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This study aims to examine the effect of market orientation on foreign knowledge acquisition. It also assesses the moderating role of absorptive capacity in the relationship between foreign knowledge acquisition, firm innovativeness and performance.

A questionnaire was administered to 257 respondents who were owners, managers or owner/managers of export firms in Ghana. The data were analyzed with structural equation modeling.

The findings show that customer orientation significantly influenced foreign business knowledge acquisition but not performance, and that competitor orientation significantly influenced both foreign business knowledge acquisition and firm innovativeness. Absorptive capacity was found to play a significant role in linking foreign business knowledge to innovativeness.

The study adds to the literature on knowledge management in firms by identifying the moderating role of absorptive capacity in the relationship between foreign business knowledge acquisition, innovativeness and performance.

This study aimed at investigating negative past experience (NPE), symbolic incongruity and ideological incompatibility on celebrity brand hate (CBH) within the arts marketing sector.

Anchored on the self-congruity theory (SCT), the study is based on two studies with 618 hip-life music (HLM) listeners in Ghana (Study 1 = 340 face-to-face participants; study 2 = 278 online participants), who responded to 20 celebrities they hate. The study validates Hegner et al.'s (2017) product brand hate (BH) model in the arts sector utilizing the structural equal modeling in testing the research hypotheses.

The study found that negative past experience, symbolic incongruity, and ideological incompatibility significantly influences CBH. Furthermore, CBH significantly influences celebrity brand avoidance (CBA) and negative word-of-mouth (NWoM), brand retaliation, private complaint and brand switching. Nevertheless, CBH had no significant influence on CBA in the second study. In all, BH had the strongest effects on NWoM for products in Hegner et al. (2017) model, whereas in our model BH strongly impacts on brand retaliation for celebrities (i.e. people).

The study provided evidence to marketing scholars, celebrity image managers and brand professionals, on critical factors to consider in building and sustaining celebrity brands as viable currencies for economic leveraging within the arts industry.

Though BH has received academic recognition, little is known about the concept of CBH and its outcomes in the arts marketing literature.

This study aims to explore the role customer satisfaction play in mediating the nexus between commitment, trust, relative dependence and customer loyalty from an emerging market context under a business-to-business (B2B) setting.

The study was a descriptive survey, and using convenience sampling technique, questionnaires were used to gather data from 356 businesses that were distributors of Guinness Ghana Company Limited. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed hypotheses for this study, and macro-PROCESS was performed to test the mediating effect of customer satisfaction.

The findings show that relative dependence had the most considerable significant and positive impact on B2B partners satisfaction, followed by commitment and trust, respectively. A positive and significant relationship was also found between B2B firms’ satisfaction and loyalty. The result also indicates that customer satisfaction mediates the relationship between commitment, trust, relative dependence and B2B loyalty.

Practitioners can manipulate specific relative dependence, commitment and trust features to increase customer satisfaction with their firm’s services, thus ensuring longer-term customer loyalty.

Drawing on the social exchange theory, this study provides a more profound perspective focusing on an emerging market context, by examining from a B2B setting the significance of commitment, trust, relative dependence and B2B partners satisfaction on loyalty.

This paper aimed to test a proposed framework highlighting strategic green marketing initiatives and how they drive new technology implementation towards green corporate performance, underpinned by institutional isomorphism.

The study used a quantitative method and convenience sampling approach in gathering data using adapted questionnaires to solicit first-hand information from 225 employees of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the tourism and hospitality sector underpinned by the theory of institutional isomorphism.

The study shows that green communication and green strategy alignment have significant predictive effects on new technology implementation. Cultural isomorphism significantly moderated the effects of implementing new technology (i.e. green communication and strategy alignment). In addition, “new technology implementation had a significant predictive effect on green corporate performance”. Meanwhile, the moderation effect of “green creative behaviour on the new technology-green corporate performance dyad was positive but insignificant.”

The study’s novel framework confirms how green communication strategy and green strategy alignment complement cultural isomorphism to explain the impact of new technology implementation on green corporate performance, underpinned by institutional isomorphism.

Given that the peculiar nature of the internet has introduced new dimensions of service delivery as well as new dimensions of service failures and recovery, the purpose of this paper is to investigate and compare the relationships between recovery strategies and recovery satisfaction within offline and online settings.

Data for the empirical tests of our hypotheses were collected via offline and online (specifically Facebook and Twitter) samples of customers who have experienced some form of service failure and recovery measures from service providers within the past year.

The results indicate that recovery strategies largely influence recovery satisfaction among aggrieved customers. However, these are conditional and not invariant across the two settings. In the authors’ offline setting, in particular, apology did not show a statistically significant impact on recovery satisfaction, even though, along with compensation and explanation, this relationship was significant among the online sample.

The study offers practical implications for service managers within emerging economies on the various conditions where they can maximise their service recovery efforts (both offline and online) to generate optimum recovery satisfaction.

The existing literature has emphasized the importance of frontline service employees developing a sense of ownership for the overall well-being of customers. However, studies into why frontline service employees develop ownership and responsibility for customers are still lacking. The purpose of this paper is to address the question, “Why do frontline service employees engage in responsible customer service behaviors and protect the interests of customers in Ghana?"

A semistructured interview with 61 frontline service employees was used in the study. This study used a thematic analysis technique to analyze the data.

The findings show that frontline service employees develop a sense of customer stewardship because of organizational values, human resource management initiatives (rewards and in-service training) and ownership and accountability.

Studies on why frontline service employees engage in responsible customer service behaviors and protect the interests of customers is limited. This study addresses this gap in the literature.

The purpose of this paper is to test the effect of brand regulations on the relationship between enterprises’ branding capabilities (internal and external) and performance. It also examines the hypothesized relationship effects across manufacturing and service-based enterprises.

The study uses data from 384 small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) within an emerging market setting. Moderated hierarchical regression was used to examine the theoretical interrelationships between branding capabilities and enterprise performance within the boundaries of regulations.

Results from the study suggest that both internal and external branding capabilities positively affect enterprise performance. However, the effect is confounded as brand regulations attenuate the relationship between enterprises’ branding capabilities and performance. Varying outcomes across manufacturing and service-based enterprises are also assessed.

The study suggests that policy makers should review regulations on businesses, particularly those relating to the small business sector. Regulations that ameliorate activities of SMEs should be implemented to promote existing enterprises, and attract new ones for industrialization in emerging markets. The findings provide evidence for issues of potential research and managerial interest, with implications for both policy makers, small business owners and the academic community.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Strong focus on key elements of marketing orientation can enable firms to become more innovative and improve performance. For those expanding into overseas markets, acquisition of key foreign knowledge supported by strong absorptive capacity helps increase the potential to achieve these desired outcomes.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.