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To date, country-of-origin research has commonly explored structural relationships among country image (CI) constructs, together with attitudinal constructs, using a variety of halo, summary construct and flexible models, drawing on consumer samples. There has been no previous attempt to examine or synthesize these three models with respect to business-to-business (B2B) buying behavior. To fill this gap, this study reconceptualized these three models with B2B constructs using multi-cue settings and tested on B2B samples. This study aims to examine and estimate the relative impact of company- and country-specific images on B2B buyers’ evaluations of suppliers, and the direction of structural relationships with mediation among the constructs.

Data collection was administered through a web-based structured questionnaire. The final sample consisted of 276 purchasing managers. Structural equation modeling was used to test the study’s hypotheses.

Company image is significantly influenced by product country image (PCI) but not by overall CI. The existence of a significant relationship between PCI and perceived supplier performance in a multi-cue setting is an important new finding. In addition, company image significantly influences supplier performance and mediates the relationship between PCI and supplier performance. Among the three models that test structural relationships among CI and other constructs, the reconceptualized halo model fits the data best.

The study results revealed the contribution of company and country-related facets on B2B buyers’ perceptions of supplier performance while purchasing intermediate goods internationally. The significance of PCI on supplier performance emphasizes the strength of the industry sector within a country that may enable an industry to build a product-specific CI in international marketing.

This study advances the country-of-origin issue and debate concerning the strength of the country influence in the academic literature by addressing B2B buyers’ international purchasing behavior of intermediate goods. Additionally, the examination of multiple country facets, multi-cue settings and the CI influence structure in a single study, from a B2B perspective, offers a novel dimension to CI studies.

The results of a Delphi poll of Australian banking and finance industry experts, show that the banking industry is entering a period of greatly intensified competition, significantly reduced government regulation and the entry of foreign banks and rapid technological change. These changes represent a fundamental change in the operating environment. For some of the present financial institutions, such a future threatens their very existence. For all institutions, however, there is a manifest need to formulate adaptive strategies. In this article, the author explores some appropriate marketing strategies and the consequences of these strategies on the competitive environment.

The contemporary relevance of the traditional marketing concept is a source of continuing debate as marketers question its universal application across all situations. In the past, the emergence of the societal marketing concept and the marketing warfare metaphor represent challenges to the veracity of the marketing concept. It is argued that the continuing relevance of the marketing concept and the emergence of alternative paradigms can be linked to changes in the operating environments of firms or industries. The traditional marketing concept finds application in relatively placid, benign environments which characterised post‐war economies and markets. The emergence of the “societal marketing concept” can be linked to the emergence of turbulent environments which found expression in the consumerist and ecological movements in the 1970s. More recently, a new emphasis has emerged with the growing recognition of the importance of competitive forces in imperfectly competitive markets and the inadequacy of the marketing concept in such environments. These changing operating environments are examined, arguing that the traditional marketing concept is applicable in “placid clustered” environments, as described by Emery and Trist. Finally, the examples of three contemporary Australian industries are discussed to illustrate the relevance of the argument.

The marketing concept, as a cornerstone of contemporary marketing theory, stands as one of its most enduring tenets.

The banking/finance industry in Australia is on the verge of rapid and fundamental change in the areas of government regulation, industry structure, EFT technology and payment systems, marketing innovation and merchant/wholesale banking. Such a changed environment will cause organisations to engage in continuous strategic planning and new adaptive strategies which focus on the changing relationships between the institution and its customers and competitors. The marketing function will assume new and increased responsibilities. Marketing management will require a far more strategic approach than before. The viability of some institutions may be threatened by these changes. These views are the result of a long‐range Delphi forecasting study conducted in 1982. Although rapid developments have invalidated some of the findings, the forecast of a less regulated, more competitive, open, dynamic and responsive industry remains valid.

This article presents a synoptic view of the dramatic environmental change which presently confronts Australian management educators. Written at the same time as the landmark Karpin Committee’s enquiry into the needs of Australian management into the next century, the discussion echoes many of Karpin’s sentiments although it presents the views of educators, which may not always coincide with the views of practitioners. Important issues discussed include: the underlying “philosophy of management education”; the perennial “theory versus practice” debate; the present role of government in influencing the “shape” of management education; the relationship between universities and their industrial clients; the necessity to continuously renew the curriculum; the desirability of collaboration between universities; appropriate use of technology as a delivery mechanism and in the curriculum; the supply of appropriately qualified academics; accreditation; “students as customers” and, finally, the nature of management itself. As might be anticipated, the necessity for business schools to be innovative, flexible and responsive to the dictates of the changing environment is emphasised as is the importance of developing a national character of Australian management education which reflects Australia’s needs and position in the global and regional marketplace.

This research seeks to explore the factors predicting customer loyalty in retail banking. Loyalty was measured in terms of a customer's willingness to recommend a bank and their intention to remain with their main bank short‐term (in the next six months) and long‐term (from six months to five years).

The study was based on a mail survey of 1,951 individuals. Potential predictors were drawn from the literature and included in three separate regression models to model different types of loyalty.

The results indicate that willingness to recommend is best predicted by affective attitude, overall satisfaction and empathy. Short‐term behavioural intentions, however, were best predicted by overall satisfaction and responsiveness, while long‐term intentions were predicted by overall satisfaction, affective attitude and empathy. The three models explained a substantial amount of the variation in the dependent variables: 71 per cent for willingness to recommend, 43 per cent for short‐term intentions and 46 per cent for long‐term intentions.

The study adds to the discussion of the relationship between perceived satisfaction, service quality and a customer's intentions to recommend a bank and/or remain a customer. The results also contribute to the development of more parsimonious models, suggesting that affective attitude, overall satisfaction, empathy and responsiveness together explain a large percentage of the variation in customers' intentions.

Based on this study's findings, banks can profile customers with potential for defection based on only four variables.

The results demonstrate the importance of satisfaction measures and some SERVQUAL dimensions in predicting loyalty in retail banking. It also found evidence that not all five SERVQUAL measures are needed to profile customers and predict loyalty.

The popular uprising in Sri Lanka on July 9th, 2022, led to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fleeing the country. It represented a stunning culmination of a wave of protests during the recent past. The proximate cause of the uprising was the worst economic crisis that Sri Lanka had experienced since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The breakdown was long in the making since the island nation became the first country in South Asia to take the neoliberal turn in the late 1970s. The dramatic collapse was catalyzed by a sovereign debt crisis with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Nevertheless, like all great revolts, it has led to a counter revolution by the ruling class, including the reconfiguration of the old regime.

We examine the tremendous consequences of recent events, both in terms of Sri Lanka's long history of struggles involving working people and the global unravelling underway. We explore whether Sri Lanka is a harbinger of more global political economic changes to come. The process includes the possibility of systemic resistance to financialization in the scores of countries in the Global South experiencing tremendous debt distress. In this regard, we ask whether Sri Lanka's revolt could yet become a revolution. To frame the potential implications, we turn to a deeper interrogation of classic Marxist theories and concepts.