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The purpose of this paper is to define a new methodology for designing corporate learning for a global audience and to provide a case study of that methodology in action. The Global Learning Archetypes approach adapts well-established cultural preference models and combines them with insightful learning models. The result is three primary Global Learning Archetypes and six secondary archetypes that allow training to be designed once and used around the world.

The Global Learning Archetype approach was created by evaluating well-established global cultural preferences models, integrating them with a proprietary learning criteria model, and developing a model for rapidly and cost-effectively creating learning for multiple geographies. Additionally, a case study illustrates both the challenges and successes when implementing this model in a large global corporation.

Most organizations create global learning either by creating content in their “home” location and then adapting it for other locations, or by distributing a single version of content and trusting local facilitators to provide context for it. The first method is expensive and time-consuming; the second method is risky and unreliable. The Global Archetype method provides for creating learning interactions that are appropriate for multiple geographies in a single effort.

Most large organizations are global, and smaller organizations increasingly have a global footprint. According to Fortune Magazine, the Fortune Global 500 are headquartered in 37 different countries and do business in over 150 different countries. An Institute for the Future/Intuit study notes that by 2018, half of all US small businesses will be involved in international trade. CSA Research observes that businesses spend about US$31 billion a year on localization. A method for providing global learning in both an impactful and cost-effective way is clearly necessary.

The Global Learning Archetypes method is comparatively new, but it draws from well-established and well-vetted content on worldwide cultural preferences and on effective learning criteria. As such, it is a valuable synthesis of the proven and the innovative. Far more than a conceptual model, the Global Archetypes have been used by some of the largest organizations in the world; a case study of one such implementation is provided in this paper.

The purpose of this paper is to develop taxonomy of sourcing decision-making (SDM) archetypes and explore how different contextual factors influence these archetypes when global sourcing of complex components is considered a viable option.

A multiple case study approach with five in-depth cases is employed. In total, 19 interviews as well as publicly available and internal data from large buying firms headquartered in Austria and Germany were collected and analyzed.

The results reveal three different SDM archetypes which are described in detail (i.e. “consensus,” “argumentation” and “cabal”). Furthermore, it is found that these archetypes are mainly influenced by three contextual factors: sourcing maturity, product complexity and leadership style. The final model comprises six propositions which illustrate how these contextual factors determine companies’ SDM archetypes.

The study contributes to theory development at the intersection of organizational buying behavior and the (global) SDM literature. Thereby, it answers the call for more rigorous investigation of the influence of contextual factors on SDM processes.

The findings enable practitioners to better understand and consequently manage SDM processes and their outcomes. By supporting decision-makers in identifying SDM archetypes, this study allows sourcing managers and teams to make better decisions by avoiding problems that occur in situations in which the preferred decision-making type would result in suboptimal decisions.

The study provides a first step toward taxonomy of SDM archetypes and is among the first that explores their underlying contextual factors.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze customers’ perceptions about brand personality in different cultural environments, checking if the archetypal framework of Mark and Pearson (2001) applies to different brands across countries.

The authors measured consumers’ perceptions in different cultural contexts through a survey, and received 537 valid questionnaires from Portugal, Brazil, Colombia and Peru, countries that have some similar indicators of cultural proximity. The authors wanted to verify if the words and sentences that respondents related to each brand were coherent with the archetype/brand, and the homogeneity of the results in different cultural contexts.

Empirical evidence shows that there is proximity between the literature review and the associations – words and sentences – that consumers from different countries make with those brands. This consistency of results is significantly higher for word associations.

Regardless of the results, the perceptions of consumers expressed through the selected words were often diverse and heterogeneous among countries. This could possibly indicate insufficient efforts from global brands toward a coherent brand personality/global-archetypal approach. Therefore, managing brand personality deserves more attention and marketers must understand consumer behavior patterns in different markets.

This chapter explores archetypal change in the context of professional service firms. To understand recent and ongoing changes in professional service firms, we briefly show how the professional archetype has evolved since the 1960s. We then present four theoretical models to describe processes by which institutionalized archetypes can change, and possibly coexist in the same field. Three professional archetypes are described, each in the context of historical development and the change model described earlier. At the one extreme is the traditional professional partnership; at the other the larger, multidisciplinary, corporate, global professional network, or GPN; in between is the “Star” form – relatively specialized, flatter structure, resisting significant growth, with fixations on excellence, and being the leader in a professional niche.

The archetype paradigm has been gaining importance as a marketing approach to global branding, advocating that strategists should create archetypal symbolism to engage with fundamental human psychology. The study reported here is based on consumer imagination theory, which aims to offers a means to determine whether a brand archetype will transform into an icon, and thereby achieve the maximum effect.

In‐depth interviews with 810 loyal customers of the Nike Air Jordan brand took place in the Asia Pacific, Western Europe, and North America regions of the world. Sub‐samples were selected and interviewed by research assistants in each sampling location, under central control to ensure that all profiles matched the known characteristics of the population under study. A relatively unstructured first phase generated question topics, which were transformed into verbatim sentences on cards, which respondents subsequently sorted. Matrix analysis elicited relationships among the resultant constructs, in terms of degree and direction. Focus group discussions were conducted to refine the emerging findings. Data were subjected to “open”, “axial”, and “selective” coding. Key concepts and relationships were finally incorporated into a fully developed model.

A “brand archetype‐icon transformation” model derived from the analysed data suggests a plan for the implementation of the “archetypal marketing” strategy, combining four theoretical elements under the overall coordination of a “comprehensive brand management” philosophy.

This study is an original and exploratory transfer of theoretical principles from classic psychology to marketing strategy. The final section examines practical potential by reference to other global brands. The paper proposes a paradigm for building and sustaining consumer loyalty to global brands.

Competition is viewed as an archetype. Global competition is examined as a closed or narrow version of the archetype, part of a language game that justifies the often ruthless strategies of organizations. More open narratives of competition are discussed. The paper examines the response of individuals to archetypes, the implications for work, and reflects on the foundations of the myth of global competition and the implications for modern business strategy.

The aim of this chapter is to: (1) model culture as a configuration of multiple values, (2) identify different culture archetypes across the globe, and (3) empirically demonstrate heterogeneity in culture archetypes within and across 52 countries. We use Schwartz values from the World Values Survey (WVS) and the archetypal analysis (AA) method to identify diverse culture archetypes within and across countries. We find significant heterogeneity in culture values archetypes within countries and homogeneity across countries, calling into question the assumption of uniform national culture values in economics and other fields. We show how the heterogeneity in culture values across the globe can be represented with a small number of distinctive archetypes. The study could be extended to include a larger set of countries, and/or cover a broader range of theoretically grounded values than those available in the Schwartz values model in the WVS. Research and practice often assume cultural homogeneity within nations and cultural diversity across nations. Our finding of different culture archetypes within countries and similar archetypes across countries demonstrates the important role of culture sharing and exchange as a source of reducing cultural conflicts between nations and enhancing creativity and innovation through interaction and integration in novel ways. We examine culture as a configuration of multiple values, and use a novel AA method to capture heterogeneity in culture values within and across countries.

The essence of “Chinese element” has been pinpointed as the representation of national cultural archetype resource of China, which reflects to the overall power enhancement of China. Applying the Chinese national cultural archetype resource, which will be used for promoting the Chinese Brand internationalization, aims for the consumers' approval with the hope of integrating and spreading the unique cultural advantage of Chinese brand. The recognizing of Chinese brand's cultural archetype in this paper has constituted the basis of Chinese brand's cultural archetype strategy.

Based on the Grounded Theory, this paper has collected and analyzed the value symbols, character images and theme stories of Chinese narrative advertisements and constructed the cultural archetype framework of Chinese brands. This paper makes a comprehensive application of Charmaz's constructivist analysis and the main axis analysis and inspection method advocated by Strauss, with the aim of building a more objective and systematic theoretical framework for the Chinese brand cultural archetype.

In this framework, it revealed: (1) Chinese brand's cultural archetype can be divided into 12 concrete archetypes according to individual's relationship with self, the other, community and nature; (2) Consumers' different ways of self-categorization are attributed as the essential difference among various archetypes. This paper also compared and analyzed the differences between Chinese and Western cultural archetypes from three perspectives, formation of social structure, pedigree of myth and character's feature.

This paper has certain innovative significance to the theoretical construction of the archetype of Chinese brand culture. First, based on the cultural perspective, this paper applied the cultural psychological connotation of archetype to the brand research across culture, which is more conducive to the researchers' investigation of the cultural psychology of consumers in the cross-cultural context? Second, based on the identification and comparative study of Chinese brand culture archetype, it provides a new expansion and supplement for the research on brand internationalization and globalization in emerging countries.

This chapter examines the sources of variation in organizational form among accounting and law firms. We first summarize research in the organization of professional service firms and explain its evolution. This is followed by the argument that variations around the P2 archetype have emerged in response to different market and institutional pressures faced by accounting and law firms. Drawing on contingency and institutional theory, we show how the changing balance between the influence of market and institutional factors has resulted in structural variation.