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As one of the big emerging markets, China’s enormous population and rapid increase in consumer spending have attracted many multinational corporations (MNCs). Meanwhile, the misconception of China as a homogeneous market often leads to difficulties in assessing market demand and enacting effective strategies. Examines the diversity among Chinese consumers across seven regional markets. Data from a national survey suggest that consumers from various regions are significantly different from one another in terms of purchasing power, attitudes, lifestyles, media use, and consumption patterns. MNCs need to take a cautionary approach when expanding into the inland regions, and must adapt to the local market conditions and devise sustainable strategies.

The overall aim of this study is to examine the regional brand image of selected California wine regions and the effect of that image on consumers' quality perceptions when included on wine labels. It also seeks to examine the importance of regional brand image with respect to information other than place‐of‐origin provided on the wine labels. Finally, the study seeks to define consumer preference for selected California wine regions, with a deeper look at Sonoma, and their preference for appellations within those regions.

Data collection took place by means of a highly‐structured online survey of male and female wine consumers, during a two‐week period in May 2006 across the USA. The sample was limited to two groups of wine consumers who are the recipients of monthly and quarterly wine newsletters respectively. The request to participate was directed to 9,922 e‐mail boxes that yielded a response rate of 5.7 percent, finally resulting in 570 usable surveys.

The perceived quality of a wine region raises the quality expectation of the sub‐regions or appellations within that region. This was especially evident in the case of Sonoma County. The wine region is the most important information to predict quality on wine labels. Almost without exception, the addition of regional information on a label increased consumer confidence in the quality of the product. The ever‐increasing number of American viticultural areas (AVAs) results in a fragmented offering in terms of the place‐of‐origin marketing strategy to consumers and is not desirable.

The research suggests that a wine regional brand image is multi‐dimensional in nature and that many, in fact, most individual AVAs have weak regional brand strength when compared with the high equity ones such as Napa Valley and Sonoma. These findings are, however, tentative as the study was conducted only in the USA and largely among California residents with a relatively high wine involvement level. These issues warrant further investigation.

This paper is of value to academic readers, wine industry practitioners and regional wine and/or tourism associations alike as it synthesises the importance of a wine's region of origin in the consumer wine‐buying process and the impact of place‐of‐origin as a wine marketing strategy.

This paper aims to focus on the perceived role of clusters in inter‐firm cooperation and social networks.

The study was carried out in a region of Latin America where limited research has been conducted in terms of inter‐firm relationships. Managers from three key natural resources‐based industries in Chile participated in the survey; one of these industries constituted a well‐defined cluster whereas the other two did not. The survey assessed managers' perceptions of the benefits and opportunities of inter‐firm cooperation in strategic marketing activities.

Results support the advantages of clusters. Managers of firms which are part of clustered industries tend to perceive more benefits and opportunities for inter‐firm co‐operation in marketing activities. Additionally, significant differences between clustered and non‐clustered industries in terms of their co‐operation behavior and objectives were found.

The findings shed light on strategies for the enhancement of inter‐firm cooperation in marketing, of particular value for marketers in small‐and‐medium sized enterprises. The paper suggests establishing new clusters and promoting more regional clusters policies since clustering seems to provide better and positive inter‐firm interaction leading to cooperation.

There are lessons to be learned at national and regional levels for Latin American and emerging economies fostering new industry cluster policies.

Clustered firms and industries may result in more innovative marketing strategies at both local and international levels than non‐clustered firms. The authors encourage regional development bodies to foster more cooperation among firms and trade associations.

The concept of meta‐markets has been around a long time, with numerous references to the European market, the South American market and so on. An examination of MNC consumer product transfers into four OECD‐recognized meta‐markets shows that in some cases regional cultures affect MNC product adaption strategies.

This study examined consumer preference and willingness to pay a premium price for indigenous chicken products in Ghana.

Data were obtained from 240 consumers in Ghana through the administration of a structured questionnaire. Probit regression was used to examine the factors influencing consumer preference for indigenous chicken products in Ghana. Ordered probit regression was employed to examine the factors influencing the percentage premium price a consumer is willing to pay for indigenous chicken products whereas the cluster analysis was used to segment the consumers.

Different sets of factors were identified to have influenced the decision to purchase indigenous chicken products and the willingness to pay for a premium price. In total, four market segments were identified in this study: shopper consumer segment, the conventional or ethnocentric consumer segment, the privilege consumer segment and the pleasure-seeker consumer segment.

The important factors to learn from this study are the following: examining the critical success factors for the promotion of indigenous chicken products in Ghana is an excellent opportunity for future research. Second, the choice of locally-produced exotic breeds/strains of chicken meat has not been examined in this study. Therefore, a comparative study of consumer preference of the locally-produced exotic breeds/strains of chicken in Ghana is another great opportunity for further research.

Regardless of the seemly opportunities in regional marketing, Ghana has not leveraged on this to promote a regional marketing brand for its local products – like indigenous chicken products – over imported chicken products. Besides, regionalism studies on agricultural products have received less attention in Ghana; therefore, this study contributes to a better understanding of consumer choice of indigenous chicken products, potentially, and the marketing of regional food products in Ghana.

The last few years has seen an unprecedented interest in the marketing and development of wine and culinary tourism, both overseas and in Australia (Macionis, 1998). Indeed, wine and food have become integral components of the tourism product and experience (Hall, et.al., forthcoming). For example, Tourism NSW's Food and Wine in Tourism Plan (Tourism NSW, 1996:2) states that it is the “beginning of [and] effort to bring food and wine into the tourism mainstream,” while regional areas such as NSW's Central West have launched the Cowra‐Orange‐Mudgee Experience (COME), which focuses on food and wine as the “hook to lure more visitors” (Downey, 1998:6). Despite the increasing recognition of the role of wine and food in attracting visitors and the often quoted synergy and complementary nature of the wine and tourism sectors (King, 1998; Connel and Gibson, forthcoming) there has been little specific focus on wine, food and tourism linkages. In addition, wine tourism is often viewed only from the perspective of cellar door visitation and tasting (King, 1998), with little consideration placed on conceptualising wine tourism away from the winery. For example, many tourists' first experience with local or regional wines is often far removed from the cellar door, occurring at their hotel or at a restaurant. As such there are considerable opportunities in more explicitly linking and marketing the wine and food products in a tourism context. This paper reports on an exploratory examination and analysis of the nature and extent of linkages and relationships between the wine, food and tourism sectors in the Canberra Region. Based on extensive interviews with Canberra restaurateurs, it examines the potential of wine and food tourism in a developing wine region, highlights practices and perceptions that restrict the development of productive linkages between the wine and food sectors, and explores opportunities for strategic marketing activities that will benefit both industries at both a micro (i.e. individual enterprise) and a macro (destinational product development and marketing) level.

The authors seek to advance the understanding of small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) internationalization at the regional level and examine the role of home market institutions in this process.

The authors analyze hypotheses with data from SMEs in five country markets and from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. A cluster analysis establishes the regional diversification patterns (based on regional diversification scope, speed and rhythm) and a multinomial regression tests the effect of home market institutions on their adoption.

The results offer a refined picture of SME regional diversification by revealing three patterns: intra-regionally focused firms, late inter-region diversifiers and early inter-region diversifiers. They also suggest that the adoption of these patterns is determined by SMEs' home market institutions.

The authors develop a nuanced understanding of SME internationalization by building upon and expanding the regionalization rationale in the internationalization patterns literature. Additionally, the authors address the acknowledged, yet rarely investigated, country-level determinants of internationalization patterns.

This research aims to address ethnocentric consumers’ willingness to boycott dual origin brands, in the particular case of national brands linked to a very specific regional origin, through analysing the paradox of (unfavourable) regional ethnocentrism versus (favourable) consumer–brand relationship (i.e. brand identification, trust and love) on consumers’ decision to buy or boycott those brands in that circumstances. Building on social identity and cognitive dissonance theories, this study aims to examine the Spanish consumer relationship with national brands originated in Catalonia considering the current conflicting circumstances in the region.

The authors collected data by means of personal questionnaires, distributed among 277 Spanish consumers of Catalan brands of Cava. The data is analysed by using structural equation modelling and linear structural relations.

After controlling for brand familiarity, the results of this study reveal that ethnocentrism negatively distorts consumers’ confidence in dual origin brands and highlight the role of identification and trust as brand love antecedents. It also reveals that ethnocentrism has a more profound impact on boycotting decision than brand love.

This study is one of the few to capture the puzzlement created by the paradoxical nature of the brand’s duality of origin. Furthermore, it contributes to the marketing literature by examining the impact of ethnocentrism on two relationship variables (i.e. identification and trust) and exploring their joint impact on consumers’ decision to buy or boycott. The findings of this study can be helpful for companies facing boycotting behaviour triggered by ethnocentric consumer reaction towards dual origin brands.

Esta investigación tiene como objetivo abordar la disponibilidad de los consumidores etnocéntricos para boicotear las marcas de origen dual -en el caso particular de marcas nacionales vinculadas a un origen regional muy específico-, mediante el análisis de la paradoja del (desfavorable) etnocentrismo regional versus la relación (favorable) entre el consumidor y la marca (es decir, la identificación, la confianza y el amor a la marca) en la decisión de los consumidores de comprar o boicotear dichas marcas en esas circunstancias. Partiendo de las teorías de la identidad social y la disonancia cognitiva, este estudio examina la relación del consumidor español con las marcas nacionales originales de Cataluña, considerando las circunstancias conflictivas actuales en la región.

Los datos se recogieron mediante cuestionarios personales, distribuidos entre 277 consumidores españoles de marcas catalanas de Cava. Los datos se analizaron utilizando modelación de ecuaciones estructurales y relaciones estructurales lineales.

Después de controlar la familiaridad con la marca, nuestros resultados revelan que el etnocentrismo distorsiona negativamente la confianza de los consumidores en las marcas de origen dual y destaca el papel de la identificación y la confianza como antecedentes del amor por la marca. También revela que el etnocentrismo tiene un impacto más profundo en la decisión de boicotear que el amor por la marca.

Este estudio es uno de los pocos que captura la confusión creada por la naturaleza paradójica de la dualidad del origen de la marca. Además, contribuye a la literatura de marketing al examinar el impacto del etnocentrismo en dos variables relacionales (la identificación y la confianza) y explorar su impacto conjunto en la decisión de los consumidores de comprar o boicotear. Nuestros hallazgos pueden ser útiles para las empresas que se enfrentan al comportamiento de boicot provocado por la reacción etnocéntrica de los consumidores hacia las marcas de origen dual.

The purpose of this paper is to explore different levels of place‐based marketing in the form of region of origin strategies used by wineries in their branding efforts. The overall aim is to obtain insights into wine consumer dynamics such as product involvement level, consumption frequency and differences between segments on the basis of gender and age from a regional branding perspective.

Data collection took place by means of a highly‐structured online survey of wine consumers across the USA. The request to participate was directed to legal wine drinking age people of 21 years and older to 9,922 e‐mail boxes that yielded a response rate of 5.7 percent, finally resulting in 570 usable surveys.

Consumers used regional branding cues, information and images in their assessment and valuation of comparative wine labels. Almost without exception, the addition of regional information on a wine label increased consumer confidence in the quality of the product.

Any follow‐on work to the study should also include a broader sampling of consumer types throughout the USA and comparisons made with the study to assess the validity of generalising the results here.

Regional branding efforts should be targeted at high wine product involvement consumers rather than their low involvement counterparts, as high involvement consumers are likely to be more influenced by brand‐based cues.

The paper is of value to academic readers, wine industry practitioners and regional trade and tourism associations and other commercial entities that market their products with regional branding cues.

I am honored to receive the Booz Allen Hamilton/strategy+business Eminent Scholar Award in International Management. I am even more honored to follow in the footsteps of such distinguished previous recipients of the AOM-IMD (Academy of Management-International Division) Distinguished Scholar Award as: John Child, Christopher Bartlett, Sumantra Ghoshal, John Dunning, and Yves Doz. Like them, I shall reflect here on my past contributions to scholarship, and then use this work as a building block for the major part of this paper, which is on the need for new and relevant theory in the field of international management.