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The purpose of this paper is to explore the internationalization process of small and medium family-owned businesses (FOBs). The authors strive to explain the extent to which family business CEOs identify a signal in either the domestic or international environment for internationalization as a viable business opportunity.

The authors rely on signal detection theory to develop a conceptual model that explains the cognitive process inducing the CEO-founder of an FOB to discover and exploit an opportunity in the international market.

The conceptual model proposes that constraints in a family-firm’s domestic market, as well as opportunities in the foreign market act, as signal strength. However, family business CEO-founders’ centrality and inward orientation might lead them to ignore a signal by generating noise and reducing the motivation to collect further information concerning the trustworthiness of the signal.

The model is conceptual; future research should strive for a potential way to operationalize the cognitive process described herein. In addition, the theoretical argument has been developed in the context of family firms wherein the founder plays a pivotal role. Future research may extend the theoretical arguments to those family firms that are at an advanced stage of development.

The study reconciles conflicting findings concerning the internationalization of FOBs. In doing so, the authors employ an interdisciplinary approach and develop a conceptual model that sheds additional light on the cognitive processes underlying internationalization decisions among founder-centered family firms.

Previous research on the internationalization of retailing typically focused on retail companies crossing borders to enter other countries. Yet, a large number of people cross country borders to outshop in neighboring countries. This form of inward retail internationalization has received little attention in the literature. To address this void, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the strategies of retailers in a border zone setting.

The authors collected data from 109 US retailers on the USA–Mexico border. The survey instrument included questions that captured the participants’ opinions regarding the importance of Mexican consumers, retail mix strategies, performance issues and overall retailer characteristics.

The findings show that US retailers perceive cross-border consumers as important to their performance. Interestingly, the findings also suggest that border zone retailers do not adapt their retail mix strategies with this target market in mind.

The research was conducted at one particular border zone with its own unique characteristics. It is not clear whether the authors’ findings would apply in other inward internationalization contexts (e.g. medical tourism) or border zones. Future research should delve much more deeply into understanding outshopping motivations in border zones, but also the reasons why retailers do not actively engage in marketing their establishments to this target market.

The authors’ findings have interesting implications for retail managers in border zones. While exogenous and uncontrollable advantages on one side of the border may attract customers away from the other side of the border, retail mix customization under the control of retail managers may actually stimulate similar or better results. Border zone retailers are encouraged to engage in efforts to understand the border zone consumer and engage in programs directly targeted at them.

The study is grounded in theory and empirically assesses the retailers’ own contributions to enhancing their inward internationalization performance. By using the model of secondary boundary effects developed by Clark (1994) as their theoretical prism, the authors have put forward hypotheses, which address the aforementioned issues.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new scale designed to assess a firm's green orientation from the consumer's perspective. Its effects are tested on a managerially relevant outcome variable and an objectively measured product-performance indicator.

Four studies based on various data sources identify and operationalize a green-oriented firm. Leveraging signaling theory, a model tests the orientation’s impact on two outcome variables, behavioral intentions and revenue, demonstrating its relevance to both scholars and practitioners.

Previous research has explored consumers’ reactions to green products, announcements and initiatives in a piecemeal fashion. This study suggests that firms are perceived as green-oriented when they operate in an environmentally friendly manner, develop green products and publicize these accomplishments. Consequently, consumers’ identification of a firm as green-oriented affected their behavioral intentions, which positively influenced firms’ revenues.

Green-oriented firms must incorporate environmental standards into production efforts and confidently trumpet such behaviors if they wish to profit from consumer perceptions.

To accrue positive behavioral intentions from consumers and to increase the firm’s revenues, marketers should invest in developing green-oriented products, operating in an environmentally friendly manner and publicizing these efforts. Understanding consumer perceptions is critical, as they are a leading indicator of firm performance.

This novel operationalization of a green orientation captures consumers’ perceptions, demonstrating that firms can significantly benefit from this consumer-aligned strategy.

The study examines the process of international market expansion by a relatively new and small franchisor. Particular emphasis is placed on the company‘s efforts to identify a suitable partner in the host country, the adaptation of the concept to address differences in the new market, and the multitude of critical decisions that need to be made when franchising in international markets. The authors also discuss the role that strategic alliances play in the success of international franchising efforts. The paper concludes with the implications of this case for both researchers and practitioners.

Reports the findings of a study conducted among 135 Bulgarian consumers, examining their perceptions of products from five Asian Pacific countries. The most common source of information for evaluating these products was experiential knowledge, coupled with opinions from friends. Among the country origins investigated, products made in Japan appeared to be liked most, while Indian products received the most negative comments. Japanese products were also ranked first in terms of overall assessment, followed by products from Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, and India. In general, consumer demographics did not play a serious differentiating role in the evaluation of products from these countries. With respect to specific product dimensions, Japanese goods were also rated more highly than those of other countries, the only exception being on price and credit facilities. Finally, in assessing particular categories of products made in Asia Pacific, Japan again received the highest ratings. Some conclusions are drawn from the study findings, as well as managerial implications.

Previous research on global marketing has typically focussed on marketing strategies across national markets. Yet, the cross‐national mobility of individuals has increased heterogeneity within country markets. The purpose of this study is to examine how immigrant consumers perceive advertising appeals in the context of the consumer acculturation process. Specifically, our study focusses on the reactions of Mexican, American, and Mexican‐American consumers to puffery‐laden advertisements.

Using two‐factor theory as our theoretical prism, the study offers salient hypotheses regarding consumer perceptions of puffery‐laden advertising appeals, which are then tested in a cross‐national experiment in the USA and Mexico.

The results show that Mexican consumers are more susceptible to puffery‐laden claims than Americans. In contrast, American consumers are more susceptible to advertising that does not contain puffery‐laden claims than their Mexican counterparts. Interestingly, the findings also reveal that Mexican immigrants are highly susceptible to both, puffery‐laden and no puffery appeals. The mixed results show that recent Mexican immigrants struggle as they transition to the dominant American consumer culture. First and second generations of Mexican‐Americans, however, react to puffery‐laden advertisements just as typical American consumers.

The paper discusses relevant implications not only for the study of puffery and acculturation of immigrant minority groups, but also for companies engaged in global advertising campaigns in countries with diverse immigrant communities.

The paper offers a worthwhile and unique examination of consumer acculturation in an international cross‐cultural setting and puts forward interesting insights regarding the application of international advertising strategies.

This study focuses on home country institutions as sources of variation in the level of foreign investment into India. Our findings support the idea that institutional voids found in India are less of a deterrent to investments from home countries with high levels of institutional development than from home countries with similar institutional voids. Overall, foreign investments in India are found to be significantly related to the strength of institutions within home countries. The levels of both approved and realized foreign direct investment (FDI) are strongly influenced by economic factors and home country regulative institutions, and weakly influenced by home country cognitive institutions. When considered separately, the cognitive institutions and regulative institutions within a given home country each significantly influence the level of approved/realized FDI into India. However, when considered jointly, only the strength of regulative institutions is predictive of FDI inflows.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how brand origin (BO) cues affect the consumer’s association of a new brand with BO learning and the subsequent effects on brand image (BO semiotics). An integrative theoretical framework is proposed that includes both processes.

The proposed model is based on analogical learning theory and triadic semiotic theory.

Two types of BO knowledge form BO meanings in consumer minds: country-related categories and exemplar brands, which have a classification and/or inferential role. The brand cues (indexes or icons) used by consumers to identify BO generate one or the other type of BO knowledge. Indexes trigger the classification function of country-related categories while icons trigger the inferential role of country-related categories and exemplar brands. BO knowledge informs the meaning transfer when consumers interpret the meaning of a new brand, leading to either a transfer of relations or a transfer of attributes to the new brand.

Marketers should monitor BO exemplar brands that consumers use as meaning sources and carefully select the signs used in their communications to evoke BO.

The proposed framework contrasts with dominant categorisation perspectives, re-establishing the dual role of categories and emphasising the relevance of brand cues in BO identification and BO exemplar brands in the BO meaning transfer process. A meaning-centred perspective is adopted to integrate BO identification and the related transfer mechanisms.