Search results

Given that institutional and cultural factors affect the transfer of HRM practices between multinational companies (MNCs) and their subsidiaries, the paper set out to investigate the explanatory mechanism for the replication of transferred HRM practices and the factors likely to influence the choice of transfer mechanisms.

Using an exploratory qualitative approach, 40 interviews were conducted with senior managers and employees in two MNC subsidiaries located in the alcoholic beverage and oil industries in Nigeria.

The findings suggest that organizational culture (OC) was the mechanism for MNC HRM replication and inhibition. In addition to explaining the mechanisms for HRM practice replication, the authors developed a conceptual framework to explain how clan and hierarchical OC influence the extent to which human resource (HR) practices are replicated or inhibited and how institutional and cultural factors influence the choice of OC.

The study uncovered that MNCs deploy hierarchical OC to oversee the replication of transferred practices. Interestingly, the authors found that institutional and cultural environments were key factors that influenced the choice of mechanism for overseeing the replication of HR practices. The conceptual framework can help managers of MNCs to understand how to replicate transferred HRM practices in developing countries.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, one dark social-media phenomenon in particular has experienced a significant rise: consumer-to-consumer (C2C) conflicts, i.e. consumers who verbally attack each other in response to COVID-19 service failures. The aim of this paper is to uncover the sources of such conflicts and to gain an insight into the corresponding conflict moderation strategies that international brands adopt.

The methodology consists of non-participatory netnographic observations of 13 national, international, and global online brand communities (OBCs) on Facebook. The authors use purposeful sampling to collect relevant data on conflict sources and brand moderation strategies during COVID-19 service failures and a hybrid approach to thematic analysis to derive distinct themes from these data.

The paper identifies five C2C conflict sources: brand attack, brand dissatisfaction, brand skepticism, brand contention and brand defense; these are then classified as having either an individualistic (self-oriented) or collectivistic (other-oriented) orientation. The authors also uncover several moderation strategies: non-engaging, automated, bolstering, asserting (direct, indirect) and informing (factual, empathetic, apologetic), which are broadly categorized into two levels based on their passive vs active approach and authoritative vs cooperative orientation. The paper further highlights that brands adapt their moderation strategies to specific sources of C2C conflicts, thereby producing a range of OBC outcomes.

The study's empirically informed framework comprising sources of undesirable conflicts and brand moderation strategies offers a practical tool that can aid marketing managers in nurturing civil C2C engagement and interactive behaviors in their OBCs. By adopting our framework, brand and marketing practitioners can tailor their communication strategies toward different sources of C2C conflict and minimize their adverse consequences, thus, fostering an overall constructive OBC engagement.

The authors offer a novel framework to international marketing research, consisting of C2C conflict sources and corresponding moderation strategies that take place in response to service failures during the COVID-19 pandemic. These insights, in turn, inform international marketers about new ways of transforming the dark side of OBCs into a source of competitive advantage based on real-world brand practice.