumers, multi-group analysis of structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed model and the moderating effect of culture.

Overall, the results indicated that American customers’ use of reference points in their post-consumption evaluations is significantly different from that of Korean customers. Specifically, disconfirmation had a stronger effect on Korean customers than on their American counterparts, whereas the attractiveness of alternatives had a stronger effect on American customers than on those from Korea. Moreover, self-image congruity was found to be equally important in both cultures.

Owing to the comparison of American and Korean participants in this study, these results may not be applied to customers from other countries. Moreover, the study is limited to post-consumption evaluations in restaurants and generalization of the results to other industries may be ill advised. Thus, further research is required to replicate the results and include customers from different countries in more diverse consumption settings.

The findings provide useful guidance for efficient marketing strategies to generate positive consumer outcomes across borders. Marketers must consider the interaction of cultures and customers to better understand customer perceptions and evaluations about their experiences. This understanding will enable the marketers to more effectively communicate with their target markets and allow them to tailor advertising to different segments of their customer base contingent upon their cultural orientations.

Although the role of reference effects has begun to attract considerable interest among consumer behavior researchers, much of this research has been conducted in a single cultural context. Because the global economy is becoming increasingly cross-cultural, it is valuable to conduct international consumer research to further the understanding of consumers’ post-consumption evaluation processes using multiple reference points from a global perspective.

This study examines the impact of situational and stable animosities on quality evaluation and purchase intention while also testing the moderating effects of within- and cross-country cultural distance. It focuses on the case of the US THAAD missile defense system deployment in South Korea (hereafter, Korea) and investigates how the resulting Chinese consumers' animosity affects their quality evaluation of, and purchase intention toward, Korean cosmetics.

This study utilizes a quantitative approach based on a survey and structural equation modeling. The sample comprises 376 Chinese consumers from 19 Chinese regions.

The results indicate that both stable and situational animosities are negatively associated with purchase intention toward Korean cosmetics. However, their effects on quality evaluation are different. While stable animosity is negatively related to product quality evaluation, situational animosity has no such negative association. Finally, the cultural distance between Chinese regions and Korea strengthens the negative relationship between stable and situational animosities and purchase intention.

The study contributes by better unraveling the effects of stable and situational animosities on perceived product quality. The empirical context is unique because it allows the authors to investigate the relationship between Chinese antagonism toward the THAAD deployment in Korea and Chinese consumers' stable and situational animosities in terms of their quality evaluation of, and purchase intention toward, imported Korean cosmetics. Hence, this study contributes to the literature on consumer animosity by empirically testing the moderating effect of within- and cross-country cultural distance on the relationship between stable and situational animosities and purchase intention.

The study has relevant practical implications, notably for Korean exporters' marketing management and within- and cross-cultural management. The results suggest that countermeasures are needed because Chinese consumers' stable and situational animosities are negatively related to their purchase intention toward Korean cosmetics. Moreover, the findings provide the insight that when foreign firms export culture-sensitive products to a large, multicultural country, their managers should pay attention to within- and cross-cultural differences simultaneously.

Previous studies have shown that the effects of animosity on product evaluation and purchase intention differ depending on the animosity dimension, product type, country and the situation causing animosity, among others. However, the existing literature on animosity has neglected the reality that within-cultural differences in a single large emerging market are relevant to explaining the concept of animosity and its effect on the purchase intention toward culture-sensitive products. Furthermore, none of the animosity studies have touched on the important moderating role of within- and cross-cultural differences between a large and multicultural importing country and a brand's home country in this manner. Therefore, the study fills this gap by empirically examining whether different moderating effects of stable and situational animosities exist for a specific conflict situation caused by a military issue and investigates the causes of these different effects.