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This study investigates how direct cultural interaction between a supplier country’s personnel and host country purchasing decision makers (HCNs) occurring during the exporting of professional, high-contact services can help shape the latter’s perception of the image of the supplier country and their willingness to buy its services or products. The article develops a theoretical framework that identifies those key drivers and their relationship.

This is a conceptual paper based on a comprehensive review of the literature complemented by a pilot study with offshore executive MBA programs.

A conceptual model is developed with a series of testable propositions.

The framework should help companies and organizations involved in the exporting of such services devise programs to bolster the image of their country as a provider of these and other services and products.

Trade in services is becoming a lifeline for many developed countries that have seen their manufacturing industries relocate to low labor-cost countries. Thus, it is imperative for these countries to bolster their COO to gain competitive advantage. Developing countries can also use such a framework as a means of improving the overall image of their own country and its products.

This research complements those rare studies done on the acculturation of HCNs by examining, for the first time, this process in the context of the exporting of professional services and on how it can lead to changes in the perception of the HCNs vis-à-vis the image of the supplier country.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a deeper insight on the psychological mechanism of customer forgiveness viewed from a cross cultural perspective.

Drawing on the cognitive appraisal theory, this paper relates forgiveness cognitive, emotional and motivational patterns with differences in cultural values' orientations.

The insights from this paper suggest that idiocentric customers are more likely to adopt problem solving strategies when they decide to forgive, whereas allocentric ones tend to regulate their emotional responses to their environment such as expressing benevolence and goodwill, as they are more sensitive to maintaining connectedness within group members.

Albeit conceptual and exploratory in nature, this paper is intended as a beginning for further empirical validation and theoretical refinement. The paper contends that forgiveness is a dynamic, interactive process that should be investigated with different sequential orders. Furthermore, as customer forgiveness is related to time, longitudinal studies are more appropriate to test the proposed model.

Firms serving international markets as well as multiethnic ones would have advantage to understand cultural differences in shaping customer forgiveness. This is relevant to conceive efficient marketing strategies aiming at managing interpersonal conflicts with wronged customers and promoting benevolence and goodwill.

Little is known about customer forgiveness. This paper adds a new insight by examining cultural effects on forgiveness process, allowing for a more comprehensive view of customer forgiveness triggers.

Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Organizations often pride themselves on a willingness to learn from their mistakes. A bad service encounter, with the resulting negative feedback, can be turned into a positive – something to be learned from. However, while it might be relatively easy to apologize to and/or compensate someone who has written an angry letter of complaint, there's little that can be done about the aggrieved customer who just decides to walk away.

Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

This briefing provides insights on the cultural environment and changes that need to occur to implement innovation planning methods within large enterprises.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to‐digest format.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce an approach for m‐valued classical and non‐classical (reversible and quantum) optical computing. The developed approach utilizes new multiplexer‐based optical devices and circuits within switch logic to perform the required optical computing. The implementation of the new optical devices and circuits in the optical regular logic synthesis using new lattice and systolic architectures is introduced, and the extensions to quantum optical computing are also presented.

The new linear optical circuits and systems utilize coherent light beams to perform the functionality of the basic logic multiplexer. The 2‐to‐1 multiplexer is a basic building block in switch logic, where in switch logic a logic circuit is implemented as a combination of switches rather than a combination of logic gates as in the gate logic, which proves to be less‐costly in synthesizing wide variety of logic circuits and systems. The extensions to quantum optical computing using photon spins and the collision of Manakov solitons are also presented.

New circuits for the optical realizations of m‐valued classical and reversible logic functions are introduced. Optical computing extensions to linear quantum computing using photon spins and nonlinear quantum computing using Manakov solitons are also presented. Three new multiplexer‐based linear optical devices are introduced that utilize the properties of frequency, polarization and incident angle that are associated with any light‐matter interaction. The hierarchical implementation of the new optical primitives is used to synthesize regular optical reversible circuits such as the m‐valued regular optical reversible lattice and systolic circuits. The concept of parallel optical processing of an array of input laser beams using the new multiplexer‐based optical devices is also introduced. The design of regular quantum optical systems using regular quantum lattice and systolic circuits is introduced. New graph‐based quantum optical representations using various types of quantum decision trees are also presented to efficiently represent quantum optical circuits and systems.

The introduced methods for classical and non‐classical (reversible and quantum) optical regular circuits and systems are new and interesting for the design of several future technologies that require optimal design specifications such as super‐high speed, minimum power consumption and minimum size such as in quantum computing and nanotechnology.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce new implementations for parallel processing applications using bijective systolic networks and their corresponding carbon-based field emission controlled switching. The developed implementations are performed in the reversible domain to perform the required bijective parallel computing, where the implementations for parallel computations that utilize the presented field-emission controlled switching and their corresponding many-valued (m-ary) extensions for the use in nano systolic networks are introduced. The second part of the paper introduces the implementation of systolic computing using two-to-one controlled switching via carbon-based field emission that were presented in the first part of the paper, and the computational extension to the general case of many-valued (m-ary) systolic networks utilizing many-to-one carbon-based field emission is also introduced.

The introduced systolic systems utilize recent findings in field emission and nano applications to implement the functionality of the basic bijective systolic network. This includes many-valued systolic computing via field-emission techniques using carbon-based nanotubes and nanotips. The realization of bijective logic circuits in current and emerging technologies can be very important for various reasons. The reduction of power consumption is a major requirement for the circuit design in future technologies, and thus, the new nano systolic circuits can play an important role in the design of circuits that consume minimal power for future applications such as in low-power signal processing. In addition, the implemented bijective systems can be utilized to implement massive parallel processing and thus obtaining very high processing performance, where the implementation will also utilize the significant size reduction within the nano domain. The extensions of implementations to field emission-based many-valued systolic networks using the introduced bijective nano systolic architectures are also presented.

Novel bijective systolic architectures using nano-based field emission implementations are introduced in this paper, and the implementation using the general scheme of many-valued computing is presented. The carbon-based field emission implementation of nano systolic networks is also introduced. This is accomplished using the introduced field-emission carbon-based devices, where field emission from carbon nanotubes and nano-apex carbon fibers is utilized. The implementations of the many-valued bijective systolic networks utilizing the introduced nano-based architectures are also presented.

The introduced bijective systolic implementations form new important directions in the systolic realizations using the newly emerging nano-based technologies. The 2-to-1 multiplexer is a basic building block in “switch logic,” where in switch logic, a logic circuit is realized as a combination of switches rather than a combination of logic gates as in the gate logic, which proves to be less costly in synthesizing multiplexer-based wide variety of modern circuits and systems since nano implementations exist in very compact space where carbon-based devices switch reliably using much less power than silicon-based devices. The introduced implementations for nano systolic computation are new and interesting for the design in future nanotechnologies that require optimal design specifications of minimum power consumption and minimum size layout such as in low-power control of autonomous robots and in the adiabatic low-power VLSI circuit design for signal processing applications.

The introduced bijective systolic implementations form new important directions in the systolic realizations utilizing the newly emerging nanotechnologies. The introduced implementations for nano systolic computation are new and interesting for the design in future nanotechnologies that require optimal design specifications of high performance, minimum power and minimum size.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce new non‐classical implementations of neural networks (NNs). The developed implementations are performed in the quantum, nano, and optical domains to perform the required neural computing. The various implementations of the new NNs utilizing the introduced architectures are presented, and their extensions for the utilization in the non‐classical neural‐systolic networks are also introduced.

The introduced neural circuits utilize recent findings in the quantum, nano, and optical fields to implement the functionality of the basic NN. This includes the techniques of many‐valued quantum computing (MVQC), carbon nanotubes (CNT), and linear optics. The extensions of implementations to non‐classical neural‐systolic networks using the introduced neural‐systolic architectures are also presented.

Novel NN implementations are introduced in this paper. NN implementation using the general scheme of MVQC is presented. The proposed method uses the many‐valued quantum orthonormal computational basis states to implement such computations. Physical implementation of quantum computing (QC) is performed by controlling the potential to yield specific wavefunction as a result of solving the Schrödinger equation that governs the dynamics in the quantum domain. The CNT‐based implementation of logic NNs is also introduced. New implementations of logic NNs are also introduced that utilize new linear optical circuits which use coherent light beams to perform the functionality of the basic logic multiplexer by utilizing the properties of frequency, polarization, and incident angle. The implementations of non‐classical neural‐systolic networks using the introduced quantum, nano, and optical neural architectures are also presented.

The introduced NN implementations form new important directions in the NN realizations using the newly emerging technologies. Since the new quantum and optical implementations have the advantages of very high‐speed and low‐power consumption, and the nano implementation exists in very compact space where CNT‐based field effect transistor switches reliably using much less power than a silicon‐based device, the introduced implementations for non‐classical neural computation are new and interesting for the design in future technologies that require the optimal design specifications of super‐high speed, minimum power consumption, and minimum size, such as in low‐power control of autonomous robots, adiabatic low‐power very‐large‐scale integration circuit design for signal processing applications, QC, and nanotechnology.

Consumer affinity may be a key factor in overcoming ethnocentric barriers and promoting a favourable attitude towards specific foreign countries and their products. However, progress in knowledge of this concept in international marketing literature has suffered from a lack of integration and analysis. The purpose of this study was to shed new light on the concept of consumer affinity based on a comprehensive systematic review of the literature, provide a critical analysis of previous research in terms of conceptual, methodological and substantive issues and problems and offer avenues for future research.

This structured systematic review of consumer affinity included articles published in international peer-reviewed journals from 2008 to 2021, examining key conceptual, operational and substantive aspects.

This systematic review of articles on consumer affinity published over the past 14 years revealed that this line of research is a growing vibrant domain in the context of international marketing. It also showed that current knowledge of consumer affinity is characterized by theoretical inconsistencies, contradictory empirical results and scant international marketing research in the affinity domain.

This article provides an overview of the extant literature on consumer affinity and yields a consolidated image of its current status, as well as a research agenda that raises new questions for the academic community.

The common market practice by foreign marketers is to sell their brands in standard or localised packaging or sometimes both in the context of Pakistan. By examining the differential influence of standard (Western) and local (Urdu) packaging on Pakistani consumers’ perceptions and choice under conspicuous and inconspicuous situations, this study aims to examine whether the localisation strategy is effective or even necessary.

A pre-test first identified suitable products and brands. The main survey was conducted using convenience sampling in popular shopping precincts of the Lahore district in 2015. Participants first rated the packaging of hedonic and utilitarian products. After rating the packaging likeability, the respondents were asked to assume the two consumption situations. Their choice of standard versus local packaging under conspicuous and inconspicuous consumption situations for the same brand was recorded.

Overall, findings suggest that for hedonic products, localisation is not an effective strategy particularly for well-known Western brands such as M&M’s. For utilitarian products, packaging localisation does not render a Western brand more competitive as consumers did not like one packaging type over the other. Mode of consumption did not change the preference for standard packaging in case of hedonic products, whereas in case of utilitarian products, the mode of consumption did moderate the results for the choice of packaging; standard packaging is chosen more often under conspicuous a situation but not under an inconspicuous situation.

The findings of this research show that indiscriminately localising the packaging of any products as they enter foreign markets may not be the most effective strategy for international marketers.

This is first study to question the common market practice of packaging localisation and investigate the differential effects of standard versus local packaging of foreign products on consumers’ perceptions and choice under varying consumption modes.