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The paper addresses the following research question: how do decision-makers use heuristics in their international business (IB) environment? Whereas, the literature has focused on entrepreneurial companies, here contrasting approaches to learning and using heuristics in international marketing (IM) decisions are examined and discussed.

The paper aims to address a gap in the study of micro-foundations of internationalization, exploiting research from other disciplinary fields. It combines a multidisciplinary literature review and longitudinal case studies to illustrate different approaches in learning and using heuristics by international marketers.

International marketers can adopt “closed” heuristics that are consolidated and consistently followed, or “open” heuristics, which are constantly being adapted and learned. Established multinationals learn heuristics in international marketing decision-making, following both “closed” and “open” models.

This paper offers an original contribution by presenting different approaches not yet examined in the literature, focusing on how international marketers make decisions through learning and using heuristic rules. The focus is on established exporters, in contrast to the literature that has largely paid attention to the effectiveness of heuristics in new entrepreneurial firms.

The purpose of this paper is to offer an assessment of the international direct marketing environment.

This paper uses political, economic, social, and technological (PEST) analysis to investigate the business environment of international direct marketing. This framework is commonly used as a way of assessing the context of international marketing.

Globalization, technological innovation, and the spread of free‐market governance have created new and interesting opportunities for managers who decide to use direct marketing to sell their products overseas.

For managers considering international direct marketing, a careful assessment of market prospects and a thoughtful evaluation of the PEST environment should maximize potential opportunities while minimizing the risks associated with foreign markets.

This paper provides an overview of the international direct marketing environment and can, therefore, be used by practioners in their efforts to shapes direct marketing strategy.

States that in the present era of global marketing, as more companies enter international markets, ethical problems are likely to increase. As companies and their managers deal with their counterparts in different countries, there is a need to understand the latter’s ethical decision‐making processes. Divergence in ethical behavior and attitudes of marketing professionals across cultures can be explained by, among other variables, differences in perceptions regarding the importance of ethics and social responsibility in achieving organizational effectiveness. This study investigates the variation in those perceptions among marketing professionals from Australia, Malaysia, South Africa, and the USA. The variation is explained by country differences (cultural differences, differences in the economic environment, and differences in legal/political environment), organizational ethical climate, and selected demographic characteristics of the marketer (gender and age).

Compares the personal ethical ideologies of idealism and relativism of American marketers with their South African counterparts. The perceptions of ethical problems, ethical intentions, and coporate ethical values of the parties are also contrasted. The findings indicate that South Africans were more idealistic and less relativistic than their American counterparts. The hypotheses that there will be no differences between South African and American marketers in terms of their ethical perceptions and intentions were not supported. The results generally indicate that South African marketers are more likely to perceive ethical problems than American marketers. However, the survey results revealed that South African marketers tend to be less ethical in their intentions to resolve an ethical problem than their American counterparts. Corporate citizens of South African firms were found to have slightly higher corporate ethical values than their American counterparts, as hypothesized.

A recent article pointed out that “past research has paid relatively little attention to the sources of individuals’ moral philosophies from either a conceptual or an empirical standpoint” and investigated the determinants of idealism and relativism among American marketers. A literature review indicates that there is even less theoretical and empirical cross‐cultural investigation of moral philosophies. As more and more companies are expanding into foreign markets, problems related to cross‐national ethics and social responsibility are becoming increasingly prevalent. Therefore, this study proposes a framework explaining the differences in the idealism and relativism of American, Malaysian, and Australian marketers based on: country differences (cultural differences and differences in economic and legal/political environment); corporate ethical values; and gender and age of the marketer. Results indicate that there are differences in the level of idealism and relativism exhibited by marketers from the three countries. Irrespective of country, corporate ethical values are positively related to the idealism and negatively related to the relativism of marketers. Also, irrespective of country, women are more idealistic than men, and relativism increases with age. Implications are offered and avenues for future research suggested.

The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the inter‐related relationships among various branding issues such as brand orientation, brand re‐positioning, brand performance and international marketing issues in terms of international marketing strategy, financial performance, control of international marketing activities, international commitment and macro‐marketing environment.

A mail survey with 315 useful samples drawn from the Austrade database was conducted. The steps suggested by Churchill, Cheng and Andersen and Gerbing were rigorously followed to purify the constructs and measurement models. Finally, structural equation modelling using partial disaggregation method was performed to test the whole structured model.

The results from structural equation modelling method confirm significant relationships between the constructs in the model. All major fit indices from structural equation modelling analysis show satisfactory results for both the measurement models and the structural model.

The findings provide insight to international marketers with regard to deploying resources, establishing strategy and adapting the strategy to the culture within overseas markets. Judicious investments in finance and personnel are required for overseas expansion. International branding strategy can be used to enhance a firm's brand and financial performances abroad.

The major values of this study are the establishment of the role of branding in international business. Both brand orientation and brand repositioning have significant impacts on international marketing strategy, which in turn positively affects a firm's performance. Developments of new constructs such as brand orientation, brand repositioning, brand performance and cultural aspects are statistically validated.

By standardizing the marketing effort over similar worldwide segments and differentiating it across dissimilar worldwide segments, the international marketing manager is able to reap the advantages of both standardization and customization. The choice of the variables by which to segment the global market is crucial. Traditionally, purely environmental bases (geographic, political, economic, and cultural) were used as bases for international market segmentation. Proposes that international marketers group relevant markets based on both environmental as well as marketing management bases. The marketing management bases are classified as: (1) product‐related; (2) promotion‐related; (3) price‐related; and (4) distribution‐related. Derives number of propositions with direct implications for international marketing strategy and segmentation with respect to these bases. Highlights the managerial implications of the variables encompassed by these bases. Proposes the empirical investigation of the derived propositions as a research agenda for the future.

This paper argues that meanings given to “standardization” and “globalization” might have created some confusion and precipitated potentially misleading research results in the literature. The paper discusses the basic assumptions underlying the marketing function as a necessary point of departure to build a sounder theory around these concepts. Findings confirm the lack of formal definitions of these concepts in the marketing and management literatures. The authors “redefine” the concepts of globalization, standardization, adaptation and customization with the help of the AMA’s and Webster’s dictionaries. The new conceptualization is applied to a brand strategy framework. Preliminary results show that standardization and globalization may be at opposite ends of an evolutionary brand strategy process, whereas adaptation and customization are intermediary stages. The paper discusses the findings and suggests future research possibilities.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, one dark social-media phenomenon in particular has experienced a significant rise: consumer-to-consumer (C2C) conflicts, i.e. consumers who verbally attack each other in response to COVID-19 service failures. The aim of this paper is to uncover the sources of such conflicts and to gain an insight into the corresponding conflict moderation strategies that international brands adopt.

The methodology consists of non-participatory netnographic observations of 13 national, international, and global online brand communities (OBCs) on Facebook. The authors use purposeful sampling to collect relevant data on conflict sources and brand moderation strategies during COVID-19 service failures and a hybrid approach to thematic analysis to derive distinct themes from these data.

The paper identifies five C2C conflict sources: brand attack, brand dissatisfaction, brand skepticism, brand contention and brand defense; these are then classified as having either an individualistic (self-oriented) or collectivistic (other-oriented) orientation. The authors also uncover several moderation strategies: non-engaging, automated, bolstering, asserting (direct, indirect) and informing (factual, empathetic, apologetic), which are broadly categorized into two levels based on their passive vs active approach and authoritative vs cooperative orientation. The paper further highlights that brands adapt their moderation strategies to specific sources of C2C conflicts, thereby producing a range of OBC outcomes.

The study's empirically informed framework comprising sources of undesirable conflicts and brand moderation strategies offers a practical tool that can aid marketing managers in nurturing civil C2C engagement and interactive behaviors in their OBCs. By adopting our framework, brand and marketing practitioners can tailor their communication strategies toward different sources of C2C conflict and minimize their adverse consequences, thus, fostering an overall constructive OBC engagement.

The authors offer a novel framework to international marketing research, consisting of C2C conflict sources and corresponding moderation strategies that take place in response to service failures during the COVID-19 pandemic. These insights, in turn, inform international marketers about new ways of transforming the dark side of OBCs into a source of competitive advantage based on real-world brand practice.

Explores the universality of Belk’s concept of situational variables in their relationship with consumer purchase within two different cultures. Considers the relationship of five empirical dimensions with two measures of consumer purchase behaviour. The five empirical manifestations of the situational variables were included in surveys conducted in India and the USA. The empirical dimensions of the situational variables (frequency of shopping visit; the usual time of day for shopping; travel time; time spent; and number of companions) were all statistically significant when comparing India and the USA with respect to shopping behaviour (purchase of food or beverage and purchase of other products). Includes examples of how marketers might influence consumer situations within the Belkian framework in order to modify purchase behaviour.