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The purpose is to construct an analytical framework that encapsulates implications for the marketing offering of service firms as a result of observed intra-national ethnic diversity in these firms' markets of operation.

This is a conceptual approach which promotes the idea that acculturation matters for service firms operating in multicultural markets and adopts relevant propositions related to service firms' strategy in such markets.

Integrating fragmented insights from consumer behaviour and multicultural marketing, the study suggests that the various interactions and contacts between ethnic groups in a multicultural country can generate acculturation outcomes that lend themselves to novel avenues for empirical research. These avenues move beyond a research focus on the presence of ethnic groups as stand-alone entities of intra-ethnic uniformity.

Firms with a broader market horizon in a multicultural market can employ acculturation in their marketing strategy since an exclusive focus on ethnicity as a basis of segmenting the market reveals shortcomings. Otherwise, a myopic approach that ignores cross-ethnic interactions may lead to bypassing opportunities for more considerate market responses by a service firm.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the only acculturation study in a services context that offers an analytical framework and propositions that can be used as a guide for multicultural, services marketing researchers and practitioners that see the market in a holistic fashion.

Challenging assumptions about the uni-nationality of markets, the paper aims to understand the role of intra-national cultural heterogeneity in product standardisation and adaptation strategies of multinational firms in a single-country, multicultural market.

The study is set against the dominant backdrop of deductive reasoning in the field and adopts a qualitative mode of inquiry that promotes empathy with the setting. Through a multiple case study approach among paradigmatic cases, it sheds light on the aforementioned objective.

The paper conceptualises the term “layers of adaptation” and reveals that firms use multi-dimensional standardisation/adaptation configurations. It explicates sub-contextual variations that move beyond assumptions of intra-national sameness and identifies their influence on unnoticed, more agile forms of adaptation.

Findings are limited to the analysis of practices in a specific setting. More studies across diverse contexts are necessary in order to expand the boundaries of relevant investigations and enrich the process of theorising.

The findings caution that lack of internal sameness in multicultural markets may necessitate a multi-layered standardisation/adaptation logic that considers varying “depths” and “breadths” of relevant marketing strategies.

The paper challenges assumptions that have characterised the standardisation and adaptation discourse, conceptualises the term “layers of adaptation” to denote the need for more considerate market responses and highlights the usefulness of qualitative investigations towards theoretical grounding of the field.

The purpose of this paper is to shed more light on the influence of a tourism‐oriented environment on the promotional channel strategies of fast‐moving consumer goods (FMCG) firms.

The study utilises an exploratory, qualitative research design among 14 case studies of FMCG firms operating in the tourism‐oriented environment of Greece.

Findings show that most firms utilise adapted promotional channels due to the influence of structural characteristics of the tourism industry and tourists' modes of behavior.

The outcomes of this qualitative study are limited to the context that is investigated and thus, future researchers are encouraged to investigate similar contexts with the goal of generalising findings.

Findings suggest that firms ought to appreciate the contextual idiosyncrasies of Euro‐Mediterranean countries (as a result of international tourism) and thus, tailor their programs to these idiosyncrasies, which are distinct from other non‐tourism‐oriented environments.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first paper that investigates the effect of tourism‐induced idiosyncrasies of Euro‐Mediterranean countries on FMCG firms' promotional strategies. In light of the increasing importance of global consumer mobility, such studies are expected to increase.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the types and the nature of innovations developed by small companies in a traditional service sector, as well as the ways that innovations impact their strategic capabilities.

The paper provides evidence from three case studies captured through a number of interviews with senior managers within the companies. The paper adopted a comparative analysis, selecting two cases that have managed this process with great success and one showing evidently less success.

Organisational and process innovations are critical aspects of a dynamic strategy in small service companies. Although a successful innovation strategy does not require the development of technological systems and knowledge intensive services, it does necessitate their sophisticated usage. Innovation enables the firms to access new markets and the reconfiguration of strategic capabilities in the long term.

The paper identifies the existence of strong linkages between organisational and process innovation and dynamic capabilities in the small companies in a traditional service sector. The research has used qualitative methods and a case study methodology. Further research (e.g. other service industries) and ideally statistical evidence are required to generalise these findings into the wider service sector.

This work calls for managers in small companies in a traditional service sector which wish to grow to pay more attention to their active involvement in organisational and process innovations and the sophisticated usage (or development) of knowledge intensive services.

The paper brings together a number of concepts from the innovation studies and the strategic management literature to investigate management practices and strategies of small companies in a traditional service sector, the tramp shipping sector.

Large-scale incoming tourism potentially creates a multinational market within the domestic economy of the recipient countries. More specifically, in a number of countries, there is a large influx of ‘foreign’ consumers, or tourists, from many countries and for a significant part of the year. As can be seen from Table 1, for countries such as France, Spain, Austria, or Greece the annual influx of tourists exceeds the population of these countries by very large margins.