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The purpose of this study is to examine how small businesses (ie owner‐managers) view integrated marketing communications (IMC), its associated advantages and barriers to adopting this new marketing paradigm. This is undertaken by exploring clothing and shoe retailers’ perceptions of several specific combinations of promotion tools. The study will concentrate on respondents’ awareness of the IMC concept, regardless of whether they utilise the concept or not. Pleasingly, these small New Zealand businesses are equally as aware as large corporations of the benefits of adopting an IMC approach. This is despite a plethora of claims that small businesses do not have the manpower and specialist skill to integrate their marketing communications. The paper concludes by discussing the various advantages of and barriers to adopting an IMC approach and the implications for small businesses.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors influencing Sabah’s indigenous food consumption, namely Kadazan-Dusun food, among tourists from China, Europe and Malaysia (non-Sabahans).

Survey forms were distributed to tourists from China, Europe and Malaysia using purposive sampling at tourist spots in Sabah, Malaysia. In total, 254 responses were collected, and the data were analyzed using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The findings demonstrate that tourists from China and Europe possess some similarities in consuming indigenous food in Sabah. They enjoy trying indigenous food even they are not familiar with the food. Additionally, our findings also show that tourists from China regard sensory appeal as an important aspect of food choice. Meanwhile, it is found that convenience and mood influence Malaysian’s choice of indigenous food.

This study provides insights regarding Sabah’s Kadazan-Dusun food consumption from foreign and domestic tourists’ perspectives. As such, it also provides direction to the local eateries and relevant tourism authorities to better promote indigenous food to foreign and domestic tourists.

The purpose of this paper is to examine and compare the influence of age, education, income, product involvement and sales promotion (SP) characteristics on consumer attitudes towards SP across eight culturally dissimilar environments.

A multi-country mall intercept and mail survey was conducted in Brunei, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and Thailand (n=4,125 respondents).

Country, education level and income significantly influence consumer attitudes towards SP. Some countries show a significant monetary value interaction effect. Consumers using delayed-reward SPT reported a significantly more positive attitude towards SP. Discounts and coupons are the two most highly ranked SP across the sampled countries.

Limitations include the use of intercept and mail sampling. Extending the study to include additional Asian countries and other regions would benefit the understanding of cultural influences on SP.

Multinational marketing managers should consider three aspects of SP implementation strategy: cultural and demographic factors, interaction between delayed-reward SP and socio-demographics variables; country specific SP preferences to promote both sales and brand equity.

This study investigates and extends research on SP across cultures. In particular the research helps better understand the impact of demographic factors and culture on attitudes towards SP, and implementation of global promotions.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of marathon enthusiasts' perceptions towards venue quality, race competition, organisation and service quality on their intention to participate in a destination marathon in the emerging region's context. It also seeks to investigate the mediating effect of perceived value and the moderating effect of intention to visit the destination on the intention to participate.

Using purposive sampling technique, 177 valid Singapore marathon enthusiasts were sampled to look into their intention towards participating in destination marathon in Sarawak (marathon held in Kuching). The data were analysed using the partial least squares–structural equation modelling (PLS–SEM).

The results show that amongst the other determinants, perceived organisation and perceived service quality do not contribute to perceived value and intention to participate in destination marathon. Perceived value is found to mediate all path relationships except the relationship between perceived organisation and intention to participate. Moreover, the relationship between perceived value and intention to participate is significantly moderated by intention to tour Sarawak.

This study makes a substantial contribution to the extant literature pertaining to destination tourism and value-based marketing in an emerging market. In particular, it highlights the importance of perceived value and the relevance of destination tourism in joining a sport event on foreign soil. The use of PLS–SEM also allows a rigorous assessment of the relationships under investigation and provides better estimations of the phenomenon.

The purpose of this paper is to identify a need to incorporate Asian perspectives in theories of food consumption and marketing.

This editorial discusses the mutually recursive relationship between food and culture in Asian markets, offers an integrative summary of the special issue and develops several key themes for future research.

Food consumption plays a central role within Asian cultures and markets. Thus, understanding Asian perspectives and contexts provides an important complement and contrast to current theories of food consumption and marketing that have been primarily sited in North American and European contexts. In particular, the complex multiplicity of Asian consumer cultures creates dynamic heterogeneity within Asian food markets.

Although food consumption plays a central role in Asian consumer cultures, extant theory regarding Asian food consumption and marketing is still in its infancy. We highlight important developments in this area that suggest a path for future work.

The authors make three contributions to the literature on food consumption and marketing. First, while engaging with these questions, this issue points to the importance of Asian cultural perspectives into the marketing literature on food consumption. Second, through the articles of this special issue, we trace the relationships between food consumption practices, marketing practices and cultural multiplicity in Asian contexts. Finally, we draw the threads together to provide directions for future research in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of regulatory focus on Chinese consumers’ intention to consume ethnic food, the mediating role of food neophobia and the moderating role of message framing with regard to regulatory focus and ethnic food consumption.

Lab experiments method was used in this paper, two studies were designed to test the relationship between regulatory focus, food neophobia, message framing and intention to eat ethnic food. Study 1 was to test the influence of regulatory focus on intention to eat ethnic food, and the mediation role of food neophobia. Study 2 was to test the moderation role of message framing.

Results indicated that consumers with promotion focus have higher intention to eat ethnic food than consumers with prevention focus. Prevention-focus consumers have higher food neophobia, which leads to lower intention to eat ethnic food. Food neophobia plays the mediating role in the relationship between regulatory focus and intention to eat ethnic food. Regulatory fit can increase consumers’ intention to eat ethnic food. Promotion-focus consumers show higher eating intention in gain-framing situation, while prevention-focus consumers show higher eating intention in loss-framing situation.

The study was undertaken in China. Further studies should include respondents living in countries other than China.

This research provides a venue for marketers of destination tourism, especially for ethnic food marketers to introduce and advertise ethnic foods to tourists. Regulatory fit is important for destination tourism. To improve consumers’ eating intention, this research suggests that ethnic food marketers should pay attention to regulatory focus of consumers from different regions and cultural background, and design corresponding message framing for consumers with different regulatory focus to form regulatory fit.

First, this study has proposed and tested regulatory focus’ effect on intention to consumer ethnic food. Food neophobia is used to explain the mechanism of relation between regulatory focus and intention to eat ethnic food. Also, message framing is introduced to define the boundary of relation between regulatory focus and intention to eat ethnic food.

The purpose of this paper is to determine what can cause dislike of an advertisement's message in Asia. Television commercials were looked at specifically to provide an insight into the construct of advertising dislikeability and how it affects purchase intention and purchase frequency.

The study utilizes the attention/salience hypothesis. A total of 931 people were questioned in five Asian cities (Hong Kong, Shanghai, Jakarta, Bangkok and Mumbai) using telephone interviews.

The results revealed 931 dislike attributes that were reduced to seven: style, meaningless, character, exaggeration, irresponsive, violent and hard-sell. There also appears to be a close relationship between the disliking of advertisements and purchase intention and purchase frequency.

Findings indicate a strong relationship of the dislikeability variables with culture and religion in the five Asian cities and this must be taken seriously by advertisers. International advertisers need to pay attention to the local values and tradition and use the advertising communication message appropriately.

Advertisers must be acutely aware of the social norms in designing their advertisements and the findings here can be a guide for public and/or industry policy towards advertising.

The paper has produced a new construct of advertising dislikeability and details how it affects purchase intention and purchase frequency. This construct can be further tested in other nations and situations, in order to develop an understanding of dislike towards advertising.

This study aims to examine the underlying mechanism of buyer–seller ties and salespeople’s performance. Also examined was the moderating effects of the density of the customer network in which the salesperson is embedded.

The study developed a framework incorporating five key variables: strength of ties, network benefits, network density, sales effectiveness and sales revenue. The framework was tested using data from insurance companies in China.

Process regression and stepwise regression results indicated that information, influence and solidarity benefit will mediate the effects of strength of ties on sales effectiveness both when taken as a set and separately. Information, influence and solidarity benefit will mediate the effects of strength of ties on sales revenue when taken as a set, but only influence will mediate the effect separately. In addition, the positive relationship between strength of ties and solidarity benefit is weaker when network density is high.

Sales managers should initiate trainings and workshops about how to obtain high-quality information from customers, improving influencing power and establishing solidarity with customers. Moreover, salespeople should avoid conducting business with a group of customers if they are densely connected to one another.

On the one hand, this study contributes to the underlying mechanism research on buyer–seller ties and sales performance. On the other hand, it contributes to the contingency research on sales performance and the development of social network theory.

This paper aims to identify Islamic influence on customer satisfaction in Pakistan Takaful and conventional insurance industry. Specifically, it analyses the vital role of Shari’ah perception in achieving higher customer satisfaction.

The data from 400 customers of both the family Takāful and life insurance (200 each) were collected. Further, the regression-based bootstrapping approach was applied through process macro developed by Hayes (2013).

The results indicate that a higher Shari’ah perception positively affects the customer satisfaction in the Takaful industry with improved service and relationship quality; whereas, it negatively affects customer satisfaction in case of the conventional insurance. Further, it has been found that customer satisfaction partially mediates the customer switching intentions in both the Takaful and conventional insurance industry in the presence of service quality and relationship quality.

This research will enable the practitioners to understand the factors that affect customer satisfaction in Pakistan. It has the essential policy and managerial implications for the growth of the Takaful and conventional insurance industry.

This is one of the pioneer studies investigating the impact of Islamic influence (specifically Shari’ah perception) on customer satisfaction in both the Takaful and conventional insurance industry in Pakistan.