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Reports on a study of attitudes of exporting managements in different national and regional settings, regarding business exchanges. Compares also existing non‐exporting managements. First, ascertains to what extent and in what respects managers differentiate between various peoples and, second identifying differences among managers in this regard, to find out how these differences are associated with their firms' export involvement. Uses five national and regional settings as follows: US, Canadian, West European, Latin American and Asian and African. Data was analysed from a questionnaire, presented to chief executives, of a judgement sample of 175 firms in Canada, of these 158 questionnaire responses were obtained – four of these were unusable, ergo 88% were used. Sums up that management is, or should be, concerned with differences among customers rather than intermediaries.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the effect of returnee managers on Chinese firms’ performances at overseas markets.

By hand collecting two data set containing managers’ foreign experiences and firms’ principal customers, this study empirically examines the relationship between returnee managers and overseas customers.

The author shows that firms with returnee managers: have higher probability of gaining overseas customers and proportion of overseas sales; and are more likely to conduct international M&A, adopt international Big 4 auditors and list overseas. In addition, returnee executives who came back from individualistic culture with overseas working experience, when entering the overseas market where they have experienced, are more effectively in helping firms to perform well.

The findings in this study suggest that firms with returnee managers are better able to develop relationships with overseas customers and expand overseas markets than those firms without returnee managers.

For policy makers, this study justifies government policies that aim to attract and encourage more returnees to come back. Furthermore, the author shows that returnees with different foreign experiences, national culture of different countries, whether doing business with their familiar foreign country, and their positions in current organizations have different effects on overseas customers. Firms can utilize all these information to choose the “right” returnees to increase their success in overseas markets.

This study is among the first to examine the role of returnee managers in an emerging economy on firm’s probability of gaining overseas customers and expanding overseas sales.

This study aims to investigate differences among Chinese manufacturers‐cum‐suppliers in their logistics services provided to different local and foreign customers and assess the management areas that they must address in order to satisfy the logistics requirements of their customers.

A questionnaire‐based survey was conducted amongst managers of manufacturing firms in four industries, automotive, telecommunication and computer, household appliance, and electronics, located in the Shanghai region of China. A five‐point Likert scale (1 – least important, 5 – most important) was used to measure the importance of services provided, and assess customer satisfaction level, impact on management of manufacturers, and difficulties and challenges faced by the manufacturers.

The results indicate that foreign customers place significant emphasis on different services from those of their local counterparts. Results also indicate that many challenges need to be addressed by the manufacturers with respect to HR, customer service, and IT integration. A significant difference between manufacturers' satisfaction levels with local and foreign customers is also noticeable.

Since third‐party logistics (3PL) industry in China is still in its infancy. Most of the Chinese manufacturing firms have to provide major logistics services to their customers. Hence further growth of the Chinese economy depends to a large extent on the ability of the manufacturing firms to provide efficient and effective logistics services. The findings of this study demonstrate that in order for the outsourced manufacturers in China to provide logistics services to local and foreign customers, they are required to restructure their organizations and adjust their operation strategies.

This study is a rare attempt to discuss outsourced manufacturers in China in adjusting their logistics strategies and operations to meet the demands from both local and foreign customers after China's admission to the World Trade Organization.

The purpose of this paper is to extend our knowledge of industrial firms' international strategy implementation by exploring key associations pertaining to types of value adding in foreign markets. The questions are: how are types of value adding in foreign markets associated with differentiation attributes? How are the types associated with the performance of foreign units?

A hypothesized model is developed. The key terms (type of value adding, differentiation attributes, financial performance) are operationalized. A questionnaire was used to collect the quantitative data necessary to test the hypotheses using ANOVA analyses. The questions were answered by managers of 191 subsidiaries of Swedish manufacturing firms in Germany, the UK and the USA.

Firms with product development in foreign markets are associated with a limited focus on product attributes in trying to receive orders compared with firms without such local value adding. Local customer services are related to a limited emphasis on product attributes as well, but such services are associated with an emphasis on customer flexibility attributes. Foreign product development and customer services are associated with high performance. Interpretations of the findings are discussed.

The study contributes theoretically as it extends our knowledge of international strategy implementation. In the search for the type of value adding in a foreign market, the industrial firm is recommended to be aware of the general associations among the types, and the differentiation attributes and performance established in the study.

The application of a local perspective goes beyond what has been done in the dominant head quarter studies in previous research. Another key value is the analysis of perceptual data collected from managers responsible for foreign subsidiaries.

Cause-related marketing (CRM) focuses on the use of marketing tools to publicize a firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. Drawing on legitimacy theory, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of CRM-led CSR in international business-to-business (B2B) markets. In particular, the authors examine the relationship between supplier CRM-led philanthropic CSR reputation and foreign customer business engagement in an international B2B setting. The authors also test how the foreign customer’s host-country sustainable development level moderates this relationship.

The authors collect and analyze dyadic data from multiple sources including: dyadic data from a supplier and its 90 foreign customers; the supplier’s internal company records; and publically available data.

The authors find that supplier CRM-led philanthropic CSR reputation positively affects foreign customer business engagement. Furthermore, the authors find that this positive relationship is stronger when host-country environments are characterized by achieving higher level of environmental well-being development. In contrast, this positive relationship is weaker when the foreign customer host-country environment is characterized by achieving higher level of economic well-being development.

The authors examine that impacts of CRM-led CSR in international B2B markets and differentiate the contingent roles of foreign customer host-country sustainable development in moderating such impacts.

Foreign and local banks in Malaysia are competing in terms of skilled staff, innovative products and services, rendering quality services and customer satisfaction. The purpose of this paper is to examine the overall service quality and customer satisfaction of both foreign and local banks.

The data used to test the hypothesis were collected from 748 foreign and local bank customers in Malaysia. The research model was analysed using a structural equation modelling technique.

Results show that knowledge and staff competencies, as well as convenience of the bank is more significant for local bank customers while bank image and internet banking are important components for foreign bank customers. The results also reveal that foreign bank customers have higher satisfaction as compared to local bank customers.

No analysis is undertaken of any difference in the service quality dimensions between banks of different size. Further research on banking services could usefully test services quality dimensions across banks of different sizes.

The findings serve as a valuable reference for local banks understand service quality challenges they may face from foreign banks in this competitive industry. Findings suggest that, to provide high-quality services, financial institutions need to heighten customer satisfaction differentiation strategies.

The outcomes of this study enhance the knowledge on the performance of both local and foreign banks in Malaysia as well as customer satisfaction, which are invaluable to all bank managers and industry players in improving their services.

Exporting is a popular foreign market entry mode, especially among small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The success of SME exporters depends on their ability to establish and maintain profitable long-term relationships with foreign customers. This study aims to propose that the development of an effective export sales strategy can contribute greatly toward this aim. The study also demonstrates that export market intelligence generation and export market intelligence dissemination activities are important drivers of export sales strategy. Export sales strategy comprises three dimensions, which are expected to have a positive influence on export performance.

The study uses survey data obtained from 168 exporting firms based in Greece, to test a set of research hypotheses. Structural equation modeling procedures are used.

Findings indicate that export market intelligence generation and dissemination activities support and facilitate the development of effective export sales strategies, tailored to serve individual foreign accounts. Furthermore, all strategic dimensions of export sales strategy demonstrate significant positive effects on export performance.

The research underlines the importance of incorporating export sales strategy in studies that aim to investigate the drivers of export performance.

The findings also indicate that exporting firms must actively engage in market intelligence activities to reinforce their strategic decision-making process.

The study emphasizes the crucial importance of export sales strategy in achieving superior export performance. The study provides a theory-driven conceptualization and operationalization of export sales strategy and offers an empirical assessment of a comprehensive model that includes the key antecedents and performance outcomes of export sales strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of customer service employees’ (CSEs) competence and service recovery outcomes on service evaluations of foreign and domestic CSEs.

Three experiments were conducted to test and validate the proposed hypotheses. The participants were told a cover story that they were either listening to (Study 2) or reading (Studies 1 and 3) a real conversation between a customer service representative of a bank and a customer and the authors wanted their views about the service encounter. While country of origin (COO) and competency were common independent variables across three studies, Study 2 included service recovery with a full refund and Study 3 had both full and partial refund and apology offered or not.

Results from three experiments show that while competent CSEs are evaluated the same, regardless of their COO, the domestic CSE is evaluated more negatively than the foreign CSE when both are incompetent. The authors also find that when competent CSEs deliver no service recovery, the foreign CSE evaluations are significantly lower than the domestic one. Study 3 results show that this effect is mediated by participants’ ethnocentric beliefs.

For implications, this study provides a deeper understanding of the role of COO in services contexts. Future researchers can utilize the findings to investigate the important role that expectations play in determining service excellence and how it affects the COO effect.

The paper provides managers in both offshoring client and provider firms with an understanding of the effects of offshoring on employee evaluations. It discusses the relevance/irrelevance of COO on the customer evaluations of service employees.

The study investigates an under researched phenomenon – offshoring of services. This paper is one of the few looking at the role of different interaction factors, such as competence, recovery on service evaluations.

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize “entry node”, to describe the entry node pattern (i.e. the initial entry node and changes in it) of small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) entering emerging market business networks, and to determine how network nodes are associated with experiential knowledge.

Using data from an on‐site survey based on a standardized questionnaire, hypotheses were tested using ANOVA on 197 SMEs in southern Sweden that entered the emerging markets of the Baltic States, Poland, Russia, or China.

The entry node is the establishment point into a foreign market network. In total, four entry situations are defined – triad via home market; triad via host market; dyad from home market; and dyad at host market – each using different entry nodes. After initial entry, one third of the firms changed their nodes, primarily into a more committed node. Various nodes display significant differences in the level of accumulated societal, business network and customer‐specific experiential knowledge. A more committed node is associated with more experiential knowledge.

Knowledge is complex to measure, since various factors influence the level of accumulated experiential knowledge. This study examines the association between types of nodes and experiential knowledge, but does not aim to explain knowledge accumulation. Perceptual measures are used and possible method biases involved are safeguarded through an on‐site survey method.

This paper conceptualizes the novel concept of entry node, provides insight into the SME node pattern in emerging markets and examines the association between nodes and experiential knowledge.

This study aims to investigate and explain the influence of cultural differences on foreign customers' perceptions of the local service marketplace through their consumption experience.

Exploratory research was conducted by conducting semi-structured interviews and using critical incidents technique to identify foreign customers' perception of each service. A purposive sampling method was used to collect 70 participants to recall their experience in the five most used services, including transportation, convenience stores, restaurants, healthcare, and banking.

The results found 286 critical incidents in four main categories of the physical environment, employee behavior, value, and functionality. The participants were likely to mention positive arguments. The results also provide evidence that Western customers were more likely than their Asian counterparts to have a negative perception of local services.

The study combines all the participants' perceptions of all the most used services together for measurement; therefore, it may imply some various results for individual services. This paper has several limitations that need to be recognized in interpreting its findings.

These results have cross-cultural implications, especially that foreign consumers really see services in a very simplistic manner. International service providers can take advantage of economies of scale and experience curve effects, while local service providers can also make efforts to attract foreign customers.

The findings provide an initial step towards developing a comprehensive understanding of foreign consumers' perceptions of local services and make a theoretical contribution to the applicability of cross-cultural marketing.