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The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between bilateral country reputation and export volume to the country in which that reputation is held.

The unique bilateral data set consists of 861 country pairs. Country reputation measures are from a global survey, in which respondents in 20 countries rate the reputation for products and people of 50 other countries. This data set is then analyzed against actual export data for each country-pair using the well-established structural gravity model of international trade.

The authors find that each improvement in a world ranking of a country’s reputation for products (in a target country) is associated with a 2 percent increase in exports to that particular country; the effect is equivalent to the importing country decreasing a tariff by as much as 2.9 percent. Furthermore, the authors find that different aspects of country reputation – for its products and its people – attenuate distinct forms of uncertainty, and thereby stimulate export volume in distinct ways.

This study shows that the relationship between country reputation and export volume is a substantive and empirically valid topic of study. For public policy makers looking to stimulate exports to a specific country, improving their respective country’s reputation in that country appears to be a viable alternative to other levers (e.g. trade negotiations, free trade agreements). For business leaders at international companies, the findings suggest that companies may consider country reputation as a factor when choosing to which countries they wish to expand.

The notion that country reputation can contribute to aggregate export volume has intuitive appeal. Yet, aside from research on country-of-origin effects which has concentrated on the individual consumer level, the notion of country reputation contributing to aggregate effects has so far been based mostly on conjecture and anecdotal evidence. This is the only study to the authors’ knowledge that empirically tests this relationship using a bilateral measure of reputation as a determinant of export volume within one of the most successful empirical frameworks, the structural gravity model of international trade. The findings suggest that for many countries, their reputation may contribute to billions of dollars in export volume.

This paper aims to explore the spillover effect of social responsibility (SR) activity at the product brand level on the full brand portfolio. Extant research has established that SR activity can be beneficial to companies by influencing consumers’ SR associations with the company and its product brands. However, most studies only look at the outcomes of SR implemented at the corporate level (i.e. corporate social responsibility [CSR]). This paper provides a new and expanded perspective by exploring how SR at the product brand level reverberates throughout the full brand portfolio. Drawing on associative network theory, the authors propose a conceptual model that predicts when and how SR associations with a product brand spillover to corporate brand and other product brands and the consequences of this spillover.

Two experiments were conducted to test the conceptual model. The authors used utilitarian products (frozen yogurt, ice cream, and soft drink) in the first experiment and value-expressive products (running shoes, T-shirt and watch) in the second experiment.

Both experiments found support for the proposed spillover effect. The moderating impact of corporate branding strategy and product category fit on the strength of spillover effect were also examined.

The findings will help managers make better decisions about which brands (product and corporate level) should be involved in SR activity.

This research offers a new perspective to look at the consequences of SR activity and reveals a larger picture than extant research on CSR by indicating the impact of a product brand’s SR initiative on the whole brand portfolio.

The purpose of the paper is to address customer alienation risk in the context of Marvel's recent (as of June 2023) under-performance and its contribution to Disney's stock's 50 percent-plus decline.

Research followed recent developments at Disney/Marvel, as well as the Bud Light customer alienation, and reconciled those developments to core brand and strategic risk management resources to derive practical suggestions to mitigate customer alienation risk across industries.

Marvel’s experience offers lessons that have relevance across industries inasmuch as a super hero paradigm is effectively a brand. The stronger the bond between customers and a brand, the more customers will maintain or extend their buying patterns over time. And the more customers personally identify with a brand, the greater the likelihood a customer alienation will occur if a firm disrespects that bond. Four practical suggestions are presented that will help to ensure the integrity of brands.

While the under-performance of Disney/Marvel has been (and is) covered in the press, this is the first paper that we are aware of that links that under-performance to customer alienation risk.

This secondary source case is based mainly on legislative documents (that tracked the initiation and progress of the Parental Rights in Education bill that later became an Act), corporate documents (published by The Walt Disney Company) and news articles from publications such as The New York Times and Bloomberg. All sources are cited in the case narrative and as end notes.

In April 2022, The Walt Disney Company and its CEO, Robert Chapek, were at the center of a controversy over the company’s opposition to the State of Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill. The bill, dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by its critics, prohibited instruction on sexual identity and gender orientation in the state’s elementary schools. The controversy stemmed from Disney’s initial non-reaction to the bill and its later strident opposition and call for its repeal. Chapek was pressured by negative media publicity and employee disgruntlement on the one hand and adverse economic consequences for opposing the bill by the state’s Governor, Ron DeSantis. Chapek and the Board had to respond to the political threats to Disney’s economic well-being while appeasing its employees and other stakeholders who wanted the company to be a corporate champion in diversity, equity and inclusion.

The case is best suited for advanced undergraduate or graduate leadership, strategic management and marketing courses. From a leadership and strategic management perspective, the case is well-suited for demonstrating the evolving expectations of leaders and corporate social responsibility, as well as the concepts of issue framing and nonmarket management. Instructors may also leverage the case in marketing courses (e.g. brand management), as CEO activism (i.e. messaging and practice) is one characteristic of brand activism (Animation Guild, 2022).

Job markets in the transport and logistics industry are characterized by a scarcity of well-educated junior talent. Employer attractiveness is becoming more important in order to win the most talented junior staff. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how corporate social performance (CSP) profiles of logistics companies influence their attractiveness for job seekers.

In a computerized laboratory experiment, the authors provided 95 students in their final year with job offer data that include general and CSP information about the company, and the job seeker’s potential salary. The authors manipulated how the CSP information was presented and monitored the information accessed during job seekers’ decision-making processes. The authors investigated how information presentation affected choices.

The vast majority of talent acquires CSP information in the pre-decision phase of the judgment, compares this information across companies, and trades off this information with the conditions of employment. The authors find that the ease of comparability of corporate social responsibility (CSR) information, expressed by meaningful indicators of CSP, increased preference for high CSP.

The study enriches existing studies of voluntary disclosure, which argue that voluntary disclosing sustainability-related information can be a tool of impression management.

Companies with a compelling CSP should push for a broadly accepted methodology to benchmark CSP within industry-specific sectors, such as logistics services.

Potential employees demand that companies should consider their social impact on individuals and society as a whole. To remain attractive for employees companies in transport and logistics industry have to cope with a broader scope of expectations.

The authors provide the first analysis on the relevance of CSP information for employer attractiveness in the transport and logistics industry. This research provides insights into the relevance of CSP criteria, information provision, and comparability processes from the perspective of young job seekers.

German, Austrian and Swiss utilities are confronted with radical changes in the European energy sector. A dialogue between the utility companies and their various groups of stakeholders is gaining importance. Increasingly, utilities create their own Facebook presence enabling such a dialogue. Still, to the best of the author’s knowledge there exists no research which explicitly focuses the stakeholder dialogue of German, Austrian or Swiss utilities on Facebook. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to analyse Facebook as an instrument for dialogic communication in the energy sector.

An online survey was distributed to 1,280 German, Austrian and Swiss utilities, and 14 per cent of the utilities completed the survey, including 130 German, 19 Austrian and 25 Swiss companies. The participating utilities are primarily in public ownership.

The Facebook conversation of utility companies and their stakeholders meets the basic requirements of a virtual stakeholder dialogue. Nevertheless, less than half of the companies perceive their current stakeholder conversation on Facebook as truly interactive. Therefore, even if the basic requirements of a dialogue are met, most companies still do not seem to fully use the dialogue potential of Facebook.

This study provides first insights into virtual stakeholder dialogues in the energy sector. A suggestion to operationalise such a virtual dialogue is provided. Both operationalisation as well as the empirical results help researchers and practitioners to better understand virtual stakeholder dialogues.

Drawing upon the conservation of resources theory, this study aims to investigate whether, how and when salespeople’s substantive attribution of the organization’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) affects value-based selling (VBS). The authors argue that salespeople’s substantive CSR attribution increase value-based selling through two mechanisms (i.e. by lowering emotional exhaustion and increasing empathy), and treatment by customers can increase or decrease the strength of these relationships.

B2B salespeople working in various industries in China were recruited through snowball sampling to participate in the study. There were 462 volunteers (57.58% women; aged 30–55; tenure ranging from six months to 15 years) who provided valid self-report questionnaires.

Hierarchical multiple regression supported the association between salespeople’s substantive CSR attribution and VBS. The results showed that salespeople’s emotional state (i.e. emotional exhaustion and empathy) mediated the association between substantive CSR attribution and VBS. As expected, salespeople’s experiences of customer incivility weakened the mediating effect of emotional exhaustion; contrary to expectations, customer-initiated interpersonal justice weakened the mediation effect of empathy.

This study makes a unique contribution to the existing marketing literature by first investigating the role of salespeople’s attribution of CSR motives in facilitating their VBS, which answers the call to identify factors that predict VBS. In addition, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the authors are the first to test salespeople’s emotions as a mechanism of the link between their CSR attributions and selling behaviors.

This study aims to examine whether corporate stconcerns on social responsibility issues pressurize corporate managers to act in a socially responsible way and how this affects corporate value.

This study follows previous studies such as Wu et al. (2008) and Jiang and Huang (2011) in using the research model.

The analysis shows that in regions where large attention paid to demolitions, corporate managers are under great pressure from corporate stakeholders and they thus act in more socially responsible ways; this, in turn, results in higher corporate values. Furthermore, in regions in which demolition events attract more attention, the increase in corporate value is relatively small for state-owned enterprises and unprofitable listed enterprises.

The findings demonstrate that internet governance heightens corporate stakeholders’ awareness of social responsibility, and this leads to pressure on corporate relative behaviors to satisfy the requests of corporate stakeholders, leading to an increase in corporate value and improvement in social welfare.