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The purpose of this paper is to develop and empirically test a new conceptualization of international marketing agility (IMA). Importantly, the empirical test includes agility’s drivers, outcomes and boundary conditions for its impact on international market performance.

The authors draw on the resource-based view and dynamic capabilities theories to develop a model and test it quantitatively via structural equation modeling with survey data from 195 Israeli exporters. In addition, the authors seek insights into the findings through post hoc in-depth interviews.

The results indicate that IMA enhances international market performance directly as well as indirectly through exporter’s new products advantage. Interestingly, while promotion adaptation strengthens the positive effect of IMA on new products advantage, product adaptation does not.

Managers need to develop and improve marketing planning and flexibility maintenance capabilities. Furthermore, while maintaining an emphasis on marketing planning, they need to guard against inertia by embracing outside views, a wider range of solutions and a greater awareness of others’ decision-making styles to develop flexibility maintenance capability and achieve superior IMA.

A new conceptualization and operationalization of agility specific to an international marketing context is tested empirically. The complementary role of marketing planning capability and flexibility maintenance capability is demonstrated. Importantly, the vital role of new products advantage as a mediator between agility and performance is examined and the moderating role of international marketing strategy adaptation is investigated.

Drawing on the resource-based view, dynamic capabilities and exploration literatures, the purpose of this paper is to simultaneously investigate the impact of outside-in (OI) and inside-out (IO) strategic approaches on international strategic performance.

A survey-based quantitative study was used. The final sample consisted of 202 internationally active SBUs of Israeli firms. Data were analyzed using structural equation modelling.

OI approach to strategy enhances international performance more than IO does. OI is antecedent of exploratory marketing capabilities (MCs), while IO is antecedent of exploratory technological capabilities (TCs). The direct positive effect of exploratory MCs on performance is twice as strong as exploratory TCs are. Additionally, exploratory MCs positively impact performance through product adaptation.

To enhance international performance, managers should devote attention to an OI approach by incorporating a market orientation with responsive flexibility. Managers should be aware that exploratory MCs are more important in an international context than exploratory TCs are. Stakeholders such as venture capitalists can use the OI–IO model to predict which international venture is more promising.

This paper contributes to the international marketing field by shedding light on the OI–IO debate, its transformation into exploratory capabilities and how it relates to the standardization–adaptation debate. New and broad OI–IO’s conceptualizations are developed and new viewpoints for understanding how international marketing should work and what motivates firms to adapt are offered. Overall, an OI–IO typology helps to bring order to an otherwise confusing conceptual landscape.

Marketing doctrine (MD) refers to a “firm's unique principles, distilled from its experiences, which provide firm-wide guidance on market-facing choices” (Challagalla et al., 2014, p. 4). Drawing on the knowledge-based view, the purpose of this paper is to develop a model of how MD is used and provide the first quantitative test of its relationship with business success.

The authors advance the understanding of MD by providing a mixed-methods paper. In Study 1, a survey-based quantitative study was used. The final sample comprised 349 internationally active strategic business units (SBUs) of Israeli firms. Data were analysed using structural equation modelling. Study 2 provides insights into the use of MD based on 20 in-depth interviews.

The cross-sectional evidence shows that there tends to be more MD Use in higher-performing firms. The important roles of MD Clarity and MD Knowledgeability as mobilising processes of MD Use are demonstrated. Learning by doing impacts MD Use only through MD Clarity and MD Knowledgeability.

MD is a new strategic tool that can be applied practically. MD may provide a straightforward way of communication between international ventures. MD Use may allow global consistency and flexibility within local markets, simultaneously. Therefore, marketing managers are advised to supplement MD to their portfolio of management tools.

This paper is the first to investigate empirically, through newly developed scales, whether and how MD's core processes (learning by doing, MD Clarity, MD Knowledgeability and MD Use) are related to the success of international ventures.

While globalization has made it easier to consume foreign products, consumption decisions are rarely straightforward. Both love and hate relationships between consumers and countries exist and can even coexist. This paper aims to gain a better understanding of how positive/negative and general/specific consumer attitudes impact foreign product judgment and ownership. An integrative model explores the predictive power of affinity, animosity, cosmopolitanism and ethnocentrism simultaneously. Specifically, the authors investigate a paradoxical “tug of war” which takes place inside consumer minds – the coexistence of affinity and animosity toward the same country.

Using a quantitative approach, the authors analyze data from 202 consumers and test it in intra-national and international contexts.

The results demonstrate the importance of an integrative model that takes into account opposing impacts on consumer behavior. Additionally, the data reveal that affinity and animosity are not bi-polar endpoints on a continuum. Finally, affinity outweighs animosity with respect to impacting product judgment and ownership.

The study was conducted in Israel. Hence, replications in other multi-cultural countries are needed.

Marketers can use a segmentation matrix to target audiences based on the existing “attitudinal mix” in their focal markets. Marketers can use the affinity drivers identified here to overcome animosity.

The “tug of war” model advances the animosity model, as it implies that to use attitudinal data theoretically and practically, there is a need to account for a full spectrum of general and country-specific attitudes. Affinity was tested for the first time within national borders.