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The purpose of this paper is to enrich country of origin (COO) effect in international marketing theory by adding the understanding of temporal dynamism into COO research.

Utilizing a qualitative and interdisciplinary phenomenological approach, this paper analyses historical and contemporary sources triangulated with contemporary primary interview data. The example of how perceptions of Italians about the values typical of the British Sixties varied over time periods is presented.

COO perceptions are both malleable and in evolution. Results show that values from earlier peak periods of appeal can be combined and recombined differently over time due to the varying historical and contemporary resonances of COO values.

This study focuses on COO applied to two product areas, fashion and music, over a limited time period, in a two-country study and so the findings are not fully generalizable, but rather are transferable to similar contexts.

The fact that COO is neither static nor atemporal facilitates a segmented approach for international marketing managers to review and renew international brands. This enriched COO theory provides a rich and variable resource for developing and revitalizing brands.

The major contribution of this paper is that temporal dynamism, never before discussed in international marketing theory, renders COO theory more timeless; this addresses some critiques recently made about its relevance and practicality. The second contribution is the original research design that models interdisciplinary scholarship, enabling a thorough historical look at international marketing.

This paper sheds light on how trust works in professional services encounters. Service delivery often takes place over time and this has led to a focus upon relationships developed during the cycle of service creation. One facet of a relationship is the need for trust to be present. This paper briefly reviews different understandings of trust across several strands of management literature and conceptualizes a novel distinction between the initiatory act of trusting (“placed trust”) and the response of trusting. This conceptualization is then applied to theory on the service encounter, and empirically demonstrated in the context of health care. The answers enable services management from a range of professional services settings, to map out routes for maintaining trust, creating trust and developing commitment.

Relationship marketing is the paradigm which is currently seen to offer insight into the internationalising process. This paper takes these concepts and links them together with notions of culture and learning in novel ways. The knowledge impacts of national and corporate culture need to be understood in the international exchange processes at the heart of cross‐border/cultural marketing. Relationship creation can then be incorporated into organisational learning so that the organisation learns, understands and develops a memory. These processes are here combined into a conceptual learning‐based model of cross‐cultural marketing.

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise millennial cultural consumers (MCCs) to bring together strands of consumer theory with branding theory to consider how to attract and retain younger audiences in arts organisations. Within that the authors single out for attention how “brand community” theory might apply to MCCs.

This paper is a conceptual paper that reviews and comments on concepts relevant to helping arts organisations develop strategies to attract and retain younger consumers in their audiences.

Thoughtful conceptual insights and four research propositions for further work by academics and/or practitioners on Millennials and the art and culture world are derived from this review and commentary. Managerial implications are also drawn out.

This paper contributes to the knowledge development of such concepts as value and brand communities. It also provides an explanation of these concepts conncecting academic thought on value with pressing management challenges for arts organisations, suggesting ways to apply brand community thinking to innovatiely conceptualised MCCs.

Illustrates that a crucial dimension to any strategy to deliver customer‐orientation is that of the organisation’s cultural dynamics. If these are ignored, implementation may well fail. Within the marketing discipline this issue is, however, usually only touched upon. Reports on a grounded study of the implementation of a customer‐oriented policy at the customer interface. Nineteen pregnant women and 32 midwives were observed and questioned during a longitudinal study of perceptions of service quality in maternity care. A dynamic, explanatory model of organisational cultural issues is here used to analyse part of this empirical study. These findings indicate that organisational cultural issues form a barrier to creating a customer‐oriented capability within midwifery. For, whilst the customer or pregnant woman is looking for time spent on personal reassurance, by being informed and guided, midwives are finding meaning and value from myths symbolising a “golden past” in the face of an unwelcome present and uncertain future. Discussion and analysis combine to enable managers and academics to transfer the essence of these findings to their own areas of management practice and research. In conclusion, proposals are made both for management action and for future research.

Questions the processes and methodologies of marketing research. Challenges the “scientific” hypothetico‐deductive approach and asserts that interpretative and qualitative methods provide a more worthwhile framework for research. Explores frames of reference for assessing qualitative marketing scholarship and research. Discusses the implications of adapting frameworks from the world of art. Concludes by stressing that marketing research needs to be accepted at different levels of focus; hard work is required to create resonance; and persuasiveness and illumination should be of supreme importance in the research design and data analysis.

The purpose of this study is to clarify the theoretical problem and identify factors that could explain the level of continuance intentions towards e‐shopping. It aims to propose a revised technology acceptance model that integrates expectation confirmation theory to measure age differences with regard to continuance intentions towards e‐shopping in Saudi Arabia.

The sample (n=465) consists of 68.8 per cent women and 31.4 per cent men, 348 younger than 35 years old and 117 older than 35. A structural equation model confirms model fit. The model explains 65 per cent of the intention to continue shopping online.

Perceived usefulness, enjoyment, and subjective norms are determinants of online shopping continuance. The structural weights are mostly equivalent between the young and old groups, but the regression path from subjective norms to perceived usefulness is not invariant, with that relationship being stronger for the younger respondents.

The research findings imply that usefulness and subjective norm contribute to continuance intentions to some extent, but it is enjoyment that leads to a higher level of continuance intentions. Online strategies cannot ignore either the direct or the indirect effects on continuance intentions in Saudi Arabia.

The paper adds to the understudied area of online shopping continuance intentions in the Arab World in general, and Saudi Arabia in particular, by examining the effects of usefulness, enjoyment, and subjective norms on continuance intentions.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of brand contract in B2B from two perspectives: the theological and pragmatic.

A review of the branding literature challenges the dominant notion of the brand covenant as a firm driven, unilateral promise, referred to as a theological contract. The study adds to this the pragmatic perspective of a social contract, as deployed by the social sciences and IMP literatures. A tentative framework of a dialectical contract is developed through drawing on three cases of Chinese suppliers for the focal firm, IKEA.

First, both types of contract are identified in the firm’s practices. Second, the specific goals and roles of managers and suppliers in each contract are defined. The theological contract is used by managers to strengthen suppliers’ beliefs in the company’s vision and mission, while the pragmatic one is employed by both parties for the implementation of the brand’s norms and brand equity. Third, a new framework for and the definition of a dual, dialectical brand contract in B2B are developed.

Managers are advised to mediate between the theological pledge of their brand and its pragmatic implementation.

The paper challenges the dominant theological discourse in extant branding literature and puts forward a dialectical approach as a new proposition.