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Given the increased importance of food in tourists’ travel experience, the purpose of this paper is to explore the current and future potential of local food and foodways in marketing Egyptian destinations online.

The content of 20 Egyptian destination marketing organization (DMO) websites was subject to a content analysis. A checklist was developed based on literature analysis. The frequencies of information related to food culture and cuisine marketing were tallied, followed by a qualitative assessment of contents from the various websites. The results were further discussed with DMO representatives to provide contextualized insights as to the future potential of utilizing local food and food tourism initiatives as a component of DMOs website marketing in Egypt.

The study noted some initial efforts for Egyptian DMO websites to market food culture and gastronomic practices; however, the results suggest that the usage of food culture on Egyptian DMOs websites is still in its infancy. The study also highlights the challenges that need to be tackled as well as the resources required for food tourism development.

This study illustrates the need and potential capacity of Egyptian DMO websites to market food culture and local cuisines (including traditional foods and table manners). These results are expected to help Egyptian DMOs to strategically embrace local cuisine and food culture as a vehicle for destination marketing.

This case study provides insights for African and other developing economies in their destination marketing. The proposed framework and guidelines are intended to potentially serve as a framework for destination marketers and entrepreneurs to optimize the tourism potential of food culture.

The revival of local foods in the tourism context plays a significant role in attracting visitors. Unexpectedly, empirical evidence on food festivals aimed at reviving local cuisine in non-Western countries is scarce. This study aimed to examine and clarify the concept of food culture attributes on visitors' satisfaction and patronage intention in a food festival setting to revive local foods.

A quantitative approach was used. Convenience sampling and questionnaires were administered to 172 attendees as the final response to a food festival. The conceptual framework identifies the assumptions of structural equation modelling (SEM).

Food culture attributes significantly impacted visitor satisfaction based on the results. Cooking methods had an insignificant influence on satisfaction and indirect effects on patronage intention. Additionally, the authors persuaded satisfaction to act as a mediator, and food culture was a significant contributor to the hypothesised framework.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first empirical studies to employ food culture attributes (flavour, presentation, cooking method and gastronomic identification) and patronage intention in the mediating role of satisfaction with Iranian cultural heritage as a revival of a visitor’s attraction towards local cuisine. The results revealed that the resurrection of local dishes serves as an alternative truth that aids in preserving Iranian cultural heritage.

This research aims to develop and test the traditionscapes framework in which consumers appropriate local traditions as a resource to foster cultural identity in emerging markets.

A multi-level research approach with qualitative (n = 38) and quantitative data (n = 600) was employed in the context of gaucho traditions in the southern part of Brazil (Rio Grande do Sul state).

The findings indicate that traditionscapes operate in a fluid process that engenders local culture attachment into tradition value through the consumer identification process. Traditionscapes build a sense of local cultural attachment that functions as a source of social, cultural, and local identification. Findings also support our three-stage traditionscapes framework, emphasizing the identification process that depends on consumers' global culture resistance.

This research provides a novel viewpoint to the well-established relationship between tradition and globalization in consumption studies. We contribute to this debate by shifting the discussion to the fluid process of traditionscapes in which tradition value is engendered through consumer appropriation and identification with local traditions, even in a globalized context. Although recent research suggests that global culture can disrupt local traditions, traditionscapes operate as an extended perspective that coexists with other global cultural flows.

This study aims to examine how cultural tightness at the national level and individual level influences consumer attitudes toward a brand's wrongdoing depending on the brand's country of origin and severity of the transgression.

Employing data from two tight-culture countries (China and South Korea) and a loose-culture country (the USA), two experiments were conducted to examine the proposed hypotheses.

The authors found that although consumers across cultures universally punish strong (vs weak) transgressions more severely, consumers in a tight-culture country, China, are more forgiving of a local (vs foreign) brand in both strong and weak transgression conditions, and forgiveness is higher for the strong transgression. Moreover, this buffering effect observed for Chinese consumers is stronger for those with high personal cultural tightness in the strong transgression condition. However, it emerges only in the weak transgression condition for South Korea, another tight-culture country. As hypothesized, no buffering effect for a local brand was found in a loose-culture country, the USA. Consumers from a loose culture assess transgression severity independently, and the punishment is harsher for strong transgressions than for weak transgressions.

This study fills a research gap by revealing that consumers from tight (vs loose) cultures would react differently to brands following a transgression depending on the brand's country of origin. It provides implications by examining how national-level and individual-level cultural tightness jointly affect post-transgression attitudes. It also presents a more nuanced perspective that the local brand's buffering effect is contingent on the degree of tightness and severity of transgression, even in similar culturally tight countries.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of the interpretation strategy of cultural mixing on consumers’ evaluations of global brands that incorporate local cultural elements. Specifically, this paper examines whether a property interpretation and a relational interpretation have different influences on consumers’ evaluations of global brands that incorporate local cultural elements.

Two experiments were conducted as part of this research. Experiment 1 adopted a two (interpretation strategy: property interpretation vs relational interpretation) single-factor between-subjects design. Experiment 2 adopted a 2 (interpretation strategy: property interpretation vs relational interpretation) × 2 (polyculturalist beliefs: high vs low) between-subjects design. The data were analyzed using ANOVA and PROCESS 213.

A property interpretation (emphasizing that some features of a global brand transfer to local cultural elements) leads to a less favorable evaluation of global brands that incorporate local cultural elements than a relational interpretation (emphasizing a relation between global brands and local cultural elements). This effect is fully mediated by perceived cultural intrusion, and it exists only when consumers have a low level of polyculturalist beliefs.

This paper reveals that the phenomenon of cultural mixing occurs when global brands incorporate local cultural elements. In addition, the way that consumers perceive the relationship between global brands and local cultural elements will determine their reactions to global brands that incorporate local cultural elements.

This paper claims that global corporations should rethink the concept of cultural control, which relies on an implicit culture, corporate culture, for the control of local managersș thoughts and behavior. Instead, based on hybridizations of corporate and local management cultures created through personal socialization conducted by Swedish and American corporations in local offices in Thailand and Mexico, the paper offers a perspective for cultural control that views and understands cultures in terms of change and hybridizations.

Studies on cross-culture marketing often focus on either localization or globalization strategies. Based on data from pre-communist China (1912–1949), product hybridization – defined as a process or strategy that generates symbols, designs, behaviors and cultural identities that blend local and global elements – emerges as a popular intermediate strategy worthy of further inquiry. After examining the mechanisms and processes underlying this strategy, a schema for classifying product hybridization strategies is developed and illustrated. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Critical historical research method is applied to historical data and historical “traces” from pre-communist China’s corporate documents, memoirs, posters, advertisements, newspapers and secondhand sources.

Strategic interactions between domestic and foreign companies in pre-communist China fostered products and a city (Shanghai) containing Chinese and non-Chinese elements. Informed by historical traces and data from pre-communist China (1912-1949), a 2 × 2 classification schema relating company type (i.e. foreign or domestic) to values spectrum endpoint (i.e. domestic vs foreign) was formulated. This schema reflects the value of communication, negotiation and cultural (inter)penetration that accompanies cross-culture product flows.

Cross-culture marketing strategies meant to help companies satisfy diverse marketplace interests can induce a mélange of product design elements. Because product hybridization reflects reciprocity between domestic and foreign companies that embodies multiple interests and contrasting interpretations of product meanings, researchers should examine globalization and localization synergistically.

Strategies adopted by domestic and foreign companies in pre-communist China (1912–1949) can help contemporary companies design effective cross-culture marketing strategies in a global marketplace infused with competing meanings and interests.

Examining historical strategies adopted in pre-communist China (1912–1949) can inform contemporary marketers’ intuitions. Understanding product hybridization in global marketplaces can improve marketing efficiency.

The purpose of this study is to explore the phenomenon of acculturation in new product development (NPD) teams in a multicultural working environment. This paper provides recommendations for multinational companies (MNCs) in dealing with problems among team members from different cultures.

Data were collected through 24 in‐depth interviews with local middle‐level managers (e.g. R&D, marketing managers) and expatriates working on NPD projects in MNC subsidiaries located in Thailand. A qualitative method was employed to explore and attain insightful information about the acculturation of local NPD members when working with expatriates.

Results show that local NPD team members may acculturate themselves to foreign work culture when they have regular contact with expatriates during the product development process. The acculturation may also affect the team performance and the relationship among team members. Cultural training programs for local NPD team members are recommended.

Since this qualitative pilot research has a rather small sample size of cases, it limits the ability to generalize the findings. The findings from MNCs subsidiaries may not represent all other cultures of MNCs operating in Thailand.

The findings of this study significantly contribute to MNCs from North America and Asia that develop new products in Thailand. Cultural training programs and frequent and two‐way communications are suggested to increase the familiarity of local employees with the foreign work culture, to develop mutual objectives, and to promote shared interests among multicultural NPD team members.

This study extends the application of acculturation of local NPD team members within a multicultural setting, which has been rarely explored. Theoretically, the findings provide an in‐depth understanding of the local managers' acculturation pattern found in NPD teams. Also, it provides recommendations on how to support the local NPD team members more effectively in adopting critical values of the parent firm's culture so as to achieve NPD tasks facing less miscommunication and improving project performance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the globalization (vs localization) of different cues (advertising copy, brand name, spokesperson, brand logo) influences consumers’ perceived brand globalness.

The authors conducted conjoint analyses for two products differing in product category involvement (chocolates vs computer) with 200 consumers from the Netherlands. Additionally, based on cluster analysis, the authors divide respondents into two groups: local vs global consumer culture individuals, and the authors compare the results of the conjoint analysis for these two clusters.

Advertising copy is most important in determining perceived brand globalness. The spokesperson and the brand logo determine perceived brand globalness more strongly for a low-involvement product, whereas the brand name is more important for a high-involvement product. Further, the spokesperson and the brand logo are relatively more important for global consumer culture individuals, while local consumer culture individuals find the brand name and advertising copy relatively more important.

The most important cue to position a brand as global is the advertising copy. Brand managers of a low-involvement product and/or targeting global-minded consumers should concentrate on the spokesperson and the brand logo to position their brand. Managers of a high-involvement product and/or targeting local-minded people should focus on the brand name.

While a number of researchers have emphasized the importance of perceived brand globalness for international consumer behavior, the present study is the first to the authors’ knowledge to investigate the relative importance of different cues in creating perceptions of brand globalness.

The purpose of this study is to examine issues of skills and cultural awareness amongst expatriate managers working in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The study explores expatriate management and leadership experiences within a predominantly Islamic context and the adjustments that have had to be made by the new arrivals before they could effectively undertake their senior functions within their organisations. Rapid economic growth and recent prosperity in the UAE has resulted in the recruitment and placement of large numbers of expatriate managers.

Interviews were utilised to explore the experiences of expatriate managers in the UAE. These experiences have been interpreted to provide lessons and advice for new arrivals to the UAE, particularly those who are about to be placed into senior management positions.

The findings from our interviews of expatriate managers and leaders reveal a great deal regarding Islamic principles and religious practices, the Arabic language, the preference for a paternalistic management style, customs around issues of female dress and issues of time management. A number of strategies are provided for managing these sensitive cultural issues in the workplace.

This research provides an important examination of the effects of the UAE national culture on expatriate managers and how they have adjusted when managing local staff.

This article adds to the disciplines of management and human resources by focussing on cross-cultural sensitivity and awareness, specifically within the context of the UAE.