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This paper aims to look at the exchange context of peer-to-peer (P2P) collaborative consumption (e.g. Uber and Airbnb). Specifically, the paper examines the effect that the sharing of a personal possession, such as a car or apartment, may have on the consumer.

Two studies were conducted via online surveys. The surveys used vignettes that asked participants to imagine service experiences in either a P2P or a business-to-consumer (B2C) context. The participants then answered questions, including their perceptions of social closeness to the service provider, as well as willingness to pay (Study 1) and expectations of satisfaction (Study 2). The analysis used bootstrapping regression models to examine the relationships.

In both studies, the participants in the P2P conditions reported significantly greater perceived social closeness to the service provider than did those in the B2C condition. The P2P condition also resulted in significant indirect effects (i.e. mediated by social closeness) on willingness to pay (Study 1) and expectations of satisfaction (Study 2).

This paper extends the work on social distance to show that the effects are activated by the P2P exchange context. Also demonstrated here is that social closeness acts as an important mediator in the P2P context, affecting outcomes in the consumption and pre-consumption stages. Finally, construal level effects are extended to show that trend interpretation can be influenced by social distance.

This paper aims to propose the concept of consumer legitimacy, develops scales to measure this concept and shows its utility and relevance in the international marketing field.

A four-step deductive approach (construct definition, item generation, scale purification and scale validation) is used to develop scales for three dimensions of consumer legitimacy, then a structural model of antecedents and outcomes of the construct provides validity for the developed scales.

Results validate the developed scales with different multinational enterprise contexts across two countries. It is found that perception of social responsibility influences three dimensions of consumer legitimacy, both moral and cognitive legitimacy influence willingness to buy firm products, and moral legitimacy influences attitudes toward the firm.

As a crucial resource, legitimacy can offer firms comparative advantages that lead to competitive advantages. The findings of this research provide a new perspective on how firms may measure, acquire and/or increase this resource.

This paper shifts the discussion of legitimacy to a key firm stakeholder that has been ignored in the literature: consumers. Thus, it implies that both researchers and practitioners should provide stronger consideration to the consumer role in granting legitimacy.

Guanxi is the foundation of business success in Chinese and other Eastern cultures, but little is known about the extent to which guanxi influences brand outcomes in channel relationships. The purpose of this study is to propose a novel theoretical framework of interpersonal and interorganizational guanxi relationships in a sales channel context and how these relationships influence brand outcomes.

The authors conceptualize, develop and validate new scales measuring interpersonal and interorganizational guanxi and test the proposed model with a field study to validate the effects of guanxi on brand loyalty. The causal relationships between interpersonal guanxi and brand attitudes and affect are confirmed in a separate field experiment.

Findings show that interpersonal guanxi is antecedent to interorganizational guanxi, and these two constructs have significant and differential direct and indirect effects on brand attitudes, brand affect and brand loyalty.

New multidimensional scales measuring both interpersonal and interorganizational guanxi were developed. Both interpersonal and interorganizational guanxi are conceptualized as second-order reflective constructs measured by the reflective first-order guanxi elements of personal and firm trust, personal and firm long-term orientation, xinyong (integrity), reciprocity, interaction and face.

This paper aims to propose an original model of cultural intelligence (CQ), global identity and consumer willingness to buy foreign products. Previous research has discussed the relationships between CQ and global identity but only in the context of multi-cultural management teams. The research presented here proposes a model that is applicable to consumer marketing.

Online surveys are used to collect data from the USA with a snowball sampling technique and from the UK with panel data. A structural equation model (SEM) is estimated in analysis of moment structures 25 and Hayes bootstrap mediation tests are used to test the hypotheses.

The SEM results show that global identity influences motivational CQ, motivational CQ influences cognitive, metacognitive and behavioral CQ and cognitive and behavioral CQ influence consumer willingness to buy foreign products. Results from Hayes Bootstrap mediation tests show that motivational CQ mediates the relationships between global identity and the other three CQ dimensions.

The findings imply that firms can gauge and enhance consumer CQ levels by investigating or influencing levels of global identity; managers can influence or gauge consumer metacognitive, cognitive and behavioral CQ through motivational CQ; and managers can target consumers with high cognitive and behavioral CQ levels when marketing foreign products.

This paper not only provides a deeper understanding of the relationships between global identity and cultural intelligence but also incorporates CQ in a consumer context. Previous research has only discussed CQ in the context of managers.

In today’s highly globalized marketplace, it is increasingly important to understand why some consumers prefer luxury goods. This study aims to further explore the relationship between consumers’ global identity, their perceived functional, individual and social value of luxury and their intentions to purchase luxury.

Samples from two substantially different cultures, the USA and China, were used to explore the proposed relationships in an intercultural context. Established scales were adapted to measure each of the constructs of interest. The final sample includes 295 US and 247 Chinese participants.

By using samples from the USA and China, this study finds that global identity is positively related to purchase intention of luxury products, mediated by perceived functional, individual and social value of luxury.

Drawing insights from self-verification theory, this research provides a three-path framework to expand the knowledge of consumers’ motivation to purchase luxury.

To explain and analyze SEC charges and settlement with Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (“KKR”) related to misallocation of broken deal expenses.

Provides background, including other similar SEC enforcement actions in relation to private equity and hedge funds; explains the regulatory violations in KKR’s broken deal allocation methodology and related disclosure; draws lessons and makes recommendations for private equity firms concerning the need for compliance and disclosure reviews and the benefits of remediation and cooperation.

This enforcement action and other similar ones represents a continuing SEC focus on fee and expense misallocation. It is also relevant to advisers to real estate and hedge fund complexes that face similar allocation issues.

Private equity firms and other advisers to private investment funds should re-evaluate their fee and expense allocation policies and procedures to be sure that they adhere to current regulatory and investor expectations.

Practical guidance from experienced securities enforcement and litigation and investment management lawyers.

Very little prior research has analyzed the behavior of dissatisfied consumers who complain to the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Therefore, interviews were conducted with dissatisfied consumers who filed complaints with the BBB against companies in three industries – auto dealers, dry cleaners, and home construction. The results reveal significant gaps between dissatisfied consumers’ resolution preferences and companies’ resolution offers. Further, the results highlight the highly negative word‐of‐mouth communication activity and repeat purchase intentions of dissatisfied consumers who complain to the BBB. Based on these data, complaint resolution recommendations are provided to improve customer service managers’ handling of dissatisfied consumers.

You are an executive of a U.S. multinational corporation, and you want to introduce some major change in the way that you operate overseas.

The purpose of this study is to explore consumers’ overall attitude toward relationship marketing and to determine the influence of consumers’ overall attitude on consumers’ intentions and behaviors. Many services companies practice relationship marketing and customer relationship management. Although the benefits and drawbacks of relationship marketing for consumers have been established, little is known about whether consumers have a relatively positive or negative attitude toward relationship marketing practices.

This research investigates consumers’ attitudes toward relationship marketing using a national survey of 245 consumers and a survey of 417 consumers living in the southern region of the USA.

Although approximately 70 per cent of our national consumer sample had a somewhat positive attitude toward relationship marketing, about 30 per cent had a somewhat negative or neutral attitude. Furthermore, approximately 39 per cent of consumers in the study would choose a company that does not engage in relationship marketing over a company that does. The results also indicate that consumers’ overall attitude toward relationship marketing impacts their likelihood to respond favorably to specific relationship marketing tactics.

Some limitations should be noted. First and not uncommon to most survey research in marketing, the relationships between constructs in this study may be inflated because of common methods bias. Second, this research reports the results from two studies. Although one of the studies represents a national sample, additional research using the scales developed in this research is needed.

This research indicates that consumers’ attitudes toward relationship marketing impacts their willingness to engage in relationships with service companies and their response to specific relationship marketing tactics. Because consumer attitudes toward relationship marketing vary, companies should consider segmenting their customer base using this information.

This study extends previous research by using quantitative techniques to measure consumers’ overall attitudes toward relationship marketing and assessing the influence of those attitudes on intentions and behaviors.

Direct marketing is seeing growing acceptance among non‐profit services as a means to reach audiences, raise revenues, and foster long‐term relationships with customers. However, academic research has lagged in investigating the influences on the extent to which these organizations implement direct marketing, and subsequent effects on performance outcomes associated with such marketing activities. This research investigates the case of non‐profit arts organizations. The results show that organizational formalization, external integration, total marketing effort, and managerial self‐confidence influence the direct marketing techniques implemented by the firm. The model also shows that sales and fund‐raising revenues are driven primarily by total marketing effort, while the percentage of total revenue derived from season‐ticket subscriptions is driven by the breadth and uniqueness of the direct marketing techniques implemented by the organization.