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Extant literature has indicated that government support is one of the main drivers of international expansion of Chinese multinational enterprises. However, research on the influence of governors on firm internationalization is still limited. Drawing upon the institution-based view, we theorize a novel concept of institutional enablement to illustrate the influence of a governor's pro-market ideology on Chinese firms' internationalization.

We analyze the relationship between a governor's pro-market ideology (consisting of a pro-market political ideology, an overseas educational background and a business background) and firm internationalization with a sample of Chinese public companies during 2014–2017.

We find a direct and positive effect of a governor's pro-market ideology on firm internationalization. We also find an indirect and positive effect of a governor's pro-market ideology through regional, inward foreign direct investment.

To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to investigate an underexplored question of the impact of governors on firm internationalization and to develop a novel concept of institutional enablement, based on discursive institutionalism.

In today’s world of heightened sociopolitical issues, consumer political ideologies may determine the nature of consumer-brand relationships. Consumers seek out self-affirming agents (e.g. friends, family and community) to bolster their beliefs, which help develop their sense of self. Increasingly, they also choose brands that fit into and support their worldview alongside other agents. Yet, little is known about the role of consumer political ideologies in shaping consumer behavior and consumer-brand relationships. This study aims to address this gap by exploring alternative political ideologies for market segmentation and brand attachment analysis.

This research uses an online survey for data collection that generated 819 usable responses. Respondents answered questions about their political orientations and then rated their attachment to 66 unique brands. This research uses cluster analysis to establish market segments using libertarian, authoritarian, conservative and liberal political ideologies, then between-group analyzes are used to determine significant differences in brand attachment.

Analysis reveals three clusters of consumers termed, conservative-libertarian, liberal-authoritarian and moderates. In 53% of the brands evaluated, the market segments’ degree of brand attachment differed significantly. Meanwhile, moderates demonstrate an overall stronger average brand attachment than the other market segments.

Findings suggest that shared political ideology provides a viable means to segment a market adding to the psychographic tools already available to brand managers. Findings also suggest that consumer political ideologies help inform brand attachment levels.

Given the ability to segment a market on political ideology, it is found that different segments demonstrate varying levels of brand attachment. In practical terms, using political ideology as a segmenting tool helps define a market segment and has a differentiable effect on attraction toward the brand. Thus, political ideology may be considered as brands position themselves and engage in corporate sociopolitical activism.

This research provides unique insights into consumer political ideology as an alternative segmentation tool and its role in understanding brand attachment.

Driven by the visible proliferation of marketing scholarship dedicated to the topics of food marketing and consumer well-being, this study aims to examine the prevailing meanings and assumptions around food and health in marketing research.

Following the guiding principles of Foucault’s archaeology of knowledge and the methodological orientation of critical discourse analysis, the authors analyze a systematically produced corpus of 190 academic articles from 56 publication outlets.

The study identifies three discourses of health and food dominant in marketing and consumer research. Each of the three discourses blends the ideology of healthism with market(ing) ideologies and provides a unique perspective on the meanings of health and health risks, the principles of appropriate consumer conduct and the role of marketing in regard to consumer and societal well-being.

The study contributes to research into ideologies in and of marketing by introducing useful concepts that help explain the role of healthism in marketing discourse.

The finding of three dominant discourses could help reduce at least some of the existing complexity in regard to conflicting knowledge existing in the domain of health and food, and thus could inspire a more reflective body of work by researchers, policymakers and marketers towards improved food-related well-being.

This analysis of assumptions and consequences of the meanings mobilized by the dominant marketing discourses contributes to a better understanding of the current state of knowledge about health in the market reality.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of three managerial ideologies on the degree of employment contract breach perceived in connection with a downsizing.

Surveys were used to collect data from southwest China. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to explore the impact of three managerial ideologies on the perceived employment contract breach in connection with downsizing.

Results suggest that a strong belief in the ideology of market competition reduces an individual's perception that downsizing constitutes a breach of the employment contract between employer and employee. By contrast, a belief in employee worth has the opposite effect, strengthening the believer's perception that downsizing constitutes an employment contract breach. Belief in the third ideology, the ideology of shareholder interest, appears to have no influence on whether respondents perceived downsizing as an employment contract breach.

The results are important for understanding the way employees interpret common business practices like downsizing. Given the accumulation of enough confirmatory results, findings from studies like this paper might be used to inform the practice of management, which might result in a more satisfied and better performing workforce.

This paper contributes to the literatures on organizational downsizing and business ideologies. Specifically, it investigates ideological beliefs and their effects on perceptions of downsizing in a new arena – a country that is not used to the concepts of market competition and shareholder interest, and one that has only experienced large‐scale layoffs in very recent times. The view of the western business concepts such as psychological contract within the context of traditional Chinese philosophies and value systems provides in‐depth understanding of the challenges facing today's transitional economies such as China.

Discusses myth making and ideology in the discourse on globalization. Argues that the present globalization model of the world political economy represents more of a contemporary business ideology than a new intellectual paradigm. Reviews and critiques the roles, development and problems of both myth making and ideology. Proposes an improved forum of discussion of globalization issues in the literature.

Argues that the widespread weakness of marketing implementation stems from the marketing discipline′s neglect of ideology in the organizational change process. By contrast with accountancy, marketing has failed to appreciate and develop its own “professional ideology”. Two short case studies demonstrate the various ways in which the mobilization of ideology can be important to achieving marketing‐led change. Concludes by suggesting some directions for the marketing profession′s development, especially for strengthening the credibility and exclusivity of its ideological claims.

This volume includes two major explanations of the meltdown that I critically discuss. The first is a “normal accident theory” arguing that the complexity and coupling of the financial system caused the failure. Although these structural characteristics were evident, I argue that the case does not fit the theory because the cause was not the system, but behavior by key agents who were aware of the great risks they were exposing their firms, clients, and society to. The second interpretation is a neoinstitutional one, emphasizing that ideologies, worldviews, cognitive frames, mimicry, and norms were the source of behaviors that turned out to be disastrous for the elites and others. The implication is that elites were victims, not perpetrators. I argue that while ideologies, etc., can have real effects on the behavior of many firm members and society in general, in this case financial elites, to serve personal ends, crafted the ideologies and changed institutions, fully aware that this could harm their firms, clients, and the public. Complexity and coupling only made deception easier and the consequences more extensive. For anecdotal evidence I examine a decade of deregulation, examples of elected representative, regulatory officials, firms, and the plentiful warnings.

Do business owners hold capitalist beliefs – relative to non-business owners? Using Latinobarómetro survey in Latin America, we find that business owners tend to see the market economy as the only system by which a country can become developed. They also tend to give a lower rank to Fidel Castro, and tend to believe that sole private investment in sectors like hospitals and pensions are good for the country to develop as soon as possible. But, business owners do not see foreign capital as good in industries such as mining, electronics, household appliances, automobile, telecommunication services, and infrastructure. They also do not see foreign investment as beneficial for economic development of the country. In addition, they are less willing to adopt some new technologies.

Consumer boycotts may be understood as consumer behaviour, and the concept of consumer sovereignty is identified here as the implicit paradigm for the marketing desciple, this is then applied to illustrate and explain the workings of consumer boycotts which are seen to have two dimensions: degree and domain, information is shown to be important in determining the domain of consumer sovereignty and pressure groups may play an important role in providing this. Three case examples of boycotts support the argument.