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Answering to calls for further contextualizing global leadership, this study investigates power dynamics and cultural identities in global leadership in an African context. We took a grounded theory approach to investigate how a specific cultural context shapes assets and liabilities of global leaders. Drawing on our data comprising semi-structured interviews of managers of multinational enterprises operating in Ghana, we identified key assets and liabilities for being local or foreign in one’s global leadership role. Furthermore, we theorize four specific styles of leadership leveraging: identity leveraging, power leveraging, juxtapositional leveraging, and temporal leveraging. Finally, we integrated the above-mentioned elements and proposed a framework of contextualized assets and liabilities which illustrates how specific cultural context affects the assets and liabilities of localness and foreignness for global leaders, and how these assets and liabilities constitute the four styles of leveraging in such context. Implications of our findings for research and practice are discussed.

As part of an exploratory study on the nature of global leaders' power, we interviewed 23 global leaders to address the question: “How do the task, culture, and relationship complexities of global leadership shape the way global leaders exercise power and influence their followers?” We identify five complicating factors that shape the use of power by global leaders: Language, culture, time zones, physical distance, and matrix organizational structures. When compared with domestic leaders, these five factors make the use of power more complex for global leaders and require global leaders to invest substantially more time and energy into building relationships, sharing leadership, and prioritizing communication to ensure common understanding of vision and goals. We highlight a sixth factor, high-quality relationships, as an enabling resource for global leaders to succeed despite contexts of global leadership complexity. We provide a conceptual model summarizing how global leader influence attempts are complicated and enhanced and offer implications for future research and practice.

Prior studies of competitive dynamics in emerging economies restricted their attention to how the multinational enterprise (MNE) initiates actions against the domestic firm in the market environment with no regard for the home-host relations. By contrast, this study aims to investigate how the domestic firm challenges the MNE in the non-market environment when there is home–host political hostility.

The authors conducted a case study of non-market rivalry between an MNE from the Taiwan region and a domestic firm on the Chinese mainland in the period 2004–2008.

Riding the home–host political hostility, the domestic firm mounted political tactics against the MNE on two fronts. It lobbied the government for identity-targeted policy changes, which demanded state-funded clients buy only from domestic suppliers. It also unethically spread identity-targeted political rumors to vilify the MNE in the local society. The MNE defended itself against the unfavorable policy by engaging in identity work of restructuring its distribution channels to conceal its “foreign” (non-domestic) identity. To fight off the rumors, it built a corporate citizen identity by identity work of aligning corporate social responsibility and research and development with local policy priorities.

The authors broaden the concept of competitive aggressiveness to include non-market actions, particularly unethical ones targeting a rival’s identity. The authors contribute to identity work scholarship by pinpointing an unrecognized phenomenon – high-effort identity work, used by the MNE as a defensive response. The emergent findings develop a moral perspective on non-market rivalry.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the simultaneous evolution of LOF and AOF in the context of environmental protection (EP) companies from Europe in the Chinese market.

The authors adopt a qualitative, case study approach, using interview data to explore the extent of liability of foreignness and how the FSAs of firms have changed from the time on market entry. The authors undertook 15 in-depth interviews with decision makers in six companies addressing their experience of foreignness during their long tenure in China. To control for sector-level effects, the authors focus on companies in the EP sector.

The authors found the evolving AOF of the firms were challenged to a significant extent that caused difficulties in reducing their LOF over time. The EP sector is dominated by state-owned enterprises that have unique organized structure preventing localized foreign firms from gaining access into the institutionalized network. This deeply quilted institutionalized network had a corrosive effect in the gradual erosion of the LOF manifested from unfair price strategy practice, forced collaborations, ostracization of project participations, operational barriers, prohibited and restricted market access. The research also uncovered the rebirth nature of LOF that caused AOF to lose its significance across bureaucracy and ownership changed.

The relatively small number of cases (six) limits the generalizability of the findings by the authors. However, the authors are convinced that, given that the case companies are generally large and have long experience in China, the conclusions made are well grounded. In addition, there was the high level of coherence in the reported experiences of the interviewees, providing further support for the findings.

The experiences of these case study companies highlight that MNEs need to be vigilant and creative in constantly improving their FSAs so that the competitive distance between them and the local competitors remains substantial.

Very few studies have explored both assets and liabilities of foreignness in the host country regulatory context using a case study-based qualitative approach, especially in emerging markets.

This paper aims to clarify the challenge of emerging countries’ firms regarding their brand policy. The purpose of the paper is to examine the branding options offered to emerging countries companies when expanding internationally.

After having clarified the two paradoxes faced by emerging countries’ brands by way of synthesizing various works, the author formulates a model that provides a representation for the possible brand strategy choices of emerging country companies.

The authors formulate a framework with four brand management options which may be put into practice in emerging countries’ companies and suggest how an emerging country’s company could create and develop the best-adapted international brand policy depending on its specific situation regarding localness emphasis and customers’ risk reduction acceptance.

Results lead to the conclusion that the notion that only global brands are associated with higher product quality or prestige (in relation to local brands) is not a universal truth and thus needs to be interpreted with caution. The research provides support for a branding strategy embedded in the local emerging countries context and tally with research showing that more and more firms from emerging economies are using foreign image association strategies as important components of their branding and marketing strategies.

The proposal reinforces the contingency perspective of international marketing according to which brand policy may depend on company criteria, as well as foreign market specificities. The research confirms the competitive capacity of emerging countries’ companies’ brands, broadens the scope of international branding knowledge by shifting the focus to under-researched regions of the world.

The study aims to examine the usefulness of the brand origin concept in shaping the perceptions of Indian consumers.

Guided by recent advance in social identity theory and social motivation theory, a dynamic iterative model of brand origin recognition is proposed. Six hypotheses were tested using a sample of 145 consumers from west of India. Using paired t‐test, average consumer preference of brand origin was analysed for different product categories. A factor analysis with varimax rotation for determining band images was also carried out.

The results demonstrated that most consumers can recognise the brand origin correctly but the power of recognition decreases when the brand has a long history of “localization”. Distinguished trajectories of consumer perceptions of foreign brands and domestics brands were projected, and this allowed one to extend existing country of origin (CO) research to brand of origin research.

The results implied that brand origin is a useful concept for companies engaging in an emerging market such as India. But the changing nature of the concept requires careful steering and nurturing if companies want to attach a positive value to its brand via brand origin association.

Research into CO effect has been extensive. However, few studies examine empirically the effect of “brand origin” which is more appropriate in emerging market in today's increasingly competitive global environment. This paper is a first to explore the validity of the concept of brand origin in the Indian market.

Despite the increasing attention on consumers in emerging markets, there is limited research on the emerging market consumers’ evaluation of global brands. The purpose of this paper is to address this research gap by examining the role of consumer dispositions – cosmopolitanism, need for uniqueness and materialism in attitude and purchase intentions toward global brands from emerging vs developed markets.

A mall intercept method was used to collect responses from shoppers in four major cities in India. The intercept method produced a usable sample of 613 respondents. Each respondent was asked to mark his or her response concerning two global brands – one each from developed and emerging markets separately.

The findings show that cosmopolitanism and need for uniqueness determine emerging market consumers’ attitude toward global brands. Specifically, the authors find that while cosmopolitanism has a higher positive impact on global brands from the developed market, need for uniqueness has a negative impact on global brands from emerging market.

The study findings show that need for uniqueness negatively affects attitude toward global brands from emerging markets. This presents a significant challenge for global brands from emerging market when competing with the counterparts from developed markets.

The findings show that managers of global brands in emerging markets should develop unique brand positioning that differentiates from international brands. By carefully managing their marketing mix elements (e.g. price, design, distribution), they can induce counter-conformity among consumers for brands that originate in emerging markets.

While prior studies suggest that emerging market consumers prefer foreign brands than domestic brands, little attention was focused on the antecedents for such preference. This study considers consumer dispositions, which were not examined in prior research in addressing this research gap.

The chapters in Volume 15 of Advances in Global Leadership provide a comprehensive examination of the state of our field in its lenses on and through power. In this chapter, we synthesize the volume's insights around two main conclusions. First, global leadership research tends to draw on the same lenses and approaches to the study of power as the mainstream leadership research does. This is helpful for comparison and extension across contexts, but the research suggests that important insights – especially around the nature of power dynamics in highly complex environments – may be missed by limiting the perspective. Second, recent research on how global leaders work is beginning to show a pattern illuminating the importance of dynamic and shared power adaptation in global leadership. There are exciting possibilities in these directions, and this chapter concludes with a discussion on ideas for future research.

This study aims to develop and examine a model that links the foreigner service orientation, defined as indigenous consumers’ preference for service environments popular among foreign versus local consumers, to both foreigner and local comfort in intercultural service encounters.

The authors collected cross-sectional survey data from 516 indigenous consumers in Qatar.

According to the findings, although foreigner comfort is positively related to their service orientation, local comfort is negatively related to foreigner service orientation. The results further indicate that the relationships are intensified when cosmopolitanism or collective narcissism is high and when consumers are alone in the service setting.

Service firms can use the findings of this research to create a meaningful service environment based on consumers’ orientation to the in-group and out-group.

The examination of the foreigner service orientation addresses the possibility that consumers might prefer foreign consumers to local ones in service environments. This research also addresses the dearth of research on customer-to-customer intercultural service encounter.